Urban Appropriation and Transformation: Bicycle Taxi and Handcart Operators

Operators Bicycle

Description

This book is about emerging informal responses to unemployment in Malawi. To the bicycle taxi and handcart operators who are at the centre of the book, informality is a means for negotiating newer experiences and challenges associated with urbanisation. Jimu richly documents how informal economy activities continue to represent grassroots responses to widespread poverty, unavailability of meaningful employment opportunities and the failure of the state as well as the private and the non-state sectors to respond to escalating demand for formal sector jobs. Multiplicity of activities and straddling urban and rural opportunities are strategies employed to deal with opportunity impermanence and maximize returns from various low paying tasks and jobs. While these activities have grown without state support, state involvement is necessary to regulate and promote the welfare of the workers in the sector as well as that of the users of their service and the general public. This will require constructive engagement among the operators, users of their services, local government, and various state agencies.

Sujets

• Sociology

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789956717637
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Urban Appropriation and Transformation: Bicycle Taxi and Handcart Operators in Mzuzu, Malawi

Ignasio Malizani Jimu

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Titles byL a n g a aRPCIG Joyce Ashuntantang & Dibussi Tande Their Champagne Party Will End! Poems in Honor of Bate Besong

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Kangsen Feka Wakai Fragmented Melodies

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Emmanuel Fru Doh Not Yet Damascus The Fire Within Africa`s Political Wastelands: The Bastardization of Cameroon

Thomas Jing Tale of an African Woman

Peter Wuteh Vakunta Grassfields Stories from Cameroon Green Rape: Poetry for the Environment Majunga Tok: Poems in Pidgin English Cry, My Beloved Africa

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Kehbuma Langmia Titabet and the Takumbeng

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Ignasio Malizani Jimu Urban Appropriation and Transformation: bicycle, taxi and handcart operators in Mzuzu, Malawi

Urban appropriation and transformation: bicycle taxi and handcart operators in Mzuzu, Malawi

Ignasio Malizani Jimu

LangaaResearch & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG (LangaaResearch & Publishing Common Initiative Group) P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Province Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaapublisher.com

Distributed outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com

Distributed in N. America by Michigan State University Press [e-mail] www.msupress.msu.edu

DISCLAIMER

ISBN:9956-558-75-3

© Ignasio Malizani Jimu (2008)

First published 2008

All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

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Mahala and Luntha

Contents

Acronyms Acknowledgements Summary

1. Overview of the study Nature of the study Framework of the study Data and methods Organisation of the book

2. Overview of the informal economy Informal economy in perspective Characteristics of the informal economy The informal economy and the development debate Which way forward for the informal economy Conclusion

3. Context of the study Geographic position Population trends Socio-economic context Structure of the agricultural sector Location of Mzuzu Historical roots of Mzuzu Mzuzu’s population trends past and present Conclusion

4. Urbanisation in Malawi Urban development in Malawi Characteristics of urbanisation in Malawi Conclusion

5. The urban informal economy in Malawi Magnitude and characteristics of the informal economy in Malawi Rural-urban differences in informal economy activities Factors that have shaped the structure and evolution of the i informal economy Conclusion vi

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