Human social networks and migration patterns in southwestern Zimbabwe into South Africa

Abstract

The issue of migration has remained one of the most pressing contemporary issues facing nation-states. To this extent it has become a topic of global, humanitarian, foreign and domestic affairs with some calling for open borders and pitying those who call for securitization of borders (closed border regime). With its focus on the migration of Zimbabweans from the southwest part of Zimbabwe into South Africa, this study joins an expanding corpus of literature that examines how and why Zimbabweans flock to South Africa. Departing from the conventional regional migration literature, this research relies on a unique case study. Furthermore, the study approaches this enduring migration through the sociological and human mobility lens by articulating the driving force and the accommodative factors underpinning the migration of Zimbabwe’s Southwesterners into South Africa. The study draws from a qualitative research approach consisting of life-world interviews, key informant interviews, observations, and informal interactions with migrants, border officials, historians, academics and ordinary citizens from both South Africa and Zimbabwe to gain a deeper understanding why Zimbabwean migrants from the southwest part migrate and settle with ease in South African communities. This is followed by a case study analysis and the analysis of grey literature (material). The study utilises a dyadic approach in considering the push and pull factors and the human social networks. The study findings establish that, although it is a truism that push and pull factors incentivise Zimbabweans (including those from the southwestern parts) to migrate to South Africa, this is not the salient factor. Human social networks play a key role in facilitating not only migration decision-making and journeys, but also the subsequent assimilation and integration into South African society. The study offers both a fine-grain and a granular perspective to understanding the migration patterns of people from the southwest part of Zimbabwe into South Africa through a deeper sociological lens. In doing so the study attends to the empirical and theoretical lacunae that exist in the extant studies, proving that it is somewhat easier for Zimbabweans from the southwest areas to migrate to South Africa owing to the long-standing historical, linguistic, cultural, and familial ties with ethnic groups in South Africa. Whilst contributing to the academic and policy discourse on migration, the study makes a greater plea for a deeper understanding of the human mobility-migration nexus through a wide range of factors including: structure-agency, political economy, securitisation, and bounded relations carved through shared history, culture, identity and human-social networks.