Making a Life: Young Men on Johannesburgs Urban Margins [Hardcover]

Making a Lifeexplores the dynamic everyday life-making strategies of young men in Zandspruit, a sprawling informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg. In many ways Zandspruit typifies the precariousness of life within South Africa, where two-thirds of young people lack waged employment. However, rather than seeing Zandspruit as dumping ground, Hannah Dawson calls for an integrated understanding of the complex linkages between peoples lives and livelihoods, and the multifaceted socio-political landscape of urban settlements.

Based on 14 months of ethnographic research, Dawson investigates how social belonging, identity and economic realities intertwine in places such as Zandspruit. This approach not only challenges conventional approaches to studying work; it also questions the increasingly prevalent perspective that romanticises the adaptive survival strategies of the urban poor. By exploring the intricate connections between those with and without wages, the author shows how young men manage complex social, political and economic conditions.

Making a Lifeoffers insights into issues such as urban work, citizenship, un(der)employment and inequality in South Africa. At the same time, it contributes to a global understanding of how young people  men especially  manage economic uncertainty.

Hannah J Dawson is a senior lecturer in the Anthropology and Development Studies department at the University of Johannesburg and a visiting researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Among the young men Dawson meets, many consider employment in the formal sector a defeat best avoided. She thus writes of the productivity of unemployment because remaining outside of the formal economy involves ceaselessly inventive, creative work. Dawsons deep dive into moral lives on the urban margins is accomplished and rewarding and very often tugs against our intuitions.