Women in African Labour History

Women in African Labour CAROLYNE History DENNIS University of Bradford, Bradford, U. K. ABSTRACT This article begins with a discussion of the issues which have dominated different perspectives within African labour history: the existence of a 'target' labour force; the issue of the 'commitment' of the industrial labour force; and, from a different theoretical position, the particular significance of the southern African contract labour force and the 'labour aristocracy' debate. The concentration upon these issues is placed against the colonial and post-colonial trends in African economies and the ideological assumptions of the existing approaches to African labour history. Labour history in Africa has focused on men's labour because it has concentrated upon wage labour, a labour market in which only a small proportion of African women participate. The article discusses the existing literature on the development of women's wage labour in Africa and the issues it raises in terms of the 'double' day and the emergence of a segregated labour market. It goes on to suggest that if we wish to develop an adequate labour history which incorporates a labour history of women, it is necessary to look outside the boundaries of 'formal' labour history. Firstly, it is necessary to focus on studies of women's household labour in the peasant economies of West Africa and on the migrant labour, 'native reserve' economies of southern Africa. Secondly, it is necessary to examine the literature on the development of petty commodity production in African societies in order to determine the place of women within the 'informal' sector. This places in context the relatively sparse literature on the manner in which women have been incorporated into the wage labour force and suggests the appropriate direction for African labour history. Introduction HISTORY in Africa has cenTHE DEVELOPMENT OF LABOUR tred around particular analytical problems which have appeared to be crucial of the African labour force. The problems in understanding the character of particular to the theoretical selected have varied according perspective labour historians and industrial sociologists, although I will argue economists, that they were surprisingly similar, even if the analyses provided of them differed greatly. The central argument of this paper is that analyses of the African of wage on the development labour force have focused almost exclusively labour and, to a lesser extent, of urban wage labour. Very important questions under the political and economic conditions have been raised concerning which such labour forces emerged and their impact upon particular political into this economies. It has, however, proved extremely difficult to incorporate of the great majority of African workers who are the experience perspective sector. This outside the wage labour sector in the peasant and petty commodity 126 invisible majority includes an even greater proportion of African theoretically women workers. In this paper, I will focus first on the analyses of the labour market which appear to have been most influential in the analysis of African labour forces and of the manner in which women wage earners are incorporated into these The most recent in the analyses. significant developments analysis of the manner in which women are into the labour market will specific incorporated be examined for their potential usefulness in explaining the situation of African women workers. Finally, an attempt will be made to identify the forms of social labour market analysis which will make it possianalysis outside conventional of the manner in which African women are ble to construct an explanation into the labour markets of specific African political economies. incorporated Theoretical Perspectives in the Analysis of African Labour Markets In pre-colonial both agricultural and of prosocieties, most production, duction and consumption took within the household goods, place (Hopkins 1969: 3, Meillassoux 1963: 551, Meillassoux 1973:, C. Coquery-Vidrovitch 1972: 93). Labour was therefore obtained through the operation of kinship of the of wives to work for their husbands obligations, particularly obligation and of sons and daughters to work for their fathers or other older male relatives before marriage (Deere 1979: 133, Bryceson 1980). In societies in which petty was especially well developed, there were systems of commodity production and journeymen 1973: 48). Where the demand for apprenticeships (Hopkins labour was especially great, it tended to be met by arrangements such as forcible recruitment of a labour force from neighbouring societies slavery-the or the 'pawning' of one member of a family to pay off a debt (Oroge 1971). The favourable between land and population in most African relationship societies meant that the pre-conditions for the creation of a wage labour force did not exist. African societies were incorporated into the world economy in a variety of ways; by trade, followed by the imposition of colonialism in West Africa and in East and Southern Africa; colonialism associated with European settlement; the alienation of agricultural of minerals. This land; and the exploitation meant that the processes of expropriation, accumulation of capital and the of labour markets were also subject to a wide range of variation. development It is striking that from two contradictory ideological perspectives, early discussion about African labour centred around the special characteristics of 'temporary' migrant workers. Colonial administrators and