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In this episode, we speak to Prof Issa Shivji, a leading scholar in agrarian studies and pan-Africanism about his concept of “working people” which refers to a broad range of people living on the margins in both the countryside and the cities. He argues that the class categories of “working class” and “peasantry” no longer accurately describe concrete realities, following decades of neoliberalism, privatisation and deindustrialisation. As the latest crisis hits, working people across the continent continue to resist in various ways. They struggle against land and resource grabbing, against the devalorisation of their lives, against the reduction to sub-human existence. On the intellectual front, scholar-activists need to support these struggles through basic research and theorisation, and the momentum towards decolonisation need to be expanded to the decommodification of education.

Click below to listen.

This episode is presented by Prof Ruth Hall and PLAAS post-doctoral candidate Boaventura Monjane.

ruth hall boa monjane