Democracy Deferred: Working-Class Women, and Transport Injustice in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Topic of the paper is interesting, contemporary and worth researching. I suggest that in introduction of the paper you widen a little bit part on literature review with some theoretical background on accessibility of public transportation and with possible examples from some researches for other continents and not just Africa.

Also in the methodology we are missing data on number of people interviewed and surveyed in general, time when interviews were conducted and who conducted the interview. 

Also it is necessery to mark citations form interviewees by " " or italic since it is not very easy to follow the text wit all this quotations.

Finally I suggest a chapter of discussion since now we have results and conclusion but no real discussion.

Conclusion should be widened and should give an answer to research questions. This Conclusion looks more like a summary.

 

Author Response

 

May you please see the attached document under supplementary files

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, the paper contributes to evidencing the issues of working-class/low-income women who are dependent on public transport in Southern Africa/South Africa. It is policy relevant and makes reference to existing policies that in theory support women’s use of public transport, but are not achieving these objectives. It is important to highlight and discuss the failures of government, police, transport operators, employers, urban planners and other relevant stakeholders. Policy recommendations are required that are specific to the context, preferably national and city level. This last point could be developed further in the conclusion.

The article relies heavily on two articles. More could be considered e.g.:

Dunckel Graglia, A., 2016. Finding mobility: women negotiating fear and violence in Mexico City’s public transit system. Gender, Place & Culture, 23(5), pp.624-640.

Eagle, G. and Kwele, K., 2021. “You Just Come to School, If You Made It, Its Grace”: Young Black Women’s Experiences of Violence in Utilizing Public “Minibus Taxi” Transport in Johannesburg, South Africa. Journal of interpersonal violence, 36(15-16), pp.NP8034-NP8055.

Infante-Vargas, D. and Boyer, K., 2022. Gender-based violence against women users of public transport in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. Journal of Gender Studies, 31(2), pp.216-230.

Lubitow, A., Abelson, M.J. and Carpenter, E., 2020. Transforming mobility justice: Gendered harassment and violence on transit. Journal of transport geography, 82, p.102601.

Memela S., and Maharaj B. 2018: Refugees, Violence and Gender: The Case of Women in the Albert Park Area in Durban, South Africa. Urban Forum, 29(4): 429–443.

Peters D. 2000: Gender and transport in developing countries: A background paper in preparation for CSD-9. UNED Forum/German Federal Environment Ministry.

Sagaris, L. and Baker, L., 2024. New challenges arise from consolidation of gender, health and transport research. Journal of Transport & Health, 39, p.101902.

Uteng T.P. 2012. Gender and Mobility in the Developing World. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. Retrieved from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9111

Uteng T.P., and Lucas K. 2018: The trajectories of urban mobilities in the Global South: An introduction. In: Uteng T.P., and Lucas K. (eds) Urban Mobilities in the Global South. Routledge: 1–19.

1. p.6 “kids” – maybe language is a little informal, depending on journal preferences, but you could consider using children if a more formal approach is preferred by editors (and is used elsewhere in the article)
2. p.6. For style purposes, I think this could be removed “Below is one of these tricks.” And instead go straight into the quote: “Ayanda also explained how some of the robber’s trick people:”

Simelane's (2019) – is this in the same context/city/South Africa – would be good to note where this finding if from. Also, Mabaso (2019).

Regarding taxi wars S.Africa – some references:

Barrett, J. (2003). Organizing in the informal economy: A case study of the minibus taxi

industry in South Africa. SEED Working Paper No. 39. Geneva: International

Labour Office.

Dugard, J. (2001 May). From low intensity war to mafia war: Taxi violence in South

Africa (1987e2000) In Violence and transition series, Vol. 4. Johannesburg, South

Africa: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

 

With reference to the quote of violence on p7. and taking a trauma informed approach to research and publication, I’d encourage the author to consider adding a trigger warning to the beginning of the section perhaps with a page number, so they can skip over it if they wish (the taxi experience of the Spar worker). Also section on Sexual harassment p.8 – the examples given require a trigger warning given the level of violence in the content used. I wouldn’t encourage you to downplay data, but we need to remember many women (and men) have experienced sexual violence, including research users, and may want to avoid reading accounts that can trigger trauma.  

1. 7 “Liz noted that bus drivers are so rude that she thinks that they were once taxi drivers before applying to drive buses. This shows that there are similarities in how bus and taxi drivers behave.” – I’m not in favour of this statement about taxi-drivers/bus drivers behaviours – these are slightly skewed toward personal biases about professional identities. It’s alright to discuss issues of speeding in public transport and safety concerns that come about because of this. However, if this is used, would it be possible to give a balanced perspective? These workers speed because of economic entrepreneurial rationales and perhaps enabled by law enforcement conditions. For bus workers employed by a private company or government, there are sometimes penalties and incentives for them to speed (e.g. performance measured on keeping to a schedule which is not always possible with congestion and road works). Could it be commented instead that transport staff are sometimes offensive/unapproachable and this also contributes to women feeling unsafe and unsupported by staff? Rather than applying labels with characteristics (i.e. bus driver taxi driver).

