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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Petroleum and Proletarianization: The Life History of a Muslim Nigerian Worker
Author:Lubeck, Paul M.ISNI
Year:1989
Periodical:African Economic History
Volume:18
Pages:99-112
Language:English
Geographic terms:Nigeria
Northern Nigeria
Subjects:working class
industrial workers
biographies (form)
Labor and Employment
Economics and Trade
Religion and Witchcraft
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601754
Abstract:This text describes the life experiences and subjective interpretations of Ahmadu - a peasant-origin, Muslim, Hausa-speaking industrial worker living in Kano, Nigeria. He is accompanied while he inadvertently joins others in what theorists call the transition to semi-industrial capitalism. As his life is chronicled over a decade and a half, the social forces of industrial capitalist accumulation initially suck him into the expansion generated by the civil war; then they thrust him into the dizzy heights of the petroleum boom; and finally, they hurl him precipitously into the chasm that ushered in the depression of structural adjustment. What is the experience of first-generation proletarianization, if it is not coming to terms with the urban labour market, coping with the insecurity of industrial employment, and learning to wield the weapons of industrial conflict? The text is reconstructed by the author from in-depth interviews with Ahmadu beginning in December 1970 and ending in July 1985. Each phase of his biography is placed in historical context. Bibliogr., note.
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