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Title
Learning for Livelihoods in the Global South Theoretical and Methodological Lenses on Skills and the Informal Sector
Size
300 pages
Language
English
Released
December 23, 2024
ISBN
9781032626475
Published by
Routledge
Book Info
Japanese Page
In this edited volume, Lesley Powell, Adam Cooper, Simon McGrath and I claim that dominant theories of learning as well as approaches to educational practice, policy-making, and research exhibit a ‘formality bias.’ By this, we mean that their main focal point is learning for the sake of waged employment in the formal sector of the economy (i.e. that part of the economy that is subject to government regulation). This neglects the fact that the majority of the world’s workers – particularly in the global South – find their livelihoods in the informal sector.
The chapters in this volume explore new ways of theorizing and conceptualizing learning for informal sector livelihoods, as well as offering critiques of existing theories, policies, and research fields. Rather than envisioning education and skills as oriented exclusively towards profit-making or increased productivity, the contributors offer fresh perspectives that move beyond the dominant neoliberal and human capital educational orthodoxies.
This book features chapters that are global in approach, with case studies from India, South Africa, West Africa, and Colombia. It focuses on how education can be used to empower people, strengthen livelihoods, and expand human agency, skills, personal growth, and the capability for voice.
(Written by Trent Brown, Associate Professor, Tokyo College / 2025)
Table of Contents
Professor Leon Tikly
List of editors and contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Youth, skills, and informal sectors in the Global South: theoretical and methodological lenses on learning and livelihoods
Adam Cooper, Trent Brown, Lesley Powell and Simon McGrath
PART 1. Theorising: rethinking the purpose of education and training
2. A relational capabilitarian approach for wellbeing livelihoods: reframing and making alternative education, skills, and work for young people
Joan Dejaeghere
3. Subsumption, alienation, and questions of meaning in informal sector skills training
Trent Brown
4. Supporting youth livelihoods in an informal “sub?ield” in the Global South
Adam Cooper
PART 2. Conceptualising: conceptual tools for understanding informal sector skill acquisition in practice
5. Shifting informal geographies and the hustle for a better future
David Monk and George Ladaah Openjuru
6. A typology of informal sector workers – heterogeneity and the complexity of skills development responses
Lesley Powell and Simon McGrath
7. The potential role of ICT in facilitating learning for livelihoods among informal apprentices in the automotive trade in Ghana
Joyceline Alla-Mensah and Eric Addae-Kyeremeh
8. Highly educated migrants in platform?mediated food delivery work in the Netherlands: the absent presence of skills and its social effects
Roy Huijsmans
PART 3. Critiquing: understanding constraints and weaknesses in dominant appro
9. Exploring ‘valuable’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes: perceptions of young people in an informal settlement in Pietermaritzburg
Thandi Gumbi and Anne Harley
10. Critiquing the concept of ‘self?reliance’ in informal sector training: a case study of Afghan refugee women in India
Namita Sharma and Preeti Dagar
11. Gendering decent work: rethinking the connections between informality, TVET, and gender through the ‘Decent Work’ agenda in Sierra Leone and Cameroon
Ross Wignall, Brigitte Piquard and Emily Joel
PART 4. Advocating: towards reform of policy and practice
12. Financing skills and lifelong learning in the informal sector
Robert Palmer
13. Exploring the intersectionality of green skills, innovation, and livelihoods in the informal economy in Harare, Zimbabwe
Tarisai Kudakwashe Manyati, Billy Kalima, Morgen Mutsau and Temitope J. Owolabi
14. Recognising Colombian waste pickers as public service providers and producers of knowledge
Federico Parra
PART 5. Concluding: moving forward
15. Skill and livelihoods: some concluding ideas
Simon McGrath
Related Info
‘Learning for informal sector livelihoods is highly relevant worldwide; yet, we know little about the topic from a scientific perspective. This book makes major contributions to closing this research gap. It is a “must read” for scholars and practitioners focused on skill acquisition in the Global South.’
Matthias Pilz, Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Cologne, Germany
Seminar:
CSAS seminar: Dr. Trent Brown, ‘Skill India in the Countryside: Expectations, Disappointments, and Possibilities’ (Center for South Asian Studies, Indian Ocean World Studies, 糖心破解版, South Asian Studies Center, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies May 19, 2923)