their economic advisors saw the African worker as a 'target' worker who migrated to work for wages in order to fulfill a specific monetary or marriage-returning home when obligation-taxation this limited objective had been realised. This was sometimes expressed by economists as creating a 'backward sloping supply curve' for labour meaning that fewer workers or fewer man days would be forthcoming at higher wage 127 levels (Hopkins 1973: 229, Berg 1961: 468, Berg 1965: 160). This provided a for not raising very acceptable argument wage levels. In its strongest this that it was only the construction, perspective suggested ideological existence of such 'targets' which persuaded African workers to work for wages at all and that it was therefore necessary for colonial administrations to create these 'targets' in the form of taxation (van Onselen 1979:107). This systematic unease concerning an urban labour force which did not from the rural areas by the forces which had appear to have been 'pushed' to be a major underlying theme of operated in Europe and Asia, continued administrative practice and of writing on African workers. With the growth of a manufacturing and the establishment of a small but significant industry this was translated industrial workforce in the period after independence, by industrial sociologists into a concern about 'commitment' (Di Domenico 1973, Peil 1966). This is a difficult concept to analyse as analyses and descriptions of industrial workers in societies outside Africa do not appear to require it. The into a research problemconcept of 'commitment' appears to be a translation atic focusing on the attitude of the industrial worker of the unease of the analyst that the African worker was not dependent on wage labour in the same way as industrial workers in Europe and North America and thus potentially remaintarget worker. ing a transient, The development of these conceptualisations of the African wage labourer to derive more from an abstract set of about the necessary appear assumptions characteristics of wage workers, which are missing in the African situation, observation of such workers in African societies. The than from empirical historical accounts of African workers, in apparently very different societies, how colonial wage workers in the very different situations of showing Rhodesia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone resisted the pressure to drive down wages and impose worse working conditions do not conform to the stereotype of the these target worker with the backward sloping supply curve which contradicts 1966, Conway 1968, van Onselen 1976). assumptions (Hopkins A Marxist interpretation of the structure of colonialism and the relationbetween and colonised societies led to a focus on the most ship colonising extreme forms of exploitation within the colonial economic structure. For African societies this meant an emphasis on exposing the system of forced labour on which French West Africa and the Belgian Congo depended as did the wage labour systems of the southern African mines (Suret-Canale 1964, Simons & Simons 1969, Wilson 1972). The position of African workers in these institutions bore a close relationship to the conditions of the European prothe more intense forms of letariat in its formative by stages accompanied associated with extractive colonialism. exploitation The rapid urbanisation which took place in many African countries in the the creation of a small industrial and large period, post-independence in social and infrastructural bureaucratic sector, the inbalance spending the context within which between urban and rural areas which provided their analyses of urban-rural structural ineTodaro and Lipton developed 128 influence on the qualities (Todaro 1969, Lipton 1977), also had an important of radical of African industrial and salaried workers. development analyses The small size of most African proletariats and their apparent privilege, in conled to a recognition of the concept of the trast to a majority of the peasants, of labour' as developed by Lenin to explain the ideological con'aristocracy sciousness of the industrial in imperialist societies such as Britain proletariat It appeared that it was possible to 1970, Waterman 1975:57). (Arrighi substitute for a small, apparently and relatively insignificant privileged industrial proletariat, a large and deprived peasantry as the potential revolutionary force. The empirical studies of Africa workers in mines, on railways and working for the colonial administrations did not support this thesis but it a similar to possessed 'mythic' staying power Lipton's conservative equivalent. The history of economic and sociological analyses of African workers and African labour markets constructed from contradictory theoretical perspectives shows a curiously parallel focus. The major subject of these analyses were first of all the migrant earners but has since shifted to the urban and industrial or bureaucratic of such workers to their home comwage earner. The relationship of their future careers and their relationship to the munities, their perceptions urban 'informal' sector, have been assessed as posing problems either of their commitment to their jobs or of their class consciousness. The validity of these has been undermined historical and assumptions by a series of empirical studies of African workers (Hopkins 1966, van Onselen 1976, anthropological Grillo 1975, Peace 1979). This concentration has not been helpful in providing an understanding of the situation of the urban wage earner because it has made