Taken For A Ride

To appreciate Rizzo's Taken for a Ride one must first understand what he has done methodologically. Rizzo embeds public transport in urban Tanzania in a series of relationships with other elements of Tanzanian politics, economics and society. We find that public transport has to be understood in its connection with Tanzania's socialist policies of the 1960s, but also to the IMFs structural adjustment policies of the 1980s. We get the views of politicians as well as of drivers and the passengers. Each element is animated and rendered a part of a larger whole so that by the end of it all we get the picture of a living history of urban Tanzania, with its highs, lows, and many contradictions. The research is astonishing in its range, the writing vivid and clear, and the end result is an insightful and superb contribution to African and Global South urban studies. * Ato Quayson, New York University, author of Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism * This is an extraordinarily accomplished work of scholarship bringing together painstaking fieldwork and a contextual understanding of workers' struggles in the Tanzanian public transport industry. It does so by admirably locating the case study in broader debates around neoliberalism and the urban experience in the South, economic informality, and the continuing relevance and potential of labour movements for winning progressive outcomes for workers themselves and for economic and social development more broadly. * Ben Fine, SOAS, University of London, UK * Rizzo paints a graphic picture of the insecurity and exploitation of those working on the privately owned buses on which most of the population of Dar es Salaam depend for their local transport. He then shows how international capital - World Bank money allied to the manufacturers of buses, with support from the Tanzanian elite - developed a new monopoly system of buses running on dedicated routes. Any study that describes developments in public transport in a rapidly growing African city is valuable, but this also breaks new ground theoretically as a study of the political economy of the urban informal sector. * Andrew Coulson, author of Tanzania: A political economy * This book has a unique focus on labour experiences and relations in urban transport in Tanzania. Rizzo makes visible and gives a voice to the tens of thousands of informal workers who keep a city moving every day. Workers' stories bring to life the hardships, but also the incredible resilience and determination to secure a better livelihood through union organization and struggle. Rizzo provides a deep and detailed account of the impacts of neoliberal transport policy, including BRT, on labour. For trade unionists, this book provides the deep analysis and ideas needed to strengthen strategic organization, campaigning, and policy development. * Alana Dave, International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), Head of Our Public Transport Programme * In this theoretically clear and absorbing monograph, Matteo Rizzo makes sense of the often hidden, neglected but still critical relationship of transport workers to employers on the buses of the burgeoning city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over forty years. Rizzo's skilful fieldwork and his very intelligentand hard-hitting - critique of market fundamentalist and postcolonial approaches to the African city and to the informal economy are a breath of fresh air. This book will be important to scholars and students in urban studies, political economy, development, and African studies. * Bill Freund, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa * Taken for a Ride is an exciting and innovative contribution to the emerging field of African labour studies. Through substantial field work and a sophisticated critique of market fundamentalism and post colonial theory, Matteo Rizzo brings vividly to life the struggles of public transport workers in the sprawling African coastal city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Carefully avoiding both a romantic optimism and a bland structural pessimism, the author shows how a shared notion of exploitation was constructed amongst the divided transport workers and a new trade union controlled by informal workers was born. * Edward Webster, Professor Emeritus, University of Witwatersrand * To appreciate Rizzo's Taken for a Ride one must first understand what he has done methodologically. Rizzo embeds public transport in urban Tanzania in a series of relationships with other elements of Tanzanian politics, economics and society. We find that public transport has to be understood in its connection with Tanzania's socialist policies of the 1960s, but also to the IMFs structural adjustment policies of the 1980s. We get the views of politicians as well as of drivers and the passengers. Each element is animated and rendered a part of a larger whole so that by the end of it all we get the picture of a living history of urban Tanzania, with its highs, lows, and many contradictions. The research is astonishing in its range, the writing vivid and clear, and the end result is an insightful and superb contribution to African and Global South urban studies. * Ato Quayson, New York University * ...the book is definitely a stimulating account of informal public transport provisions in a Southern city, helping its readers to unpack conventional understandings of both public transport and informality. * Gaurav Mittal, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography * One of the more impressive aspects of this book is that it manages to situate the opening up of transport in Dar es Salaam in two ways: 1) as part of the broader global ascent of neoliberalism, and 2) as part of the more specific political economy of Tanzania. * Martin Walsh, Tanzanian Affairs *