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Full Product Details

Author:   Matteo Rizzo (Senior Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Department of Development Studies and Economics, SOAS, University of London)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.40cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 23.30cm
Weight:   0.360kg
ISBN:  

9780198839057

ISBN 10:   0198839057
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   24 January 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

1: Taken for a Ride: Rethinking Neoliberalism, Precarious Labour and Public Transport from an African Metropolis 2: Public Transport in Dar es Salaam: From State Monopoly to Neoliberalism, 1970-2015 3: 'Life Is War': Capital and Informal Labour in Bus Public Transport 4: The Politics of Labour 1: The Quiescent Period (up to 1997) 5: The Politics of Labour 2: Struggling for Rights at Work 6: Tracing Occupational Mobility/Immobility among Informal Transport Workers 7: The New Face of Neoliberalism: The Bus Rapid Transport Project in Tanzania (2002-2016) 8: Conclusion: Taken for a Ride

Reviews

This is an extraordinarily accomplished work of scholarship bringing together painstaking fieldwork and a contextual understanding of workers' struggles in the Tanzanian public transport industry. It does so by admirably locating the case study in broader debates around neoliberalism and the urban experience in the South, economic informality, and the continuing relevance and potential of labour movements for winning progressive outcomes for workers themselves and for economic and social development more broadly. * Ben Fine, SOAS, University of London, UK * This book has a unique focus on labour experiences and relations in urban transport in Tanzania. Rizzo makes visible and gives a voice to the tens of thousands of informal workers who keep a city moving every day. Workers' stories bring to life the hardships, but also the incredible resilience and determination to secure a better livelihood through union organization and struggle. Rizzo provides a deep and detailed account of the impacts of neoliberal transport policy, including BRT, on labour. For trade unionists, this book provides the deep analysis and ideas needed to strengthen strategic organization, campaigning, and policy development. * Alana Dave, International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), Head of Our Public Transport Programme * In this theoretically clear and absorbing monograph, Matteo Rizzo makes sense of the often hidden, neglected but still critical relationship of transport workers to employers on the buses of the burgeoning city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over forty years. Rizzo's skilful fieldwork and his very intelligentand hard-hitting - critique of market fundamentalist and postcolonial approaches to the African city and to the informal economy are a breath of fresh air. This book will be important to scholars and students in urban studies, political economy, development, and African studies. * Bill Freund, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa * Taken for a Ride is an exciting and innovative contribution to the emerging field of African labour studies. Through substantial field work and a sophisticated critique of market fundamentalism and post colonial theory, Matteo Rizzo brings vividly to life the struggles of public transport workers in the sprawling African coastal city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Carefully avoiding both a romantic optimism and a bland structural pessimism, the author shows how a shared notion of exploitation was constructed amongst the divided transport workers and a new trade union controlled by informal workers was born. * Edward Webster, Professor Emeritus, University of Witwatersrand * To appreciate Rizzo's Taken for a Ride one must first understand what he has done methodologically. Rizzo embeds public transport in urban Tanzania in a series of relationships with other elements of Tanzanian politics, economics and society. We find that public transport has to be understood in its connection with Tanzania's socialist policies of the 1960s, but also to the IMFs structural adjustment policies of the 1980s. We get the views of politicians as well as of drivers and the passengers. Each element is animated and rendered a part of a larger whole so that by the end of it all we get the picture of a living history of urban Tanzania, with its highs, lows, and many contradictions. The research is astonishing in its range, the writing vivid and clear, and the end result is an insightful and superb contribution to African and Global South urban studies. * Ato Quayson, New York University * ...the book is definitely a stimulating account of informal public transport provisions in a Southern city, helping its readers to unpack conventional understandings of both public transport and informality. * Gaurav Mittal, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography * One of the more impressive aspects of this book is that it manages to situate the opening up of transport in Dar es Salaam in two ways: 1) as part of the broader global ascent of neoliberalism, and 2) as part of the more specific political economy of Tanzania. * Martin Walsh, Tanzanian Affairs *

