Sociology of Work Unit
SWOP at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg strives to conduct high quality research on the world of work. We are primarily academic in orientation, with an emphasis on disseminating research through teaching, publications and conferences. We attempt to maintain communication and interaction with a broad range of actors within the world of work, such as organised labour, business, government and other research organisations.
Notices:
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  • Making Visible the Invisible: South Africa's Decent Work Deficit
    Added: 12/15/2008 - 14:50
    This report on the linkages between the formal and the informal economy was commissioned by the Department of Labour. The brief from the Department of Labour was to determine whether the data on the informal economy correctly captures the level of informal employment; to examine the linkages between formal and formal employment; and to develop a framework for reducing the decent work deficits in informal employment.
  • Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity
    Added: 04/25/2008 - 10:25
    This book is published in the Antipode Book Series. Claims have been made on the emergence of a new labour internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity they often turn inwards. The book contains a warning and a sign of hope. Some workers become fatalistic, even xenophobic. Others are attempting to globalize their own struggles. The book examines the claim that a new labour internationalism is emerging by grounding the book in evidence, rather than assertion.

More publications:
  • The Crisis of Social Reproduction
    Added: 04/17/2008 - 15:57
     

    In 2007 Professor Cock and Ms Fakier started a research project on how households respond to the crisis of social reproduction in post-apartheid South Africa. In particular, they focus on how insecure livelihoods affect the use of basic components of human sustenance; water and food. A paper A Gendered Analysis of the Crisis of Social Reproduction in Contemporary South Africa, drawing on the findings of this research, was presented at the annual Sociological Association of South Africa Congress in June 2007.

  • Migration, Gender and Households
    Added: 04/17/2008 - 15:57

    Ms Khayaat Fakier has begun research on the social and economic impact of rising female migration in post-apartheid South Africa. She is using a case study approach and focuses on women migrating from Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, to Johannesburg and the positive and negative effects migration has on reproductive activities and gender relations in households of origin.

More projects:
  • Hard labour: Sociology and the transformation of working life
    Date:
    Saturday 27 June 2009

    Presenters:
    Eddie Webster, Blade Nzimande, Michael Burawoy, Gwede Mantashe, Dunbar Moodie, Rob Lambert, Jay Naidoo, Ronaldo Munck, Gay Seidman, Ari Sitas, Robert O'Brien and others

    Venue:
    Dorothy Susskind Auditorium, John Moffat Building, East Campus, University of the Witwatersrand

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