This book explores the changing land relations in the peri-urban villages of Blantyre in Malawi. It questions and debates how and why the peri-urban villages have become the locus of the selling and buying of customary land, the practices and also the relations involved. The book provides rich ethnographic insights on the commodification of land relations, custom, practices, disputes and social relations between land sellers, land buyers, traditional leaders, and intermediaries. The transactions draw strength from the growing peri-urbanization and monetization of social relations, both of which push towards land decisions at family and individual levels. Bigger groups like the village, clan or extended family have minimal, if not symbolic role only. Village headmen benefit materially by taking gifts (signing fee) rationalized by custom on reciprocity, while estate agents claim commission. Numerous constraints are negotiated about the ownership, rights to sale, multiple selling and the use and sharing of land money. Peri-urban land transactions offer scope for examining a wider range of social and economic relations, and the subtle ways in which the state infiltrates the everyday lives of actors. Overtime, the practices reproduce but also transform land relations in significant but less appreciated ways.

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.

Part of the groundbreaking Africa Now series, Africa's Informal Workers explores the deepening processes of informalization and casualization of work that are changing livelihood opportunities and conditions in Africa and beyond. In doing so, the book addresses the collectively organized responses to these changes, presenting them as an important dimension of the contemporary politics of informality in Africa. It goes beyond the usual focus on household 'coping strategies' and individual forms of agency, by addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal 'workers' make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organised actors, reflecting the great diversity of interests in the informal economy. This provides grounds for tensions but also opportunities for alliance. The book also explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers, gathering case studies from nine countries and cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, and from sectors ranging from urban informal vending and service delivery, to informal manufacturing, casual port work and cross-border trade.Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous and timely examination of the changes in African livelihoods caused by deep and ongoing economic, political and social transformations.

Part of the groundbreaking Africa Now series, "Africa's Informal Workers" explores the deepening processes of informalization and casualization of work that are changing livelihood opportunities and conditions in Africa and beyond. In doing so, the book addresses the collectively organized responses to these changes, presenting them as an important dimension of the contemporary politics of informality in Africa. It goes beyond the usual focus on household 'coping strategies' and individual forms of agency, by addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal 'workers' make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organised actors, reflecting the great diversity of interests in the informal economy. This provides grounds for tensions but also opportunities for alliance. The book also explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers, gathering case studies from nine countries and cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, and from sectors ranging from urban informal vending and service delivery, to informal manufacturing, casual port work and cross-border trade."Africa's Informal Workers" is a vigorous and timely examination of the changes in African livelihoods caused by deep and ongoing economic, political and social transformations.