Abstract
Little is known about how street connected young people maintain livelihoods and how their earning strategies change as they enter adulthood. Living precariously in street environments, markets, and informal settlements, street children and youth develop complex responses to their social and economic marginalization, working on the fringes of the formal and informal urban economy. This chapter draws from research undertaken with street children and youth in three African cities to highlight the importance of the informal economy and reveal how income is generated to meet daily basic needs and the compromises and vulnerabilities these create for young people Growing up on the Streets.
References
Abebe, T. (2008). Earning a living on the margins: Begging, street work and the socio-spatial experiences of children in Addis Ababa. Geografiska Annaler, 90(3), 271–284.
African Economic Outlook. (2012). Promoting youth employment in Africa. http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/theme/youth_employment. Accessed 16 Oct 2015.
Alderson, P., & Morrow, V. (2011). The ethics of research with children and young people: A practical handbook. London: Sage.
AlSayyad, N. (2004). Urban informality as a ‘new’ way of life. In A. Roy & N. AlSayyad (Eds.), Urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin American and South Asia (pp. 7–30). Lanham: Lexington Books.
Amis, P. (2004). Regulating the informal sector: Voice and bad governance. In N. Devas (Ed.), Urban governance voice and poverty in the developing world (pp. 145–162). London: Earthscan.
Ansell, N. (2005). Children, youth and development. London: Routledge.
Aries, P. (1972). Centuries of childhood. London: Penguin.
Bass, L. E. (2000). Enlarging the street and negotiating the curb: Public space at the edge of an African market. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 20(1/2), 74–95.
Bayat, A. (2004). Globalisation and the politics of the informals in the global south. In A. Roy & N. AlSayyad (Eds.), Urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin American and South Asia (pp. 79–102). Lanham: Lexington Books.
Bayat, A., & Biekart, K. (2009). Cities of extremes. Development and Change, 40(5), 815–825.
Beazley, H. (2000). Street boys in Yogyakarta: Social and spatial exclusion in the public spaces of the city. In G. Bridge & S. Watson (Eds.), A companion to the city (pp. 472–488). London: Blackwell.
Bromley, R. D. F., & Mackie, P. K. (2008). Identifying the role of children in informal trade: Evidence for urban policy. International Development Planning Review, 30(2), 113–131.
Brown, A., Lyons, M., & Dankoco, I. (2010). Street traders and the emerging spaces for urban voice and citizenship in African cities. Urban Studies, 47(3), 666–683.
Bunnell, T., & Harris, A. (2012). Re-viewing informality: Perspectives from Asia. International Development Planning Review, 34(4), 340–347.
Centeno, M. A., & Portes, A. (2006). The informal economy in the shadow of the state. In P. Fernandez-Kelly & J. Shefner (Eds.), Out of the shadows: Political action and the informal economy in Latin America (pp. 23–48). Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Chen, M. (2012). The informal economy: Definitions, theories and policies. Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) working paper 1. Manchester: WIEGO.
Connolly, M., & Ennew, J. (1996). Introduction: Children out of place. Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, 3(2), 131–145.
Conticini, A. (2005). Urban livelihoods from children’s perspective: Protecting and promoting assets on the streets of Dhaka. Environment and Urbanization, 17(2), 69–81.
Gough, K. V., Langevang, T., & Owusu, G. (2013). Youth employment in a globalising world. International Development Planning Review, 35(2), 91–102.
Hart, K. (1973). Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana. Journal of Modern African Studies, 11(1), 61–89.
Hecht, T. (1999). At home in the street: Street children of North-East Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Horschelmann, K., & van Blerk, L. (2012). Children, youth and the city. London: Routledge.
International Labour Organisation (ILO). (2002). A future without child labour. Geneva: ILO.
International Labour Organisation (ILO). (2012a). Statistical update on employment in the informal economy. Geneva: ILO.
International Labour Organisation (ILO). (2012b). Marking progress against child labour. Geneva: ILO.
International Labour Organisation (ILO). (2015). World employment and social outlook: Trends 2015. Geneva: ILO.
Izzi, V. (2013). Just keeping them busy? Youth employment projects as a peacebuilding tool. International Development Planning Review, 35(2), 102–117.
James, A., Jenks, C., & Prout, A. (1998). Theorising childhood. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jones, J. L. (2010). ‘Nothing is straight in Zimbabwe’: The rise of the kukiya-kiya economy 2000–2008. Journal of Southern African Studies, 36(2), 285–299.
Kamete, A. Y. (2008). Planning versus youth: Stamping out spatial unruliness in Harare. Geoforum, 39, 1721–1733.
