This volume re-centres African labour movements in histories of liberation and global political economy, examining how workersâ struggles across diverse African contexts have shaped, contested, and redefined liberation, capitalism, and imperial power. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, the book situates labour organising within broader social, political, economic, and ecological dynamics, foregrounding intersections of class, race, gender, and environment. Challenging narrow nationalist, economistic, and Eurocentric frameworks, it highlights moments of rupture and possibility in which working-class movements articulated alternative visions of social transformation, while also interrogating the limits, contradictions, and unfinished nature of African liberation projects.
Luke Sinwell is a Professor in the Sociology department at the University of Johannesburg. His latest book is the Participation Paradox: Between Bottom-up and Top-down Development in South Africa (McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal: 2023).
Immanuel Ness is Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York and Visiting Professor of Sociology at University of Johannesburg. He is author of eight books including Migration as Economic Imperialism (2023) and the Dialectics of Chinese Labour (2026).
Trevor Ngwane is a socialist activist scholar from anti-apartheid days to the present. A former senior lecturer at the UJ Sociology Department and past president of the South African Sociological Association, Trevor is author of Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements (2021).
Samuel Andreas Admasie is a regional specialist for Africa at the International Institute of Social History, where he coordinates archival partnerships with African labour and trade union organisations. He is the author of the book The Ethiopian Labour Movement: Trade Unions, Collective Action and Contestation, 1960 â 2020.
This volume is intended for academics and students in African studies, political economy, history, sociology, development studies, and global labour studies.