Informal moves, informal markets: International migrants and traders from Mzimba District, Malawi

International migration from Malawi has changed profoundly sincecentrally organized mine migration to South Africa ended inthe 1980s. Contemporary movements are more diverse and lesstied to labour, as informal trade has developed alongside. Thisarticle replaces a common ‘productivist’ perspectiveon migration with a decentralized approach, using ethnographicobservation and anthropological case studies to understand interrelatedflows of people and goods. It shows how in an emergent informalmarket for South African goods in Mzimba, Malawi, price informationdoes not structure trade practices. Historical continuitiesin the socio-cultural organization of illegal migration, ratherthan liberalized market forces, shape this economic configuration,including price formation. The research for this article was financed by the NetherlandsFoundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO).Data were collected in Mzimba district, Lilongwe, Blantyre (Malawi),and Johannesburg (South Africa) in the period from April 2004to March 2005. ^1. Samir Amin, ‘Underdevelopment and dependence in BlackAfrica: historical origin’, Journal of Peace Research9, 2 (1972), pp. 106, 115.^2. David A. McDonald, Lephophotho Mashike, and Celia Golden, ‘Thelives and times of African migrants and immigrants in post-apartheidSouth Africa’, in David A. McDonald (ed.), On Borders:Perspectives on international migration in southern Africa (St.Martin’s Press, New York, 2000), pp. 168–95.^3. In the 1990s, migration to South Africa has expanded enormously,and alongside it, regional trade. See Jonathan Crush and DavidA. McDonald, ‘Transnationalism, African immigration, andnew migrant spaces in South Africa: an introduction’,Canadian Journal of African Studies 34, 1 (2000), p. 2. Theincrease in regional trade is difficult to quantify as muchof this trade is informal in nature and does not appear in officialfigures.^4. See, among others, Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves, and David Yudelman,South Africa’s Labor Empire: A history of black migrancyto the gold mines (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1991).^5. Dunbar Moodie, Going for Gold: Men, mines, and migration (Universityof California Press, Berkeley, 1994).^6. Harold Wolpe, ‘Capitalism and cheap labour-power in SouthAfrica: from segregation to apartheid’, Economy and Society1, 4 (1972), p. 433.^7. For an example of this phenomenon in another context, see JensA. Andersson, ‘Administrators’ knowledge and statecontrol in colonial Zimbabwe: the invention of the rural–urbandivide in Buhera district, 1912–80’, Journal ofAfrican History 43, 1 (2002), pp. 119–43.^8. See the numerous interesting studies published by the SouthernAfrican Migration Project (URL: http://www.queensu.ca/samp).^9. Hopes for a re-opening of TEBA remained alive, though, and werefed by election promises in Malawi’s first multipartyelections in 1994. See among others ‘More light on TEBA;not in UDF manifesto’, Malawi News, 5–11 November1994, p. 4. See also Wiseman C. Chirwa, ‘The Malawi governmentand South African labour recruiters, 1974–92’, Journalof Modern African Studies 34, 4 (1996) pp. 623–42; WisemanC. Chirwa, ‘ "No TEBA. . . forget TEBA": the plight ofMalawian ex-migrant workers to South Africa, 1988–1994’,International Migration Review 31, 3 (1997), pp. 628–54.^10. Chirwa, ‘The Malawi government’, p. 627; JonathanCrush, ‘Migrations past: an historical overview of cross-bordermovement in southern Africa’, in David A. McDonald (ed.),On Borders, p. 15. Labour recruiting agencies competing forlabour in (colonial) Malawi were the Witwatersrand Native LabourAssociation (WNLA), and the (Southern) Rhodesian Native LabourBureau (RNLB). The agencies were later renamed as The EmploymentBureau of Africa (TEBA) and the Rhodesian Native Labour SupplyCommission, respectively.^11. F.E. Sanderson, ‘The development of labour migration fromNyasaland, 1891–1914’, Journal of African History2, 2 (1961), pp. 259–71; G. Coleman, ‘Internationallabour migration from Malawi, 1875–1966’, Journalof Social Science (University of Malawi) 2 (1972), pp. 31–46;Robert B. Boeder, Malawians abroad: The history of labor emigrationfrom Malawi to its neighbors 1890 to the present (PhD thesis,Michigan State University, Ann Arbor, 1974).^12. Robert E. Christiansen and Jonathan G. Kydd, ‘The returnof Malawian labour from South Africa and Zimbabwe’, Journalof Modern African Studies 21, 2 (1983), p. 311.^13. Ibid, p. 324.^14. J.K. van Donge, ‘Disordering the market: the liberalisationof burley tobacco in Malawi in the 1990s’, Journal ofSouthern African Studies 28, 1 (2002), p. 105. This is not tosay that tobacco production solely relies on migrant labour.^15. In the period 1977–1998, average annual intercensal growthrates in rural areas were highest in tobacco-producing areassuch as Kasungu District (4.4 percent) in the Central Region,and Traditional Authority (TA) Mpherembe (5.3 percent) in MzimbaDistrict in the Northern Region. Lowest growth rates were concentratedin the poor and densely populated southern districts, such asChiradzulu (1.4), Mulanje (1.6), Phalombe (1.5), and Thyolo(1.7). See Figure 2.^16. In western Mzimba, and possibly elsewhere in the Northern regionwhere average education levels are higher than in the rest ofMalawi, people look down upon labouring in the low-paid tobaccosector. For figures on education levels, see T. Benson, J. Kaphuka,S. Kanyanda, and R. Chinula, Malawi: An atlas of social statistics(National Statistical Office of Malawi/IFPRI, Zomba/Washington,2002), p. 51.