invisible crucial aspects of the context within which he works. Part of that invisible context is the position of women salary earners, petty commodity and and the place of family, especially women's labour production agricultural within the last three sectors. Women Wage Earners The manner in which African economies were incorporated into the world market and the existing economic responsibilities of African women which will be discussed below, meant that the early wage labour force in colonial African almost entirely of male workers in extractive, societies was composed large scale agricultural or servicing the colonial administration on the enterprises Social expenditure under the colrailways, docks or public works departments. onial administrations was strictly limited and there was little establishment of 1964, Brett 1973). The rapid expansion manufacturing capacity (Suret-Canale in social expenditure in the years leading up to independence and since in many African countries, and the establishment of a manufacindependence for the posituring sector has led to two particularly significant developments tion of women in formal wage-earning the problem of defining employment: to men or women and the particular situation of women jobs as appropriate industrial workers in African societies. 129 As in all societies, wage employment in Africa has been categorised on the basis of gender (Beechey 1978). Perhaps because the first wage employment was generated by colonial administrations and companies, it was identified by and as 'male' both manual, labouremployers employees being employment; and mine work and the skilled and clerical employment which ing plantation serviced the colonial and post-colonial administration. Women and children remained within the household economy, reproducing the male wage earners for the labour market (Schildkrout 1979:69). In societies in which there have been cultural prohibitions on women playing a public economic role, these characteristics continuedin Moslem countries such as Sudan and the Sahel in many region in West Africa (Hill 1971:303, Mernissi 1975). However, other regions of Africa, this colonial tendency was contradicted by the access, even if limited, of women to education and the responsibility of women to provide for the material needs of their families (Ogunsheye 1982, Awe 1982). This has led to an increasing identification of particular wage-earning occupations as 'women's jobs', Women have been recruited into the relatively low wage limited education and having limited career prospects, jobs, those requiring those demanding 'feminine' skills of caring and nurturing, as well as those as 'female' in industrialised such as societies, regarded jobs nursing, primary school teaching and secretarial work. The question as to whether these occupations are the bottom rung of a career or a specific job for women has remained open in many Africa societies as the opportunities open to men for obtaining have tended to remain limited. These 'female' occupations wage employment are thus sought after by men with limited educational The qualifications. economic crisis has reduced the number of wage-earning and opportunities increases the competition between men and women for the few remaining ones. This pressure on African women to obtain an income with which to meet their family responsibilities has driven some of them to seek wage employment within the industrial sector. The position of African women industrial workers raises important the position of Third World women in questions concerning the industrial labour market. Women workers have played a very important has been part in the process of restructuring by which industrial production relocated from the presently industrialised societies (Elson & Pearson 1981: 144, Elson & Pearson 1981). The reason for this process has been primarily to reduce labour costs. The wages of women workers in the underdeveloped as in the industrial societies are lower than those of men. In countries such as Sri and the Philippines, relocation has been a relocation of Lanka, Malaysia from First World men and women to Third World women employment & Khoo 1978) without the same wages, employment (Cardoso-Khoo rights and Women are regarded as being especially appropriate to this safety regulations. process because they are perceived as being especially docile and dextrous. In many African societies, women are not perceived as having these characteristics which makes the explanation of their position as industrial employees problematic. 130 In many African societies, women have a material or financial responsibility to provide for their children (Sudarkasa 1973). This means that the need to generate an income increases as they get older. In many societies, in a counterpoint to the dominant, patriarchal development ideology, this need is recognised, and within the general objective of creation of employment, a minor objective of creation of employment for women is identified (Dennis 1983; 256). The manner in which this is implemented 1983, Di Domenico tends to identify particular as being the most appropriate for occupations low paid, 'unskilled', and often seasonal. women, to some extent segregated, This means that in a situation in which there is an acute unfulfilled demand for male wage employment, the need for women to participate in the workforce is grudgingly in public rhetoric. However, accepted and often not articulated the manner of their incorporation is strikingly similar to their place in the industrial work force of the presently industrialised