Fung Public Seminar Series | The Boom of Urban Informal Labour in Postcolonial Africa: Insights from Kinshasa, DRC

2024-25 Fung Global Fellow, Kleoniki Alexopoulou, is an economic and social historian specializing in the history of the Global South. During her fellowship year at Princeton she will examine the colonial legacy and postcolonial labor transformations in Sub-Saharan Africa. This public seminar examines the transformation of post-independence African societies into petty markets, especially since the onset of neoliberal policies (1980s-1990s), focusing on the case of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. It begins by analyzing the colonial legacy that continues to shape labor dynamics, before exploring the rapid expansion of urban precarity and the rise of the informal labor or alternatively petty production, in the aftermath of the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by International Organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank. Drawing on empirical evidence from interviews with informal workers in various sectors, the study highlights the lived experiences of workers and the ways in which informal labor functions, on the one hand, as a space of exercised agency, and on the other hand, as a reproduction mechanism of the global economic order. However, the study also demonstrates how informal institutions of collective action, exemplified by the so-called Tontine system, have reshaped the market into a network of not just individuals, but also local communities and social groups forming solidarity bonds. Ultimately, it argues that informal labor represents a survival strategy, between agency and structure in the face of both historical and contemporary socio-economic pressures.. . . . Image credit: Another Call From Africa mixed media on canvas --- Event Details: https://my.princeton.edu/rsvp?id=1958438