Political Economy of the Southern African Periphery: Cottage Industries, Factories, and Female Wage Labour in Swaziland Compared

The Political Economy of the Southern African Periphery places Swazi women in the context of the world system at the global, regional and local levels. From a socio-historical perspective, the book analyzes industrialization from Europe to South Africa to Swaziland. In southern Africa, there was a heavy emphasis on mining requiring the migration of male labour from areas of the southern African periphery to the Witwatersrand area of South Africa. In contemporary South Africa, industrialization has resulted in capital mobility for textile and clothing industries within the confines of the region. Industries relocate to the southern African periphery with high concentrations of female labour necessitating that women migrate from remote rural areas and create new family arrangements because male and female migratory patterns do not coincide. Unlike other areas of the southern African periphery, Swaziland has had both domestic and foreign migratory labour systems. The former includes both males and females and the latter is almost exclusively male. The book explores female wage labour in relation to options for employment and the maintenance of viable nuclear and extended family networks.


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