societies (Breugel 1979, Barker & Allen 1976). It does not conform to the pattern of development in South-East Asia and Latin American societies in which relocation and sourcing have taken place and women are particularly as a 'docile, dextrous important and low paid work force,' especially young, unmarried girls, although there is a prevalent idea that women have a special facility for boring, repetitive work. I have argued above that the trends in the analyses of labour forces in African societies from very different perspectives have focused on the particular significance of 'target' migrant workers. The entry of small groups of women into the wage labour market in industrial and the employment for particular within the public sector to increasingly tendency occupations become women's jobs have made these women visible to the analysis of African labour forces and labour markets. What are the other African women doing? In analysing the manner in which women have gained access to wage employment it is necessary, on the one hand, to examine their access to education and educational But, on the other hand, it is clear that they have qualifications. become part of the wage labour market because of the tremendous pressure to obtain an income with which to feed and maintain their families. These pressures operate on the majority of women in most African societies who have to adopt other strategies of income generation with which to meet them. These work do not appear to strategies all of which involve taking on 'non-domestic' be visible to the majority of economists and labour analysts. Perhaps we need to examine the character of these strategies for income generation and then to discuss a conceptualisation of labour and labour markets which will enable us to 'capture' them. Women's Agricultural Work in African Societies African societies differ very much from one another and it is not possible to make generalisations the place of women in production which concerning hold for the entire continent. There do, however, appear to be significant dif- 131 and their returns of women to production ferences between the contribution situation in Asian and European to the prevailing from it in comparison to the contisocieties. And this would appear to have a significant relationship in African societies and the of the domestic many economy nuing importance are defined within that manner in which women's economy, responsibilities and the division of labour between women the lineage system of landholding This section of the and marketing. and men in petty commodity production and petty compaper will focus on the place of women in peasant agriculture raising questions as to why these areas are largely invisible modity production, of this invisibility are. to labour history and analysis and what the implications unit of landholding in Africa, south of the Sahara, is The characteristic descent group traced through the male or female line lineage; the corporate unit (Coquerywhich is identified by the fact that it is the landholding Hill This to be Meillassoux Vidrovitch 1972, 1969, appears 1972). characteristic of societies in which there was no land shortage and where land was allocated by the head of the lineage to its members on the basis of their ability to cultivate it which depended largely on their access to labour. Women societies into this structure in different ways. In matrilineal were incorporated was not as strong as such as the Bemba and Ashanti, the marital relationship in her own natal lineage (Oppong 1972). In patrilineal a woman's membership into her husband's societies, the degree of her incorporation lineage depended in to determine the prothe demands of bridewealth which turn helped upon now clear It is able contract who were to of men marriages. polygynous portion that women retained closer links with their own natal lineage than could be from a model of 'pure' patriliny. extrapolated of The system of land holding had a crucial influence on the organisation economic activity of the domestic which was the most important agriculture economy. The part played by women in farming depended on the gender diviof production. societies and the organisation sion of labour within particular The division of labour between men and women varied according to the farmand the range of crops grown (Hopkins 1973:27). ing system, technology is a distinction between 'male' crops- yams, maize, millet and there Usually 'women's' crops- vegetables, spices and the keeping of domestic animals. There were also male and female tasks in all farming regimes; typically clearcarrying and ing and planting were done by men and weeding, harvesting, with the were undertaken women with men assisting harvesting by marketing for the of some crops. This division of labour had important implication both for their own on women's demands labour; women were responsible farms and essential tasks on their husbands' crops and for time-consuming Roberts 1970, forthcoming). (Boserup was invisible The contribution of women to food and cash crop production and analysts of African labour and labour to colonial agricultural departments planners, both African and history and has remained invisible to development aid organisations those employed 1980:47). This by international (Rogers for the impact of agricultural has had important invisibility consequences 132 development policies on African women and has been partially rectified only and feminist writers concerned about the apparent intensity by anthropologists of costs borne by rural African women as a result