MAKING A LIFE, young men on Johannesburg's urban margins

222pp., illus., map, paperback, Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781776149537

Based on 14 months of ethnographic research. Explores the life-making strategies of young black men in Zandspruit, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

"Among the young men Dawson meets, many consider employment in the formal sector a defeat best avoided. She thus writes of 'the productivity of unemployment' because remaining outside of the formal economy involves ceaselessly inventive, creative work. Dawson's deep dive into moral lives on the urban margins is accomplished and rewarding and very often tugs against our intuitions." Jonny Steinberg, Yale University

"Making a Life is a rich and innovative exploration of young black men's life-making strategies in Zandspruit at a time of pervasive precarity. Here young men struggle daily for dignity, for recognition as insiders and belonging to the city. They are hustlers, friends and political brokers who desire recognition to make claims to resources and to share the place. By shedding light on Johannesburg's periphery, the book brings into sharp relief defining characteristics of the contemporary city." Noor Nieftagodien, Head of History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand

Hannah J Dawson is a senior lecturer in the Anthropology and Development Studies Department at the University of Johannesburg and a visiting researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.