Jason Hickel


Jason Hickel Entered 2005 jasonhickel@virginia.edu
Sociocultural Anthropology Regional focus: Southern Africa, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal. Topical interests: Labor, migrancy, and political subjectivity. I slipped into the study of labor migrancy quite by accident. My undergraduate work at Wheaton College took me to Nagaland in Northeast India, where I worked with a community development organization looking at ethnic identity and patterns of economic dispossession among migrant farmworkers from Bangladesh. This perspective motivated my later work in Swaziland - my original home - as a research officer for an international NGO tasked with examining the etiology of the country's AIDS epidemic. My analysis showed the high transmission rates to be a byproduct of Southern African labor policy and the radical dislocations it causes in the rural domestic lifeways of migrant workers. Along with the wrenching stories of close friends subject to this labor regime, these conclusions sparked my interest in union politics as a potential counterweight to the violent excesses of colonial and neoliberal capitalism. From this impetus, my present dissertation research takes as its context the labor movement in South Africa, which is among the most powerful of its kind. I focus specifically on small, independent unions comprised of rural migrant Zulus and their longstanding conflict with the ANC-aligned Congress of South African Trade Unions. Analyzing this tension, I interrogate the dominant historiography that represents migrants' activism as motivated by nationalist or Marxist ideology, and show instead that they operate according to interests centered in the moral economy of their rural homesteads. My data explores the role of intimate domestic practices such as kinship ritual and healing in the formulation of migrants' political subjectivity - their attitudes toward and aspirations for the post-apartheid social dispensation. By explaining Zulu migrants' resistance to ANC party politics, this study not only seeks to aid reconciliation between competing union factions, but to broaden the participation of this marginalized group in South Africa's nation-building project. PhD Dissertation Proposal: Subaltern Subjects, Insurgent Citizens: Labor, Ritual, and Political Subjectivity in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Presentations and Publications: 2009: "Consciousness in Conflict: An Event History of African Unionism in the South African Sugar Industry." Paper presented to the History and African Studies Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. 2009: "Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism and Racism in India and South Africa." Community presentation, Durban, South Africa. 2009: "A Brief History of African Unionism in the South African Sugar Industry." Paper presented to the Tradition, Authority, and Power Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. 2008: "Subaltern Consciousness in South Africa's Labor Movement." Paper presented at the Anthropology Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. 2007. "The Sorcerer and the Citizen: Political Subjectivity in Postcolonial South Africa." Paper presented to the American Anthropological Association, 2007. 2007. "Perspectives on Zimbabwe's Current Crisis." Presentation at event by Engaging International Issues through Media (EIIM), University of Virginia. 2006. "Neoliberal Policy and HIV Transmission in Africa." Presentation to the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Anchorage, Alaska. 2006. "Narratives of Development: Colonizing the Histories of the Poor." HNGR Online. HNGR: Wheaton. [http://www.wheaton.edu/HNGR/resources/jason_hickel.html] 2005. "Deadly Inequalities: The Political Economy of AIDS in Swaziland." WVS Circular. World Vision Swaziland: Manzini. 2003. "Beyond Dispossession: Power, Place, and Poverty in Nagaland, India." AIDA Circular. Agency for Integral Development Action: Dimapur.

Entered 2005
jasonhickel@virginia.edu

Sociocultural Anthropology

Regional focus: Southern Africa, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal.

Topical interests: Labor, migrancy, and political subjectivity.

I slipped into the study of labor migrancy quite by accident. My undergraduate work at Wheaton College took me to Nagaland in Northeast India, where I worked with a community development organization looking at ethnic identity and patterns of economic dispossession among migrant farmworkers from Bangladesh. This perspective motivated my later work in Swaziland - my original home - as a research officer for an international NGO tasked with examining the etiology of the country's AIDS epidemic. My analysis showed the high transmission rates to be a byproduct of Southern African labor policy and the radical dislocations it causes in the rural domestic lifeways of migrant workers. Along with the wrenching stories of close friends subject to this labor regime, these conclusions sparked my interest in union politics as a potential counterweight to the violent excesses of colonial and neoliberal capitalism.

From this impetus, my present dissertation research takes as its context the labor movement in South Africa, which is among the most powerful of its kind. I focus specifically on small, independent unions comprised of rural migrant Zulus and their longstanding conflict with the ANC-aligned Congress of South African Trade Unions. Analyzing this tension, I interrogate the dominant historiography that represents migrants' activism as motivated by nationalist or Marxist ideology, and show instead that they operate according to interests centered in the moral economy of their rural homesteads. My data explores the role of intimate domestic practices such as kinship ritual and healing in the formulation of migrants' political subjectivity - their attitudes toward and aspirations for the post-apartheid social dispensation. By explaining Zulu migrants' resistance to ANC party politics, this study not only seeks to aid reconciliation between competing union factions, but to broaden the participation of this marginalized group in South Africa's nation-building project.

PhD Dissertation Proposal: Subaltern Subjects, Insurgent Citizens: Labor, Ritual, and Political Subjectivity in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Presentations and Publications:

2009: "Consciousness in Conflict: An Event History of African Unionism in the South African Sugar Industry." Paper presented to the History and African Studies Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
2009: "Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism and Racism in India and South Africa." Community presentation, Durban, South Africa.
2009: "A Brief History of African Unionism in the South African Sugar Industry." Paper presented to the Tradition, Authority, and Power Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
2008: "Subaltern Consciousness in South Africa's Labor Movement." Paper presented at the Anthropology Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
2007. "The Sorcerer and the Citizen: Political Subjectivity in Postcolonial South Africa." Paper presented to the American Anthropological Association, 2007.
2007. "Perspectives on Zimbabwe's Current Crisis." Presentation at event by Engaging International Issues through Media (EIIM), University of Virginia.
2006. "Neoliberal Policy and HIV Transmission in Africa." Presentation to the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Anchorage, Alaska.
2006. "Narratives of Development: Colonizing the Histories of the Poor." HNGR Online. HNGR: Wheaton. [http://www.wheaton.edu/HNGR/resources/jason_hickel.html]
2005. "Deadly Inequalities: The Political Economy of AIDS in Swaziland." WVS Circular. World Vision Swaziland: Manzini.
2003. "Beyond Dispossession: Power, Place, and Poverty in Nagaland, India." AIDA Circular. Agency for Integral Development Action: Dimapur.