On a hot and humid afternoon in September 2011, I sit with Sizwe and his neighbour Lucas on the street corner at the main pedestrian entrance to Zandspruit. ‘It’s hard to find yourself a nice life,’ Sizwe tells me, describing how young people like him ‘have talent’ but do not know the ‘right people’ to get ahead. ‘If the government doesn’t make sure that people get enough employment,’ he continues, ‘nothing is going to work out.’ Unemployment, he implies, is ‘why people end up in jail − getting years for nothing’. Sizwe is 27 and spends most of his time on this street corner where he meets with a group of friends in their mid-twenties and early thirties. On a typical day, the men gather to gamble, drink, discuss politics, and endlessly scheme ways to make money. ‘I won’t say if I’m working or not,’ Sizwe tells me when I ask about his employment status, ‘but I’m always busy doing lots of activities.’

Sizwe has held two jobs in the formal labour market: he worked weekends at a nearby garden nursery before dropping out of school and as a private security guard for a luxury housing estate a few years later. He left both jobs within six months. Working as a security guard confirmed Sizwe’s suspicion that most of the jobs available to him not only pay little but offer few, if any, pathways to the life he wants. Sizwe does not spend his time looking for wage employment in the surrounding factories, office parks, and shopping malls that attract large numbers of migrants into the area; nor does his livelihood revolve around any one specific activity. Instead, he pursues multiple strategies simultaneously and fosters a wide web of social relations.

I quickly discover that asking whether someone is employed or working is not a useful question for understanding how people sustain themselves. ‘In reality, you cannot just sit and do nothing,’ Lucas tells me, describing how ‘everyone is running around doing their thing’. ‘Some are playing dice [an informal gambling game] and living out of that’, and others are ‘working at night’ – a term that refers to those who make their money through criminal activity. Still others are ‘working in politics’, and some, he continues, ‘rely on their girlfriends or family ’cause they’re working’.