of agricultural policy and the implementation of particular agricultural projects. It is first necessary to discuss the impact on women and the demand for women's labour on the form of male labour, subject to extreme exploitationthe impact of agricultural migrant labour on farms and in mines-then policy which sees only male farmers and the most extreme manifestation of this in agricultural projects. The analysis will then go on to examine the effect of the that gainful agricultural work is done by men on policy and its assumption on women. subsequent impact workers left their wives at home whether they left Nearly all migrant Volta for Upper Ivory Coast, Nigeria for Fernando Po, or the native reserves for the Northern Rhodesian mines and the South African gold mines. The basic distinction between these situations was that, in the latter two cases, it was forbidden for women to accompany their husbands and they were legally constrained as to where could live within the 'reserves'. The they of on the Bemba of Richards, anthropological descriptions Audrey especially Northern Rhodesia show that when men migrated to earn cash to pay tax and meet cash obligations, the old, the young and women had to do the work they had previously done as well as the men's work, which reduced total production (Richards 1939). The migrant labour market created increased responsibilities for women both to provide labour when they already had existing duties and then to meet the total responsibility for feeding and keeping children and the elderly as the wages of male migrant workers were not intended to support their families (Meillassoux in 1972:93). The recent history of the homelands South Africa show that these burdens on the wives of migrant workers have increased with the development of an industrialised economy based on the recruitment and control of temporary, unattached male workers migrant Wilson 1973, (Ainslie 1972). This situation where the labour of rural women produced the migrant, urban labour force from year to year and generation to generation has been understood as being especially characteristic of African societies as opposed to the relationship between capitalist and pre-capitalist forms of production in Latin America and Asia. However, in some African societies, specifically in West Africa, the colonial system relied upon the extraction of a surplus from of cash crop farming. This peasant agriculture through the encouragement the existence of well-established required marketing systems within which farmers responded to the incentive of higher prices for cocoa, rubber etc. settle(Hopkins 1973:125). In African societies, without large-scale European ment, land was not a scarce resource until recently but labour often was. The of new markets depended therefore on access to ability to take advantage labour. As a result the majority of farmers relied on enforcing more rigorously the existing obligation for family members, especially wives, to work on their husbands' farms. 133 The cash crop regime established by peasant farmers in West Africa on labour, depended largely especially in the early years and now again family as the wages of hired workers have risen (Hill 1963, 1977). This labour was and wives and since the spread sons, unmarried largely unmarried daughters of education and the rising rates of urban migration by the young, has increasarrangement ingly been wives. There was often a customary whereby the were compensated or their conribution for their labour, was women but the returns from cash crop farming went to male farmers acknowledged, as the cultivators of local (Babalola 1983). Women retained their contribution foodstuffs for consumption and sale. This sector was not subject to the attention of colonial and post-colonial and it has only agricultural departments in become more realised as the crisis food has widely production recently in all the Africa labour that women developed (Moore 1974), provide nearly for this sector. African rural women have thus been confronted with a double and have been reproductive productive responsibility. required to Firstly, they to the food to the urban cash sector and, increasingly, supply population crop and, secondly, they have been required to contribute unpaid labour to the cash state. crop sector which has in turn sustained the colonial and post-colonial The process by which women were incorporated into peasant cash crop on the assumption that they are the main source of 'free' family production labour which could therefore be taken for granted, has been intensified by the of agricultural and integrated rural development The expansion projects. in increase in the number of agricultural African societies, usually projects which, it externally funded, is a sign of the crisis in African food production has been argued above, has been caused largely by the theoretical and practical refusal to address the question of the contribution of women's work to food to the problem, As a 'solution' the agricultural production. project typically supplies the male peasant farmer with a range of improved inputs, credit and of the crops sometimes mechanisation in return for a measure of regulation of the cost and A characteristic the used. grown very important farming system structure of such projects is that family labour is built into the project as a free wives (Dey by the farmers' good. This family labour is largely contributed 1979). The organisational structure of the majority of agricultural projects thus of the participating male farmers to secure the makes it the responsibility