Limits of Social Citizenship: Unemployment insurance & the reproduction of the SA capitalist state
SCIS invites you to a hybrid seminar titled The Limits of Social Citizenship: Unemployment insurance and the reproduction of the South African capitalist state.
The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) invites you to a hybrid seminar titled The Limits of Social Citizenship: Unemployment insurance and the reproduction of the South African racial capitalist state on 6 February 2025, 12:30 - 14:00. Dr Courtney Hallink, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at SCIS, will present this seminar.
Abstract:
Three decades following the end of apartheid, racial stratification continues to be reproduced along historically constituted lines. In this study, I ask how the institutionalisation of unemployment insurance during the periods of segregation (1910-1947) and apartheid (1948-1994) continues to affect the racialisation of social citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa. In other words, I ask how unemployment
insurance legislation continues to undermine the democratisation of social citizenship in the post apartheid present. I use a historical sociological approach, engaging process tracing while also drawing from historiographical literature and sociological theory. I draw extensively from legislative acts, parliamentary debates (Hansards), reports from various commissions of inquiry, and other relevant government and non-government materials. Grounded in social reproduction theory; racial capitalism; critical whiteness studies; and racial states, the study demonstrates how unemployment insurance was used to consolidate the White minority state by buttressing racial segregation and the reproduction of the capitalist system. Despite the UIF’s origins in the consolidation of a racial state, its core structure remains the same following the end of apartheid. This study sheds light on what this means for
working-age adults in contemporary South Africa.
About the speaker:
Dr Courtney Hallink is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. She recently completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Courtney also holds an MSocSci in Sociology from the University of Cape Town and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Toronto. Courtney’s scholarly work explores the intersections between work, unemployment,
and social policy. She is particularly interested in examining the ways in which the historical institutionalisation of social citizenship reproduces stratification along the dimensions of race, class, and gender in the (post)-colonial present. Courtney’s work is theoretically grounded in social reproduction theory; race and capitalism; critical whiteness studies; and racial states. Her scholarly work informs current debates on South Africa’s Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant and the Universal Basic Income grant (UBIG). Courtney is also a coordinator at #PayTheGrants, a community-based organisation fighting for the continuation of the SRD grant and the introduction of a UBIG.
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