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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Change and Consciousness in Urban Africa: African Workers in Transition |
Author: | Gutkind, Peter C.W. |
Year: | 1981 |
Periodical: | Cahiers d'études africaines |
Volume: | 21 |
Issue: | 81-83 |
Pages: | 289-346 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Africa |
Subjects: | political consciousness working class Labor and Employment Urbanization and Migration Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Politics and Government Development and Technology |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1981.2317 |
Abstract: | Making reference to the extensive literature on the subject, the author discusses the emergence of class consciousness and political consciousness among the marginal African proletariat. In Africa modes of production are changing. The same applies to political and economic relationships. But the pliticization of the proletariat has yet to be achieved. It is the author's view that changes in political consciousness, slow perhaps but significant nevertheless, are contributing to rapid politicization which in turn will transform the African labour force into a true proletariat. Political consciousness will not spring from a simple, and mechanical one-to-one realtionship between economic (wage) aspirations and affluence. The trend which is developing is likely to have its own momentum rooted more in the contradictions (both political and economic) of the world capitalist system than exclusively in the actions of individuals or groups. When the answer to the question 'who are class enemies and who are class friends' is clear to peasants and urban workers, then they will be in a position to seize the state apparatus and effect the transformation towards a rurle of law based on a more equitable distribution of wealth. Bibliogr., notes. |