necessary labour from their wives for the project crops while, at the same time, the women still retain the responsibility for feeding their families. In the of which for greater cash such situations in there is no provision majority income for family labour, this is customarily done by invoking in a more of women to work on their manner the `traditional' rigorous obligations the returns from the husbands' farms. As with peasant cash crop production, The use of crops and the new farming systems go to the male farmers. varieties and new technologies introduced by agricultural projects improved can cause an intensification of the work done by women, especially work such as weeding, which is more necessary with improved varieties, yet without pro- 134 to the process by improving the technology viding any assistance (Kinsey reactions to this process vary from one society to another 1974). Women's of the exploitation of their imput of depending on the degree of intensification labour and the range of socially acceptable available alternative occupations for women. In some cases, notably in Niger, women have taken up a range of new landladies, occupations-becoming taking in washing, and carrying on petty which have become more accessible because of the male incomes trade-jobs the and but which maks it necessary to employ hired projects generated by of the project (Roberts labour which undermines the official cost structure In a case in which women's labour was available for Nigerian forthcoming). but were unable to tobacco production, the women did receive compensation use the money gained to move into trade which is the manner in which Yoruba women choose to generate an income, unless their husband took another wife in the absence of hired labour (Babalola 1983). Women in Petty Commodity Production The concentration on the wage employment sector has also made it very difficult for labour historians, economists and sociologists to understand the 'formal' and its to the sector of the relationship importance petty commodity sector. One reason for this underestimation of its imporwage employment the informal in of the identification and of sector, tance, categorisation spite with the formal sector and anthropological the analysis of the relationship reports from the 'front' has been the fact that this setor is especially important to women. Conversely, an examination of the significance of the petty comsector in for is a of beginning the income women good way modity generation with other productive sectors in African economies analysis of the relationship 1973). (Obbo 1980, Sudarkasa The discussion of the contribution of women to agriculture in African societies indicates what might well be the particular attraction of the petty commodity sector to African women. In a situation of strong gender differentiation in the division of labour, it is much more likely to provide women with an source of income as opposed to the customary gifts and compenindependent sation provided by working on their husbands' farms. The ability to enter this sector of income generation in the past and still depends on the size depended and specialisation of the communities concerned and the acceptability of petty for women (Fadipe 1978). or trading as an occupation commodity production This is especially important in relation to trade which is potentially the more source of but also possesses the 'danger' of income profitable generation her and that the trader to move round own travel be free requiring community to other markets. The difficulty with entry to the petty commodity sector was that it required capital to buy raw materials, or trade goods. In equipment Yoruba society, where women were most involved in non-agricultural forms of income generation, the favoured sequence was that a mother would train her daughter for a 'trade', her husband would provide her with the necessary 135 capital to establish herself in it and she, the wife, would then be able to generate sufficient income to provide for the everyday needs of her children and husband. If she were successful, she would be able to use her profits to move into a more lucrative form of trade and thus improve the standard of living of the household (Dennis, 1984). I wish to discuss two aspects of the petty commodity sector which are especially important in placing its relevance to the labour market and women: the manner in which it was affected by the incorwith poration of African societies into the world economy and the relationship and intensified other production sectors which have been highlighted by the present economic crisis in Africa. in Women played an important of commodities part in the production was a clear division of labour African societies. There by many pre-colonial gender with women often being responsible for the dyeing and weaving of certain kinds of cloth, for making pottery, mats, and, in large urban centres, for cooked food (Gladwin 1980). The everyday household articles just named were those most likely to be replaced by cheap manufactured imports from Europe sector has been increasingly and later, Asia. Thus, the petty commodity textiles preserving with only the more prestigious hand-woven marginalised their value as a badge of ethnic identity for a new bourgeoisie. Even in this are often very low so that only enclosed case, the returns to the producers in are willing to participate women, or women subject to similar restrictions such production 1981:69, Wieringa (Maher 1979). For women the crucial of their ability to generate an income within this