Maria’s Burden: Contract cleaning and the crisis of social reproduction in post-apartheid South Africa

This article was published in a special edition of Antipode (vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 463-486) on contract cleaning. It examines the lives of contract cleaners at the University of the Witwatersrand and shows how key elements of the apartheid labour regime are replicated under the neo-liberal regime. The article can be downloaded. The special edition was also published as an edited volume: Aguiar, L.M. & Herod, A. (eds.). 2006. The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy. Oxford: Blackwell.