Kamete, A. Y. (2010). Defending illicit livelihoods: Youth resistance in Harare’s contested spaces. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(1), 55–75.
Kamete, A. Y., & Lindell, I. (2010). The politics of ‘non-planning’ interventions in African cities: Unravelling the international and local dimensions in Harare and Maputo. Journal of Southern African Studies, 36(4), 889–912.
Langevang, T. (2008). We are managing! Uncertain paths to respectable adulthoods in Accra, Ghana. Geoforum, 39(6), 2039–2047.
Lewis, W. A. (1954). Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour. The Manchester School, 22(2), 139–191.
Lindell, I. (2010). Introduction: The changing policies of informality – Collective organizing, alliances and scales of engagement. In I. Lindell (Ed.), Africa’s informal workers (pp. 1–32). London: Zed Books.
McGregor, J. (2013). Surveillance and the city: Patronage, power-sharing and the politics of urban control in Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies, 39(4), 783–805.
Mitlin, D., & Satterthwaite, D. (2013). Urban poverty in the global south: Scale and nature. London: Routledge.
Myers, G. (2011). African cities: Alternative visions of urban theory and practice. London: Zed Books.
Osei-Boateng, C. (2011). The informal sector in Ghana. Background paper. Accra: Ghana Trades Union Congress.
Pieterse, E. (2008). City futures: Confronting the crisis of urban development. London: Zed Books.
Portes, A., Castells, M., & Benton, L. A. (1989). The informal economy: Studies in advanced and less advanced developed countries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Potts, D. (2008). The urban informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa: From bad to good (and back again). Development Southern Africa, 25(2), 151–167.
Potts, D. (2013) Urban livelihoods and urbanization trends in Africa: winners and losers? Environment, Politics and Development Working Paper Series Number 57. Kings College. London.
Roy, A., & AlSayyad, N. (2004). Urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shand, W. (2014). Growing up on the streets – Understanding the lives of street children and youth in Africa. In S. Ibrahim & M. Tiwari (Eds.), The capability approach from theory to practice (pp. 73–92). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Silvey, R. (2001). Migration under crisis: Household safety nets in Indonesia’s economic collapse. Geoforum, 32(1), 33–45.
Simone, A. (2004). For the city yet to come: Changing African life in four cities. Durham: Duke University Press.
Skinner, C. (2008). The struggle for the streets: Processes of exclusion and inclusion of street traders in Durban, South Africa. Development Southern Africa, 25(2), 227–242.
Sommers, M. (2010). Urban youth in Africa. Environment and Urbanization, 22(2), 317–332.
Thorsen, D. (2013). Weaving in and out of employment and self-employment: Young rural migrants in the informal economies of Ouagadougou. International Development Planning Review, 35(2), 203–218.
Tranberg Hanson, K. (2008). Youth and the city in the global south. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
UN. (1989). Convention on the rights of the child. New York: United Nations.
Ursin, M. (2012). The city is ours: The temporal construction of dominance among poor young men on the street in a Brazilian elite neighbourhood. Journal of Latin American Studies, 44(3), 467–493.
van Blerk, L. (2008). Poverty, migration and sex work: Youth transitions in Ethiopia. Area, 40(2), 245–253.
van Blerk, L. (2009). Young commercial sex workers in Ethiopia: Linking migration, sex work and AIDS. In P. Aggleton, M. Haour-Knipe, & F. Thomas (Eds.), Mobility, sexuality and AIDS. London: Routledge.
van Blerk, L. (2012). Berg-en-See street boys: Merging street and family relationships in Cape Town, South Africa. Children’s Geographies: Special Issue on Family Relationships, 10(3), 321–335.
van Blerk, L. (2013). New street geographies: The impact of urban governance on the mobilities of Cape Town street youth. Urban Studies, Special Issue on Urban Youth Mobilities, 50(3), 556–573.
van Blerk, L., Shand, W., & Shanahan, P. (2017). Street children researchers: Critical reflections on a participatory methodological process in the growing up on the streets research in Africa. In R. Evans, L. Holt, & T. Skelton (Eds.), The Springer handbook of children’s geographies. New York: Springer.
Young, L. (2003). The place of street children in Kampala, Uganda: Marginalisation, resistance and acceptance in the urban environment. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21(5), 607–628.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this entry
Cite this entry
Shand, W., van Blerk, L., Hunter, J. (2015). Economic Practices of African Street Youth: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. In: Abebe, T., Waters, J., Skelton, T. (eds) Labouring and Learning. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-97-2_5-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-97-2_5-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Online ISBN: 978-981-4585-97-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences