Protecting and Promoting Livelihoods of the Excluded Through the Community Work Programme: a Comparative Case Study of Munsieville and Bekkersdal
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Protecting and promoting livelihoods of the excluded through the Community Work Programme: a comparative case study of Munsieville and Bekkersdal Themba Masondo Supervisor Professor Edward Webster A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2018 DECLARATION I, Themba Johnson Masondo, declare that this dissertation is my own work. It is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology) at the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any degree or for examination in this or any other university. ___________________________ Themba Masondo 30th day of May 2018 i DEDICATION In memory of my mother, Mhani Topisa Evelyn Maluleke. U mutswari wa yi xiviri, manana! ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Embarking on this PhD was not an easy journey. I am deeply indebted to the unwavering and generous support I received from many individuals and institutions throughout this challenging journey. Without your support, this dissertation would not have existed! I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Emeritus Edward Webster for the insightful intellectual guidance and support, encouragement and patience throughout this challenging journey. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Webster’s excellent supervision skills and the unflagging interest in my work. I also wish to thank Dr Khayaat Fakier who co-supervised this study in its early stages. Many thanks to Dr Fakier for helping me clarify my early thoughts, and her keen interest and comments on my work. In Munsieville and Bekkersdal I would like to thank the CWP site managers, Ms Pinkie Mogole and Ms Tebogo Noge, respectively, for their extraordinary support towards my study without any reservations. I am particularly grateful to the CWP coordinators and participants in Munsieville and Bekkersdal for setting aside time for the interviews and for their warm welcome in their private spaces outside the CWP work environment. I also wish to thank the CWP implementing agents in both communities: Teba Development in Bekkersdal, and Seriti Institute, and later Dlhadhla Foundation in Munsieville. Special thanks to Ntongolozi Bembe of the Seriti Institute for always being available to assist with information. In Bekkersdal, I would like to thank the Sello family for treating me like one of their sons during my three-month stay in a backyard shack in their home. I am grateful to Ausie Nelly, Ausie Seloane, Baba, Neo and Obakeng all from the Sello family. I am equally grateful to the Motaung family in Munsieville for allowing me to rent one of their backyard rooms during my fieldwork stay in the township. Gogo Motaung, who passed on in 2015, was an amazing gogo from whom I learned a lot about the political history of Munsieville during our long afternoon conversations in the dining room of the main house. Special thanks to Ausie Tumi, in Munsieville, and Ausie Nelly and Ausie Seloane, in Bekkersdal, for their regular, caring knocks on my door to ‘check if you are still fine’. I am also grateful to two residents in Munsieville, Mathapelo Mmolaeng and Justice Mokotedi, my reliable comrades I initially met during our days as student activists, who were always willing and available to provide me with the necessary logistical support and information during my stay there. For their valuable comments on the different sections and arguments of this dissertation in its different stages I wish to extend my sincerest thanks to the following scholars,: Prof. Michelle Williams; Prof. Sarah Mosoetsa; Prof. Karl von Holdt; Prof. Jacklyn Cock; Prof. Bridget Kenny; Prof. Vishwas Satgar; Prof. Lucien van der Walt; Dr. Kate Philip, Dr. Gavin Andersson; Prof. Devan Pillay; the late Prof. Sharit Bhomirk; Prof. Ashwani Kumar, Prof. Christoph Scherrer; Prof. Mouleshri Vyas; Prof. Eric Olin Wright, Prof. Michael Burawoy, Mazibuko Jara and Prof. Peter Alexandra. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Michelle Williams for the kind words of encouragement and support. iii I thank the International Centre for Development and Decent Work (ICDD) for awarding me a scholarship to pursue this study. I am also thankful for the financial support from the Society Work, and Development Institute (SWOP); Wits Postgraduate Merit Award; National Research Foundation; Bokamoso Barona Trust; Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation; and the Wits Graduate Center. Special thanks to Mondli Hadebe, Abnavien King and Shameen Govender at SWOP; and Birgit Felmeden and Christian Mollmann at the ICDD in Kassel, for the support. I am grateful to the SWOP and ICDD for creating spaces for engagement with our work. Special thanks to Pulane Dithlake, Sarah Mosoetsa and Michelle Williams of the Wits ICDD local office for organising sessions for robust scholarly engagement with our work. I remain grateful for the constructive comments I received during these seminars. I am thankful for the support from my family. Deepest gratitude to my brother David Masondo for the sacrifices he made for me from an early age of my life. Special thanks too to my sister Julia Masondo who also contributed to my upbringing and my sister in law, Trudy Moshodi for the unselfish support. Thanks to my sister Nyeleti and brother Tinyiko for their encouragement. Thanks too to papatsongo Gideon Masondo for always ‘being there’. Thanks to my nephews, Ntsako Mabolani and Tirhani Masondo, for the encouragement. Sincerest thanks to my partner Phindile Kunene for the encouragement and support; and the unfailing razor-sharp intellectual engagement with my work, and with me. For their support and friendship, I extend my gratitude to my friends. Thanks to Floyd Mkhabela, Gloria Phasha and Asanda Benya for their unwavering support and for being true and dependable friends. I would also like to express gratitude for the support and encouragement from my late comrade and friend Lincoln Morgan. I also wish to thank my close comrades cum friends: Ndumiso Mokako, Nombulelo Nyathela, Tebogo Sebolai, Nhlamulo Siwela and Billy Sepuru. Ndumiso Mokako deserves special mention for the regular visits and early morning calls to ‘check-on’ and encourage ‘comrade SG’ to ‘soldier on’. I am indebted to the countless student activists I met in the South African Students Congress (SASCO) in the struggles to transform South Africa’s post-schooling landscape. I am particularly humbled by the many former and current SASCO activists who even after my ‘graduation’ from ‘student politics’ kept regular contact with me to convey their good wishes. Any attempt to mention these comrades individually is bound to suffer massive exclusion errors. Thank you very much to you all, my comrades! I’m grateful too to Dr. Bandile Masuku, Lebogang Maile, Mothupi Modiba, Ronald Lamola, Jumarah Musetha, Mboniseni Dladla, Crispen Chinguno, Tatenda Mukwedeya, Katherine Joynt, Ashley Mabasa, Tsakane Mahlaule, Musa Malabela, Janet Munakamwe and Mathabo Molobi for the encouragement. My debt to you all is incalculable. Thank you for standing by me and for believing in me even at the most difficult moments when I doubted my capability to complete this project. iv ABSTRACT The idea of the government acting as an Employer of Last Resort (ELR), commonly known as ‘public works’, has become a prominent feature of the ‘impulse for social protection’ in the global South. The dissertation focuses on a long-term ELR programme in South Africa called the Community Work Programme (CWP) – a distinctively and innovatively designed component of the orthodox Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). Based on field research involving the triangulation of a survey questionnaire, in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic non-participant observation – this study adopts the comparative case study approach, imbued in the extended case method, to investigate the CWP’s potentialities in protecting and promoting livelihoods of the excluded in Munsieville and Bekkersdal—located in the West Rand region of the Gauteng Province, South Africa The central question posed in this dissertation is whether the CWP has other transformative potentialities beyond its ameliorative role. The dissertation advances three connected arguments. First, the dissertation argues that in addition to protecting livelihoods, the CWP possesses transformative potential in fostering development from below. The CWP participants in Munsieville tended to possess greater autonomous capabilities in adapting the CWP to respond to a myriad of local social challenges. Secondly, the dissertation argues that the mainstream theoretical approaches to livelihood promotion through the ELR tend to ignore cooperative development as a potential vector for promoting livelihoods of the excluded. In this respect, the dissertation presents the case of three nascent CWP-linked cooperatives in Munsieville to illustrate this argument. Lastly, the dissertation argues that the operationalisation of the Organisation Workshop (OW) methodology in Munsieville helps clarify the significant variance in the outcomes of the CWP in the two townships. Key words: community work programme, employer of last resort, organisation workshop, protecting livelihoods and promoting livelihoods. v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.................................................................................................................................... i DEDICATION......................................................................................................................................