Women's Labor Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa and The Global South Compared, 1800–2000

Abstract

Women's Labor Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa and The Global South Compared, 1800–2000 Karin Hofmeester (bio), Karin Pallaver (bio), and Filipa Ribeiro da Silva (bio) ABSTRACT This article places the research findings on women's work and gendered labor relations presented and discussed in this special issue in a broader and comparative perspective. We start by contextualizing and explaining main shifts and continuities in labor relations in sub-Saharan Africa in the last two hundred years. We then compare differences between women's and men's labor experiences and labor relations. To conclude we offer a comparative analysis of the main shifts and continuities in women's labor relations across several countries in the Global South. For this we draw on the case-studies analyzed in this special issue as well as on studies carried out for other African, South Asian and Latin American countries. The aim of this exercise is to show the potential of the "Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations" methodology for both intra-African as well as trans-continental comparisons, in particular between countries and regions in the Global South. KEYWORDS gender, women, labor, colonialism, slavery [End Page 152] Introduction The case studies examined in the various articles included in this special issue have shown the potential of the "Taxonomy of Labour Relations" developed by the "Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations" (hereafter Global Collaboratory) at the International Institute of Social History for the study of gendered labor division and labor relations in sub-Saharan African countries. At the same time, they have illuminated the main continuities and shifts in the work performed by women in various African countries as well as the power and social relations they entailed. The final article of this special issue aims to show the potential of the methodology used by the Global Collaboratory both for comparisons between African countries, and for meaningful trans-continental comparisons, in particular between countries located in the Global South, where women's labor experiences and labor relations might have more in common with each other than with those of women in countries in the Global North. To this end, the article will be divided into three main sections. In the first one, we contextualize and explain the developments in labor relations in several sub-Saharan African countries, including those discussed in this special issue. The second section presents a comparative analysis of gendered labor relations in various sub-Saharan African countries. Next, and before our final remarks, we present and discuss a comparative assessment of the development of women's work and labor relations in various countries in the Global South. Labor Relations in Sub-Saharan African Countries (1800–2000) In the first article of this special issue Karin Hofmeester has discussed the persistence of reciprocal labor in sub-Saharan Africa comparatively to other parts of the world. This persistence is evident when we compare the development of labor relations in those sub-Saharan African countries that have so far been included in the analysis of the Global Collaboratory. In this section, we will discuss in a comparative perspective those case studies that, from the point of view of the collection of data, are in a more advanced stage of analysis: Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.1 [End Page 153] The evidence gathered for these case-studies shows that until at least 1900 reciprocal labor remained the dominant type of labor relation in these sub-Saharan African countries. There were however some exceptions. In Mozambique, for example, in 1800 some forty-five percent of the total population worked under reciprocal labor relations, which is lower than the 73 percent on average in the African countries we studied so far (see Figures 1 and 2). The comparison confirms the predominance of reciprocal labor both for the colonial and the post-independence period. During the latter, a sizable share of the population of the countries examined remained engaged in reciprocal labor, amounting to thirty percent or more. However, in some countries such as Tanzania reciprocal labor remained exceptionally high during colonial rule and the post-independence period (see Figures 3 and 4). This was mainly due to a combination of labor...