E.g. for a balanced perspective see:

Agbiboa, D.E., 2017. ‘No Condition is Permanent': Informal Transport Workers and Labour Precarity in Africa's Largest City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40(5), pp.936-957.

Doherty, J., 2022. Motorcycle taxis, personhood, and the moral landscape of mobility. Geoforum, 136, pp.242-250.

Diaz Olvera, L., Guézéré, A., Plat, D. and Pochet, P., 2016. Earning a living, but at what price? Being a motorcycle taxi driver in a Sub-Saharan African city. Journal of Transport Geography,55, pp.165-174.

Doherty, J., 2017. Life (and limb) in the fast-lane: disposable people as infrastructure in Kampala’s boda boda industry. Critical African Studies, 9(2), pp.192-209.

 

Also on p.8 “However, some participants like Ayanda noted that some drivers are respectful even though most of them cannot behave.” – Most of them cannot behave is paternalistic language and best avoided or if these are the words of the participant, use a direct quote and do not paraphrase as these biases are creeping into the voice of the researcher, although this should remain neutral, balance, and objective.

p.7 repetition in sentence to remove (remove in her presence at the end of the sentence): “gets hijacked in her presence which is something that has never happened in her presence.”

p.8 This study results – This study’s results

in this section on sexual violence on p.8 – the narrative has revisited the previous section about speeding and staff behaviour. Could this go to the previous section and remove repetition/edit down if necessary. Keep this section relevant to the header. You could restructure to have a section on risky driving and driver behvaiour and then a section on violence, a section on gender based violence (sexual harassment and violence) or treat both as violence/crime as one section, but I’d advise separating those out to three themes.

1. 8 “She, however, noted that they do need training, so they can know how to respect women because some of them use the “F” word when talking to women” – consider adding and passengers of any gender? This representation of dainty women is a bit problematic and any passenger deserves respect – I’d advise gender sensitive training wouldn’t necessarily tell drivers not to swear in front of women, but would take the approach staff should be aware that being unapproachable, disrespectful unfriendly, contributes to women feeling unsafe and unsupported in the case of an incident.

p.9 and literature review – transport poverty

1. 9 - The study results also speak [s to the] reliability of public transport.

p.9 late normally around past six, - suggest “normally after 6 a.m.”

p.9 “and stop the system of increasing the bus fares during peak hours” –  suggest “and regulate against and/or introduce policies that avoid inflated peak hour surcharges for those who cannot afford public transport” (e.g. using subsidies, however in this context that may apply to all users and a blanket removal of surcharging may be more appropriate – fare capping)  

p.10 – age and life-course references

p.10 – as this section goes from affordability into time and reliability, I think the earlier section on division of labour and women being time poor of the first section could be moved to this section. Women are sensitive to time of transport journeys because of the additional domestic labour they are doing. There’s also trip chaining relevant to domestic labour that makes public transport particularly laborious for women (XXX). However, the women in this study don’t always have the choice to use taxi or to drive though because of the affordability issue, which you’ve discussed and could follow on as a separate section.

The conclusion needs developing further with additions of policy recommendations. They are suggested throughout the paper, but it’d be useful to bring them to the conclusion. What interventions would make the situation more suitable for women regarding security, cost, convenience? What would be most suitable to this city? There are many recommendations out there (e.g. Pederson is a useful: Pedersen, L., 2020. Moving bodies as moving targets: A feminist perspective on sexual violence in transit. Open Philosophy, 3(1), pp.369-388. ) – we could do with a steer from the author(s) given their expertise of the context.

Any reference to Porter, G., 2007. Transport planning in sub-Saharan Africa. Progress in development studies, 7(3), pp.251-257 for policy recommendations?

Also related to the taxis possibly worth considering:

Behrens, R., McCormick, D. and Mfinanga, D., 2016. Paratransit in African cities. Operations, regulation and reform.

Behrens, R., McCormick, D., Orero, R. and Ommeh, M., 2017. Improving paratransit service: Lessons from inter-city matatu cooperatives in Kenya. Transport Policy, 53, pp.79-88.

Jennings, G. and Behrens, R., 2017. The case for investing in paratransit: Strategies for regulation and reform.

Schalekamp, H. and Behrens, R., 2013. Engaging the paratransit sector in Cape Town on public transport reform: Progress, process and risks. Research in Transportation Economics, 39(1), pp.185-190.

Author Response

Kindly see attached document

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf