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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Oscillating Migrants, 'Detribalised Families' and Militancy: Mozambicans on Witbank Collieries, 1918-1927
Author:Alexander, PeterISNI
Year:2001
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:27
Issue:3
Period:September
Pages:505-525
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
Mozambique
Subjects:miners
labour recruitment
labour migration
strikes
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Urbanization and Migration
History and Exploration
Ethnic and Race Relations
Labor and Employment
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/823313
Abstract:There is a dominant model of African labour recruitment for work in the mining industry which is central to the paradigms by which South African history is now generally understood. It is the model of cheap, oscillating migrant labour, typically engaged on the Witwatersrand gold mines. However, there is also a second model, one of African migrants who had settled on the mines and collieries, sometimes referred to as stabilized labour. Drawing on evidence from Witbank, the country's premier coal district, the author first shows that, on the Witbank collieries, both models were in operation. Second, he relates modes of recruitment to labour militancy. Here, a contrast is apparent: those Witbank collieries that experienced strikes in the period 1918-1926 were the ones with the lowest proportion of settled workers, and none of the collieries with high rates of settlement experienced a strike. Conclusions are drawn that have implications both for the political economy of recruitment and for an appreciation of migrant consciousness. Notes, ref., sum.
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