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The Laziness Myth
Narratives of Work and the Good Life in South Africa
Christine Jeske (Author)
9781501752513
Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2020
246 pages, 3 b&w halftones, 2 b&w line drawings - 3 Halftones, black and white - 2 Line drawings, black and white
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.454 kg
Based on years of extensive field work in a small town, the narrative is lively, personal, and engaging, and provides intimate portraits of everyday people and their struggles. Drawing on multiple interviews with employers, business owners and workers, The Laziness Myth offers a complex picture of the post-apartheid workplace where racial inequality is still closely felt.
When people cannot find good work, can they still find good lives? By investigating this question in the context of South Africa, where only 43 percent of adults are employed, Christine Jeske invites readers to examine their own assumptions about how work and the good life do or do not coincide. The Laziness Myth challenges the widespread premise that hard work determines success by tracing the titular "laziness myth," a persistent narrative that disguises the systems and structures that produce inequalities while blaming unemployment and other social ills on the so-called laziness of particular class, racial, and ethnic groups. Jeske offers evidence of the laziness myth's harsh consequences, as well as insights into how to challenge it with other South African narratives of a good life. In contexts as diverse as rapping in a library, manufacturing leather shoes, weed-whacking neighbors' yards, negotiating marriage plans, and sharing water taps, the people described in this book will stimulate discussion on creative possibilities for seeking the good life in and out of employment, in South Africa and elsewhere.
Introduction: "We want to live a good life"
1. "They don't want to work": The Laziness Myth
2. "You can't understand it": Employers' Perspectives of the Unemployed
3. "I need to respect that person and that person needs to respect me": The Respect Narrative
4. "Hustling is when you try to make a good life": The Hustling Narrative
5. "I'm just a laborer": The Laborer Narrative
6. "I have a good story": Possibilities
Closing Thoughts: "Despite the contradictions"