McFadden, Patricia (1987) Proletarianisation in Swaziland : the case of the sugar industry. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This study is an attempt to analyse the process of
proletarianisation in Swazi society with particular
reference to the sugar industry in that country. We have
also tried to explain why women's labour tends to be
located in both subsistence and commodity agriculture,
and what the implications of this are for the social,
economic and political status of women in Swazi society.
Through an analysis of the historical processes which
led to colonisation and the consequent land alienation,
labour migration, taxation and exploitation of the Swazi
people, the study has tried to show the socio-economic
and political consequences of capitalist development
within Swaziland over the last century. We have also
discussed the emergence and decline of white settler
agriculture and shown how, together with the collaboration
of the colonial state, white commodity agriculture laid
the basis for the development of agribusiness in the
economy, especially in relation to the sugar industry.
Within the sugar industry itself, which has dominated
the Swazi economy for the last thirty years in terms of
land use, numbers of workers employed, and the size of
national revenue generated, there is an ongoing struggle
between labour and capital, which manifests itself in
various forms, both overt and covert. The history of
working class resistance in the industry vis-a-vis capital
and the colonial and neo-colonial state, is discussed with
a view to better understanding this section of the Swazi
proletariat in anticipation of the revolutionary changes which are sweeping across the Southern African
sub-continent.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DT Africa
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Swaziland -- Economic conditions, Sugarcane industry -- Swaziland, Women -- Employment -- Swaziland
Official Date:	June 1987
Dates:	Date Event June 1987 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Cohen, Robin, 1944-
Sponsors:	Africa Educational Trust (London, England) ; British Council ; Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom
Extent:	vii, 371 p.
Language:	eng

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