sector has been determinant their access to trade or new occupations such as being a seamstress or selling cooked food. This partially depends on dominant notions of the appropriate for women but also on access to capital for trade, to training and occupations and to profitable sites for food-selling. capital goods for the new occupations Even in societies in which women predominate in the retail trade sector, such as Ghana and Nigeria, the women are incorporated into the lower reaches of the trade except for the minority who have access to scarce resources of capital and influence (Nelson 1979, Simon 1984, Karanja-Diejomaoh 1979). The importance of the petty commodity sector for women is emphasised by the situation created by the present economic crisis in Africa, a situation which makes it more essential to generate an income from this sector and yet makes it more difficult to do so. The series of devaluations, rampant inflation, in retrenchment of food have and wage employment especially prices, reduced the living standards of the urban wage earner in most drastically African countries over the past ten years (Weeks 1986). This has made it that within households there should be some access to earnings imperative sector earnings which supplement from the 'informal' falling real wages or replace them in times of crisis. It is the women members of a household who are most likely to adopt this strategy of survival as they have always had limited access to the formal sector and there are numerous informal sector 'women's' occupations which require contacts and networks rather than large amounts of capital for successful entry. The decline in real wages makes the connection 136 between the petty commodity and manufacturing sector crucial as the ability to obtain essentials and the rate at which their prices are rising-increases the real which operate largely through informal sector markets-determine wage of the urban worker. The falling real incomes of urban workers and import regulations make it more difficult for the petty traders to fulfill this role. of women market This helps to account for the pattern of outright persecution in Africa (Dennis 1987). traders by 'reforming' military governments Conclusion Crises often illuminate the manner in which particular societies work and the relationships which operate between different groups within them. The that, in the type of post-colonial present economic crisis in Africa demonstrates which is within Africa, it is impossible to construct an economy predominant of worker the without exploring the interrelaadequate understanding wage different sectors. At present the most striking between productive tionships need is to establish the empirical relationship which exists between manufacand the petty commodity sector. But the turing and bureaucratic employment lack of a systematic tracing of this relationship can be located in the historical of the temporary of the analysis of the specific characteristics separation from migrant worker from the problems faced by the agricultural community which he came. The reason for the invisibility of these relationships and of particular kinds of work derives fundamentally from the invisibility of women to historians and economists. The particular gender division of labour which for operates in African societies has meant that women have the responsibility the labour force domestic and non-domestic labour reproducing existing by AND of reproducing the future labour force by physical reproduction and by the material basis for its is this which subsistence. It providing explains the labour of African women in the agricultural and petty commodity sector and their pressure for wage-earning employment. Since it is possible to understand why women have remained largely invisible to to labour market description and analysis in African societies and to realize the gaps this has created in our knowledge of the relationship between labour and commodity markets in Africa, it then follows that the effort to make visible the contribution of women's work to the analytical historical development of African societies will be fruitful and will lead to a more useful analysis of labour in Africa. The implications of this discussion are that the exercise has to proceed on two levels. Firstly, the establishment of the between sectors and women's interrelationships place in these requires an articulation of the relationships between the 'modes' or 'forms' of production in individual and an empirical societies; at the same time both a theoretical exercise. Secondly, we can learn from the process by which the invisibility of women's labour in agriculture and the informal sector has been overcome to a limited degree and by the attempt to explain the crisis in African agriculture and the survival strategies of urban populations in the present economic crisis. 137 One result of the 'crisis' may be that by monitoring it, we will be better able to understand the significance of women's work for the African societies concerned. To end on a cautionary note: various policy and aid institutions which a for the of women are now conbore large responsibility invisibility previously cerned to stress the importance of 'women', in developespecially agricultural ment. It is not 'women' who need to be made visible but the social construction of gender and gender relations in African societies and labour markets. REFERENCES AINSLIE,R. 1973 Masters and Serfs: Farm Labour in SouthAfrica, International Defense and Aid Fund. 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