ABSTRACT

Tens of thousands of young Ethiopian women have migrated from small towns and rural areas to work in the Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP), where working conditions and wages are far below their expectations. Low wages and a high cost of living mean that workers face severe challenges in meeting their basic needs for food and shelter that are necessary for reproducing their own labor. Attention to struggles over the reproduction of migrant women’s labor at the HIP generates insights into the practices of the Ethiopian developmental state. The developmental state actively makes and reproduces cheap labor to attract international capital and support economic growth. The state protects international textile manufacturers from the burden of reproducing the labor that manufacturers rely on for profits. The case of the HIP is a necessary complement to recent scholarship on urban Africa that has focused overwhelmingly on the informal economy. The precarious nature of factory work leads some young women to search out stability with small scale, often informal, entrepreneurial work, a process that disrupts conventional narratives of economic development. The complex relationship between wage labor and self-employment suggests possibilities for pro-poor policies that go beyond reproducing labor for international manufacturers.

摘要

数以万计的埃塞俄比亚年轻妇女从小城镇和农村地区迁移到哈瓦萨工业园区（HIP）工作，那里的工作条件和工资远低于她们的预期。低工资和高生活成本意味着工人在满足其再生产自己劳动所必需的食物和住所的基本需求方面面临严峻挑战。对 HIP 中移民妇女劳动力再生产斗争的关注有助于深入了解埃塞俄比亚发展型国家的做法。发展型国家积极制造和再生产廉价劳动力以吸引国际资本并支持经济增长。国家保护国际纺织品制造商免于再生产制造商赖以谋利的劳动力的负担。HIP 的案例是对近期主要关注非正规经济的非洲城市研究的必要补充。工厂工作的不稳定性质导致一些年轻女性通过小规模、通常是非正式的创业工作来寻求稳定，这一过程打破了经济发展的传统叙述。雇佣劳动和自营职业之间的复杂关系表明，有可能制定超越为国际制造商再生产劳动力的扶贫政策。