This is an extraordinarily accomplished work of scholarship bringing together painstaking fieldwork and a contextual understanding of workers' struggles in the Tanzanian public transport industry. It does so by admirably locating the case study in broader debates around neoliberalism and the urban experience in the South, economic informality, and the continuing relevance and potential of labour movements for winning progressive outcomes for workers themselves and for economic and social development more broadly. * Ben Fine, SOAS, University of London, UK * This book has a unique focus on labour experiences and relations in urban transport in Tanzania. Rizzo makes visible and gives a voice to the tens of thousands of informal workers who keep a city moving every day. Workers' stories bring to life the hardships, but also the incredible resilience and determination to secure a better livelihood through union organization and struggle. Rizzo provides a deep and detailed account of the impacts of neoliberal transport policy, including BRT, on labour. For trade unionists, this book provides the deep analysis and ideas needed to strengthen strategic organization, campaigning, and policy development. * Alana Dave, International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), Head of Our Public Transport Programme * In this theoretically clear and absorbing monograph, Matteo Rizzo makes sense of the often hidden, neglected but still critical relationship of transport workers to employers on the buses of the burgeoning city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over forty years. Rizzo's skilful fieldwork and his very intelligentand hard-hitting - critique of market fundamentalist and postcolonial approaches to the African city and to the informal economy are a breath of fresh air. This book will be important to scholars and students in urban studies, political economy, development, and African studies. * Bill Freund, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa * Taken for a Ride is an exciting and innovative contribution to the emerging field of African labour studies. Through substantial field work and a sophisticated critique of market fundamentalism and post colonial theory, Matteo Rizzo brings vividly to life the struggles of public transport workers in the sprawling African coastal city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Carefully avoiding both a romantic optimism and a bland structural pessimism, the author shows how a shared notion of exploitation was constructed amongst the divided transport workers and a new trade union controlled by informal workers was born. * Edward Webster, Professor Emeritus, University of Witwatersrand * To appreciate Rizzo's Taken for a Ride one must first understand what he has done methodologically. Rizzo embeds public transport in urban Tanzania in a series of relationships with other elements of Tanzanian politics, economics and society. We find that public transport has to be understood in its connection with Tanzania's socialist policies of the 1960s, but also to the IMFs structural adjustment policies of the 1980s. We get the views of politicians as well as of drivers and the passengers. Each element is animated and rendered a part of a larger whole so that by the end of it all we get the picture of a living history of urban Tanzania, with its highs, lows, and many contradictions. The research is astonishing in its range, the writing vivid and clear, and the end result is an insightful and superb contribution to African and Global South urban studies. * Ato Quayson, New York University *

This is an extraordinarily accomplished work of scholarship bringing together painstaking fieldwork and a contextual understanding of workers' struggles in the Tanzanian public transport industry. It does so by admirably locating the case study in broader debates around neoliberalism and the urban experience in the South, economic informality, and the continuing relevance and potential of labour movements for winning progressive outcomes for workers themselves and for economic and social development more broadly. * Ben Fine, SOAS, University of London, UK * This book has a unique focus on labour experiences and relations in urban transport in Tanzania. Rizzo makes visible and gives a voice to the tens of thousands of informal workers who keep a city moving every day. Workers' stories bring to life the hardships, but also the incredible resilience and determination to secure a better livelihood through union organization and struggle. Rizzo provides a deep and detailed account of the impacts of neoliberal transport policy, including BRT, on labour. For trade unionists, this book provides the deep analysis and ideas needed to strengthen strategic organization, campaigning, and policy development. * Alana Dave, International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), Head of Our Public Transport Programme * In this theoretically clear and absorbing monograph, Matteo Rizzo makes sense of the often hidden, neglected but still critical relationship of transport workers to employers on the buses of the burgeoning city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over forty years. Rizzo's skilful fieldwork and his very intelligentand hard-hitting - critique of market fundamentalist and postcolonial approaches to the African city and to the informal economy are a breath of fresh air. This book will be important to scholars and students in urban studies, political economy, development, and African studies. * Bill Freund, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa *

Author Information

Matteo Rizzo is a political economist who lives and works in London, where he is a senior lecturer across the Departments of Economics and Development Studies at SOAS, University of London, UK. He previously worked at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford and at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cambridge. His work has been published by leading African studies and development studies journals, including the Journal of Development Studies, Development and Change, the Journal of Agrarian Change, African Affairs, the Journal of Modern African Studies and the Review of African Political Economy, of which he is also a member of the Editorial Working Group.

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