Taken For A Ride

Grounding Neoliberalism, Precarious Labour, and Public Transport in an African Metropolis

Matteo Rizzo author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:24th Jan '19

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Taken For A Ride cover

How does public transport work in an African city under neoliberalism? Who owns what in it? Who has the power to influence its shape and changes in it over time? What does it mean to be a precarious and informal worker in the private minibuses that provide public transport in Dar es Salaam? These are the main questions that inform this in-depth case study of Dar es Salaam's public transport system over more than forty years. The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system's journey from public to private provision. This new addition to the Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research and Practice in International Development Studies series investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport and documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to the political organisation and unionisation which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam, and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial appraoches to the study of economic informality, the urban experience in developing countries, and their failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualised study of neoliberalism.

pushing forward much-needed critical debate by helping us rethink and reimagine alternative public transport futures for African cities, futures that should start with the lived realities and aspirations of the majority of citizens, including the poor and middle classes, who currently - for better or worse - rely fundamentally on these deeply rooted and complex minibus systems. * Jacqueline M. Klopp, Africa *
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 *
...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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *
"In Matteo Rizzo's remarkable book the reader takes a seat for a unique 'journey through the history, economic organisation, and politics of public transport' in the vibrant city of Dar es Salaam..It is highly recommended to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of economic relations, labour, politics, and power in the local transport sector (and beyond)." -- Daniel Ehebrecht and Alina Oswald,The Journal of Development Studies
Matteo Rizzo's Taken for a Ride: Grounding Neoliberalism, Precarious Labour, and Public Transport in an African Metropolis is a book on urban transport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and it makes two important scholarly contributions. The first is an intervention into debates about neoliberalism,...The second, more nuanced contribution of the book is the analysis of the past and present of transport work in the urban informal economy. The story Rizzo tells is a powerful and convincing one, in large part due to research methods that are both longitudinal (he carried out research over an extended period between 1998 and 2014) and up close. * Adam Swallow, The American Historical *

ISBN: 9780198839057

Dimensions: 233mm x 164mm x 13mm

Weight: 360g

240 pages