SOCIAL STRATEGIES IN PETTY PRODUCTION: THREE SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES IN URBAN SUDAN.

摘要

This is a field study of the social organization of production in the "informal sector" of urban Sudan, Khartoum and Omdurman. Three skilled trades, tailoring, carpentry, and metalworking, were selected for study because of their ubiquity in the urban economy and the relative complexity of their manufacturing strategies. The debates in the literature on this topic relate to the nature of this form of production, whether it is to be considered the result of "dependent development," or as a possible foundation for industrialization. A triangulated research design of participant observer, survey, and documentary methods was used to study the organization of these small scale industries, with an emphasis on the qualitative approach in order to elicit the subtle patterns of differentiation that are emerging in production. This method produces a disaggregated view of a part of society that has usually been viewed as a homogeneous structure.; Case studies of tailoring, carpentry, and metalworking identify production patterns that are common to all three trades. Tailoring, its means of production relatively easy to obtain, is experiencing a transformation from made-to-order to ready-made production in clothing. Carpenters and metalworkers, their skills and equipment more difficult to obtain, also report dramatic changes in the way they organize their workshops. The latter two trades are using less family labor and depending more on wage labor than they were in the recent past.; The increasing levels of wage employment available to workers in the trades and the role of apprenticeship training in small scale production are also described. Employee and apprentice roles are converging as the opportunities for apprentices to succeed to independent entrepreneurship become more rare as capital is concentrated in fewer workshops. The study concludes with a discussion of the potential of small scale industries to ease the burgeoning demand for work in urban Africa.; The study contributes to an understanding of a fundamental part of urban life in Sudan. The strategies used by the majority of the urban population to meet their important needs for employment and income are found to be diverse and dependent on access to a variety of social resources.