Browsing by Author "Benya, Asanda"

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    “Je Cherche La Vie!”: Women's Labour Politics in Masisi's Artisanal Coltan Mines
    (2021) Furniss, Allison; Benya, Asanda; Scanlon, Helen
    In considering how women navigate the complexity and gendered aspects of the artisanal mining industry, this study seeks to unpack women's labour at step one of the global supply chain of coltan, in the post-conflict context of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Female miners are largely excluded from mine work by blurry regulatory frameworks, gendered social norms and financial disparities, however they manage to remain active labourers in the artisanal mining industry. Within a broader socio-political context of poverty, political instability and rural livelihoods, women maintain access to mine work through strategies, often premised on a gendered solidarity, such as organizing into collectives, engaging in small group collaborations and employing creative ruses to maintain the secrecy of their labour. This thesis seeks to analyze women's exclusions from mine work and the subsequent strategies they employ to circumvent those exclusions and maintain work in the mines. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork at artisanal coltan mine sites in Masisi Territory in the province of North Kivu, this study employs ethnographic observations, focus group and interview methodologies.
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    Reconstituting empire in the decolonisation era: taxation sovereignty and the development of the British virgin islands as a dependent tax haven
    (2022) Rakei, Simon; Benya, Asanda
    Tax havens are denounced for eroding the sovereignty of states to tax in their jurisdictions. Using a critical interrogative lens of Empire and Imperialism, the aim of this investigation was to understand what the developmental history of the British Virgin Islands reveals about the function of tax havens in global political economy through traditions of state and taxation sovereignty. Drawing chiefly on a combination of tax, sociology and law scholarship anchored in international political economy, along with reviewing the minutes of the British Virgin Islands Legislative Council from 1950-1992, the study adopted a sociolegal perspective in exploring the relationship between tax havens, tax sovereignty and the aspirations of an equitable global tax regime. Beyond sovereign entitlement in allocating jurisdictional rights of states to tax income or capital, or a more expanded conception of tax equity through revenue sharing, the intervention of this thesis established the need to highlight the underpinnings of the international tax system by understanding the structures which maintain tax haven dependency and their development in the first instance. The basic thesis of this study is that dependency continues to the present as a function of unequal integration helping to order and maintain a hierarchical global political economy. This thesis was built on an account of post-colonial dependency through a structural lens of a reconstituting empire and neo-colonial imperialism in the development of the British Virgin Islands in two key phases. First, the political developments of the 1950 independence decade in the legislative council's relationship with sovereignty in a federated imperial structure, which then conditioned the socioeconomic development from 1960 up to 1984. Highlighting the economic apparatus of the colonial state which structurally depended on international investment through political links maintained to Britain, the second phase is demonstrated as neo-colonial imperialism and external reliance evinced through the function of the Executive Council. The thesis traced a consistent line of legislative amendments from the dawn of legislative independence providing tax incentives packages and exemptions aimed at attracting foreign capital through extensive tax holidays. This phase of neo-colonial imperialism reached its apogee in the International Business Companies Act of 1984. The parallels in the financial architecture imposed by the Foreign Commonwealth Office at the twilight of the 20th Century has striking similarities to the more recent initiatives targeted at tax havens, illustrating how the interests of metropolitan powers are maintained. Therefore, I argue and demonstrate that, the development of the British Virgin Islands as a tax haven and its integration in international political economy reveals a tradition of sovereignty in the post-colonial context which shapes neo-colonial imperialism wherein effective sovereignty remains located in the global north.
