Two recent publications dive into over a decade of research centered on South Africa’s minibus taxi sector. A Fork in the Road? The Formalisation of South Africa’s Minibus Taxi Industry and Blood on the Tar, Hope on the Horizon: South Africa’s Minibus Taxi Industry in Global Perspective examine topics like formalization, job instability, regulation, governance, violence, mobility, and social equity. Siyabulela Christopher Fobosi highlights how these works raise a significant question: whose knowledge is deemed valuable when seeking to understand and enhance African institutions?
Why are labels significant?
In South Africa, the minibus taxi sector is often characterized by words such as “informal,” “unregulated,” “illegal,” or “difficult to govern.” While these labels reflect certain truths, they also underscore serious issues like poor working conditions, exploitation, violence, and strife within the industry.
These terms might obscure another critical reality: the industry embodies a rich tapestry of knowledge, organization, and social practices cultivated by those who operate within and depend on it.
Taxi drivers possess extensive knowledge about their routes. Operators are keenly aware of the financial pressures impacting the industry. Marshals overseeing taxi ranks have the skills to coordinate taxis, manage lines, and guide passenger flow. Commuters are aware of the areas where the service excels and where it falters. Communities understand the daily implications of inadequate transportation.
The essential question isn’t whether this knowledge should supersede scientific, technical, or governmental knowledge—it should not. Instead, we should ask why it is often considered less authoritative.
This discussion brings African philosophy and epistemology into the spotlight, particularly regarding the exploration of knowledge and its validation.
Take, for example, the term “informal.”
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In South Africa, the minibus taxi sector is often classified as part of the informal economy. Yet, “informal” can effectively imply being disorganized, outdated, transient, or insufficient.
An institution can be informal without lacking organization.
What do your books explore?
The publications encompass sociology, politics, law, social work, and infrastructure, positioning the taxi industry within broader dialogues surrounding mobility, inequality, governance, and justice.
In Blood on the Tar, Hope on the Horizon, I assert that the hurdles facing the industry cannot merely be characterized as issues of criminality or disorder; they must be connected to historical deregulation, economic challenges, and governance failures.
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A Fork in the Road examines the formalization of South Africa’s minibus taxi sector within the context of its historical developments, labor relations, and its interactions with the state.
Instead of seeing formalization as solely a technical concern, it raises questions about what is gained, what is lost, and whose interests are prioritized when an informal institution is subjected to greater state regulation.
The industry comprises associations, social networks, rules, norms, hierarchies, and coordination mechanisms. Its organizational structure may not always align with the formal institutions favored by the state, but this doesn’t indicate a lack of structure.
This differentiation is vital.
If policymakers assume that informal institutions are merely incomplete renditions of formal ones, they risk ignoring the social frameworks that already ensure their effectiveness.
What would a better approach look like?
Instead of questioning how to formalize the taxi sector, we should investigate what formalization means in this specific African context and identify the existing knowledge within the industry that can guide its development.
Formalization initiatives have not consistently led to changes in workers’ experiences.
My research into the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme assessed its impact on precarious working conditions in Johannesburg’s minibus taxi industry. The program, intended to phase out older vehicles, demonstrated that merely updating vehicles or enforcing formal regulations does not inherently improve job safety. A policy can alter the physical landscape of an industry without necessarily transforming its social dynamics.
Institutions are lived experiences, continually re-constructed by people.
Consider a taxi driver with twenty years of experience in the field. This driver may lack formal qualifications in areas like transport planning, economics, or sociology, yet has accrued valuable insights from their lived experiences.
They may comprehend why passengers prefer specific routes, how informal agreements operate, how disputes are settled, how regulations affect their work, and why certain government initiatives succeed while others fail.
A marshal may have detailed knowledge of rank operations. A commuter may realize that a newly paved road remains unusable. An operator may understand economic pressures that are not captured in official statistics.
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Such knowledge should not be blindly accepted as truth. Experience can be partial, contradictory, or self-serving. However, it should not be disregarded simply because it does not derive from a university, government office, or consultancy.
Acknowledging individuals as knowers does not mean accepting all their claims. It involves recognizing their contributions to knowledge creation.
What about the issue of invisibility?
Even though millions of South Africans depend on the industry for mobility, those who facilitate that mobility often remain largely unrecognized in public policy discussions.
Workers can be invisible not just as laborers but also as creators of knowledge.
Their experiences become data exploited by others. Their stories are transformed into evidence interpreted by someone else. Their realities are frequently cast as policy challenges by external parties.
Mobility is crucial in shaping access to work, education, healthcare, and other opportunities. A transportation network can either entrench or mitigate inequality.
To grasp this inequality, we must listen to those enduring it directly.
African philosophy offers a valuable perspective, particularly through the concept of ubuntu, as seen in the work of South African philosopher Mogobe Ramose.
Ubuntu is often summed up in the phrase “I am because we are.” Its deeper philosophical ramifications focus on relationality: the belief that human existence and well-being are intricately linked to our relationships with others.
This viewpoint provides a distinct lens for analyzing the taxi industry.
What is the key takeaway from your work?
Africa ought not to be seen merely as a site where theories developed elsewhere are imposed; African realities are equally capable of producing theoretical insights.
A Fork in the Road? compels us to rethink our comprehension of formalization, informality, labor, and the taxi industry’s role within South Africa’s economy and society.
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Blood on the Tar, Hope on the Horizon links the taxi industry to broader themes of mobility, justice, citizenship, governance, and structural inequality. Its comparative approach emphasizes that the challenges confronting informal public transport are not unique to South Africa.
Together, these books demonstrate that the taxi sector is not just a transportation issue waiting to be resolved.
It acts as a springboard from which we can gain insights into South African society.
It reveals the limitations of oversimplified distinctions between formal and informal categories.
It highlights the challenges that come with state-centric governance models.
It shows how social networks can nurture both resilience and inequality.
It underscores that workers can be vital to the economy while being marginalized in institutional contexts.
And it emphasizes the importance of lived experiences in shaping policy.
African philosophy thus plays a crucial role in the ongoing discourse surrounding South Africa’s development.
Siyabulela Christopher Fobosi, Senior Researcher, UNESCO ‘Oliver Tambo’ Chair of Human Rights, University of Fort Hare, University of Fort Hare.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
