Working around exclusive infrastructure – African workers and their families navigating race and gender on Rhodesia Railways, 1945–1964

Abstract

This paper explores the myriad ways African railwaymen and their families negotiated their existence on the Rhodesia Railways. Through racial and gendered differentiation of its labour force, the Rhodesia Railways fostered an exclusive work and home environment that resulted in restricted and regulated access to certain jobs, benefits and accommodation. However, Africans worked around these limitations through strikes and other more creative, sometimes illegal ways. The paper shifts away from histories of imperial railways and their significance in colonial projects and adds to studies that examine their effects on the colonised. By focusing on African railwaymen and their families, we argue that the various grievances and demands presented to the Rhodesia Railways had to do with issues of gender and social reproduction. Due to the inextricable link between the workplace and the home created by Rhodesia Railways, grievances in railway accommodation at times directly affected railway operations.