On Durban's Docks - (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora) by Ralph Callebert (Hardcover)

About the Book

Offers a new approach to the study of labor on the subcontinent and globally, questioning the relevance of the predominant wage labor paradigm for Africa and the Global South.

Book Synopsis

On Durban's Docks focuses on dock labor in early apartheid Durban, South Africa's main port city and a crucial node in the trade and communication networks of the Indian Ocean and the British Empire. Although the labor of Zulu migrant dock workers made global trade possible, they lived their lives largely in isolation, both socially and economically, from these global networks. Using seventy-seven oral histories and extensive archival research, Ralph Callebert examines the working and living conditions of Durban's dock workers and the livelihoods of their rural households. These households relied on a combination of wage labor, pilferage, informal trade, and the rural economy. Dock workers' experiences were thus more intricate than a focus on wage labor alone could capture. Foregrounding such multifaceted livelihoods, Callebert considers the dynamics of gender within dock workers' households as well as their complicated political identities, including their economic nationalism and fervent anti-Indian sentiments. On Durban's Docks thus offers a new approach to the study of labor on the subcontinent and globally, questioning the relevance of the predominant wage labor paradigm for Africa and for the Global South. Ralph Callebert teaches history at the University of Toronto.

Review Quotes

On Durban's Docks is not a long book but it is an admirably ambitious one and it marks a welcome return to labour history in South Africa but on new and challenging terms.-- "LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL"

R. Callebert has explored in an innovative way the social and cultural prehistory of this great moment, and may he be congratulated for it.

R. Callebert a exploré de manière innovante la préhistoire sociale et culturelle de ce grand moment, qu'il en soit félicité.-- "CAHIERS D'ÉTUDES AFRICAINES"

A rich ethnography (chapters 2-5) surveys working and living conditions, enabling valuable insights into complicated lives, which if partly known from articles and published theses, are not brought together in this original book.Callebert not only forces scholars (and union activists) to rethink the relevance of the wage labour paradigm, but draws important connections.Labour historians will find much here of interest and value.-- "LABOUR HISTORY"

Callebert has . . . produced a book that not only illuminates the particularities of Durban's dockworkers, but provides a useful example of examining work in relation to the geographical and social complexity of the region in which the workers lived.-- "ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW"

Callebert invites the reader to rethink established categories by opening up more nuanced perspectives on identity and labor, making the book a worthwhile and inspiring read.-- "H-SOZ-KULT"

Callebert's book is a strong contribution to South African labour historiography and will be indispensable to historians of KwaZulu-Natal. It is clear, readable, detailed and rigorously researched.-- "JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN STUDIES"

Docks are entranceways to the world and Callebert has challenged readers to look at labor from a global perspective, and not define it within our Eurocentric definitions of the 'typical' proletarian worker.-- "CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES / REVUE CANADIENNE DES ÉTUDES AFRICAINES"

Ralph Callebert has written a concise, thoughtful, and well-argued monograph that demands the attention of all historians of Africa. Those interested in South Africa, Africa, rural-urban migration, precariousness, gender, Zulu culture, social history, and global labor history all would do well to read this fascinating book.-- "JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY"

The greatest strength of this book lies in the oral testimonies of seventy-seven dock workers and extensive archival research drawn from the author's own fieldwork, which presents the vivid life experiences of migrant dock labors and their families. Therefore, Callebert's book is an important contribution to the study of the relationship between labor market, wages, and migration. Labor historians and policymakers alike, as well as students of South African history, should pay attention to this book.-- "AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW"

This important contribution to African labour history looks at the 'livelihood strategies' pursued by dockworkers in South Africa's major port city, Durban, during the 1950s. Callebert's ambition to 'write back' against some of the Eurocentric assumptions of global labour history and to challenge 'a universal, formalist market logic' has wide implications.-- "SOCIAL HISTORY"

This is a fine monograph that tells a great deal about the twentieth-century experience of South African black men. [Callebert] has excellent command of official records and the secondary literature on the history of African labor in South Africa, especially in KwaZulu-Natal Province.-- "LABOR"