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    Returning to the rand revolt: centering settler colonialism and racial capitalism in labour history
    (2022) Coleman, Daniel; Benya, Asanda
    This study focuses on the Rand Revolt, a white mineworkers strike that occurred in 1922, as a lens into the white working class in the early 20th Century, Witwatersrand, South Africa. This strike is significant because the events surrounding its conclusion led to the co-optation of the white working class which in turn contributed to the consolidation of white minority settler rule and the racial organisation of capitalism in the following years. Prevailing historical materialist approaches give primacy to class in explaining these events at the expense of thorough engagements with settler colonialism and racialism. As such, my research question is the following: How can placing settler colonialism and racial capitalism at the centre of analysis reframe the prevailing understanding of the Rand Revolt? Three sub-questions flow from this main question. First, I ask: How did settler colonialism shape the state's response to the 1922 strike? Second, how did racialism structure the consciousness of the white working class during the Rand Revolt? Third, how did racialism shape the character and orientation of class conflict as it unfolded in the Rand Revolt? To answer these questions, I gathered data from the state-mandated commission of inquiry following the strike and analysed the commissioners' final report alongside the oral testimonies given by witnesses. The main argument is that the foundational antagonism between the ‘Native Other' and a ‘white South Africa' produced by settler colonialism shaped the internal dynamics of the strike. On one hand, state actors' responses to white working-class resistance ushered in broader concerns with maintaining the security of white domination over ‘natives'. On the other hand, racialism, embedded in the class consciousness of strikers, saw white working-class militancy and selforganisation subsumed into the reification of the dominant order at the height of class struggle. I demonstrate this argument using evidence of the discourse and practices among both state actors and strikers. These revealed shared racial anxieties between the state and strikers surrounding ‘Natives' which were resolved through violence and enclosure aimed at Black subjects in urban areas. Considering the intertwined relationship between race and class reveals that both the affective and material dimensions of white supremacy shaped the character and orientation of class struggle between white labour and capital in the early 20th Century, South Africa.
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    The 10th anniversary of the uprising: Post the De Doorns strikes how has organising changed for farmworkers in the Western Cape
    (2023) April, Laverne; Benya, Asanda
    During apartheid farmworkers in South Africa were barred from organising. After the political transition in 1993 labour legislations were extended to farmworkers which included: the Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1998, the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, which extended the right to organise and strike to farm workers; the Extension of Security of Tenure Act 62 of 1997, 2003 a Sectoral Wage Determination that provided a minimum wage level for all agricultural workers. Even though farmworkers were given rights and were protected by the legislation, their working and living situations remained largely unchanged. Thus because of the unchanged working and living condition of farmworkers regardless of the legislation in place, they sparked the uprising in 2012. In De Doorns in 2012-2013 farmworkers organised themselves for the first time in South African history. The farmworkers demanded an increase to their daily wage of R69 to R150, an end to labour brokers and an end to farm evictions, to mention a few. Ten years after the De Doorns uprising, organising farmworkers continues to be a challenge for trade unions. The purpose of this study seeks to ascertain if there has been a change in how trades unions organise seasonal and permanent farm workers. To answer this question, I used purposive sampling and conducted 14 interviews. According to the study's findings, despite inroads made during the 2012-2013 uprising at organising there have been continuities in the way workers organised previously. This is due to internal divisions within the workforce, divisions along ethnicity, nationality, employment status and residence. Trade unions have not been successful in tackling the challenges of organising permanent and seasonal farmworkers and are actively working towards finding alternative ways to organise farmworkers. While there is resistance, it seems on the main workers are still intimidated by paternalistic farmers who hinder attempts to organise farmworkers. The study emphasizes that there are differences in working experiences and organising between local residents and cross-border migrant workers and between seasonal and permanent workers. The study concludes that organising for farmworkers has not change for the betterment because they are divided. However, once all farmworkers; locals and cross-border migrant workers look past their disparate nationalities and forge a shared identity, they will be powerful and capable of organising collectively. Thus, while the farmworkers are still divided, they give the farmers the power to oppress, exploit, marginalised and divide them because the local workers regard the cross-borders migrant workers as their enemies instead of the farmers. I therefore argue that when the workers are united, and see their shared identity, and see what they have in common rather where they differ, they will be better able to organise. Thus, permanent, and seasonal workers can work with their differences and used it productively to create common ground for collective organising and worker power.