Structuring Legitimacy via Strategies of Leadership, Cooperation and Identity: The Comité de Motard Kisima's Engagement of Media and Communication for the Enactment of Motorcycle Taxi Work in Lubumbashi
2015
Hochschulschrift
Zugriff:
Motorcycle taxi workers are a relatively new phenomenon in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) informal public transportation sector. However, their ability to conduct work is challenged by a legacy of violence and hazards stemming from the role of motorcyclists in insurgent activities, robberies, as well as road traffic injuries and fatalities. Consequently, the country’s growing motorcycle taxi workforce operates in a largely unfavorable socio-political environment as mass mediated messages, public perceptions and governmental policies challenge their identity, legitimacy and ultimately their right to generate income through organized labor.An eleven-week ethnographic inquiry among the Comité de Motard Kisima (CMK) motorcycle taxi club of Lubumbashi, DRC produced data to inform this study. Structuration Theory, Grounded Theory, and Social Identity Theory were consulted as analytical frames to examine the methods employed by the CMK as they negotiate structures to legitimize their work-life. Grounded Theory analysis revealed that the CMK reproduces structures of leadership, cooperation and identity management to construct and relay their legitimacy in the DRC’s public transportation environment. Each structure is constituted by modalities and structural properties that impart meaning to the CMK’s perceptions and conceptualizations of legitimacy. The leadership structure constitutes legitimacy for the CMK as a means for account giving for citizenship; transformation and growth; active inclusivity, and proven integrity. The cooperation structure embodies legitimacy for the CMK as it facilitates criminal disembodiment and diplomacy. The identity management structure forges legitimacy for the CMK by way of story-making and the possibility of a Manseba movement. This study bears significance for entities tasked with maintaining relations with the DRC’s motorcycle taxi workers. It is also relevant to studies concerned with locating meaning in groups’ organizational structuring processes. Overall, it contributes to the growing body of work that examines the socio-political and economic intersections between daily spatial mobilities, public transportation and embodiment.
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Structuring Legitimacy via Strategies of Leadership, Cooperation and Identity: The Comité de Motard Kisima's Engagement of Media and Communication for the Enactment of Motorcycle Taxi Work in Lubumbashi
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Matthias, Nakia M. |
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Veröffentlichung: | 2015 |
Medientyp: | Hochschulschrift |
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