^17. Bridget O’Laughlin, ‘Missing men? The debate overrural poverty and woman-headed households in Southern Africa’,Journal of Peasant Studies 25, 2 (1998), p. 10.^18. ‘91 Malawians deported’, The Daily Times, 9 December1994, p. 1. This is not to suggest that the South African governmentdid not deport Malawians before 1994. See Boeder, Malawiansabroad, p. 155, for an example from the 1930s.^19. Information obtained by the author from the Malawian consulatein Johannesburg, South Africa, March 2005.^20. Before 1994, transport in Malawi was highly problematic as government-controlledbus services were limited. With liberalization, matola (pick-upsand lorries) greatly improved rural transport, while minibusservices and foreign bus companies facilitated respectivelyrural–urban and international mobility. Exchanging foreigncurrency was equally problematic before liberalization; withouta passport and proof of recent travel, banks could refuse toexchange.^21. Deanna Swaney, Mary Fitzpatrick, Paul Greenway, Andrew Stone,and Justin Vaisutis, Lonely Planet Southern Africa (Lonely Planetpublications, London, 2003), p. 222.^22. Zimbabwe’s decreased popularity is also evidenced by thenumerous Zimbabwe-born youths of Malawian descent waiting forthe processing of a Malawian passport at the Department of Immigrationin Blantyre.^23. The persistence of unequal sex distributions in the extremenorth of the country is a further indication of the popularityof Tanzania as a destination for, especially, male migrants(see Figure 2).^24. Mzimba’s transport sector thus emerged before economicliberalization. In the 1980s, some South Africans started thebusiness by investing in vehicles and using Mzimba drivers.By the early 1990s, the South Africans had left the businessaltogether and Malawians took their place.^25. R.R. Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire,Vol. II: East-Africa (Oxford University Press, London, 1949),pp. 564–68; Leroy Vail and Landeg White, ‘Tribalismin the political history of Malawi’, in Leroy Vail (ed.),The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (James Currey,London, 1989), pp. 151–92; Leroy Vail, ‘The makingof the "Dead North": a study of the Ngoni rule in northern Malawi,c. 1855–1907’, in J. B. Peires (ed.) Before andafter Shaka: Papers in Nguni history (Institute of Social andEconomic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1978), pp.230–67.^26. John McCracken, Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 1875–1940(CLAIM, Blantyre, 2000), p. 152. See also Sanderson, ‘Thedevelopment of labour migration’, p. 260.^27. For instance, figures for the 1930s suggest that fewer Malawianswere working in mining related jobs (recruited through WNLA)than in other sectors of the South African economy, notablydomestic services and industry. See Boeder, Malawians abroad,p. 168.^28. Interview with Charles Makamo, Mzimba district, 16 July 2004.For an earlier account of Malawian migrants’ travel problems,see E.P. Makambe, ‘The Nyasaland African labour "Ulendo"to Southern Rhodesia and the problem of the "highwaymen," 1903–1923’,African Affairs 79, 317 (1980), pp. 548–66.^29. Interview with Charles Makamo, Mzimba district, 16 July 2004.^30. Records of the Employment Service Division of the MGLR suggestthat entering into official labour contracts when already inSouth Africa was common in the early 1970s. The numerous ‘typical’Ngoni, Tumbuka, and Tonga names (such as Jere, Makamo, Kumwenda,Chirwa) appearing on these lists further suggest that, in particular,migrants from northern Malawi were familiar with this procedure.Malawi National Archives, file: 14 ESD/SU/34, Lists of Malawiansentering into contracts of employment, 1969–1975.^31. The aim of anthropological case studies — also referredto as the ‘case-study method’ — is not topresent representative cases, but to illuminate wider socialpatterns and processes through the study of the particular.Here, the cases are used to illustrate the social processesat work in new social phenomena. See Max Gluckman, ‘Ethnographicdata in British social anthropology’, The SociologicalReview 9 (1961), pp. 5–17.^32. Malawians advertise their services in daily newspapers or neighbourhoodweeklies, under categories such as ‘domestic workers’or ‘gardeners’. Often they explicitly state theirMalawian origin.^33. This development seems to be confirmed by population figures(see Figure 2): TA M’Mbelwa in western Mzimba was Malawi’sonly TA where male absenteeism increased in the period 1987–98.^34. In 2004, all booking-offices in Mzimba district have been closed.Stories of cheating transporters who suddenly disappear withthe money paid in advance have made people more cautious.^35. The term is seen locally as a reference to the brand name —Caterpillar — of big ground-work machinery used for roadconstruction.^36. Alongside the market for South African goods thus developedan informal money-transfer market, as illegal immigrants haveno access to South Africa’s banking system. Transporterscarry cash remittances of migrants, while migrant businessmenhave set up more sophisticated money transfer systems, operatingsimilarly to official agencies such as Western Union (whichdoes not operate in South Africa).^37. Lindela is a repatriation centre near Johannesburg for illegalimmigrants awaiting deportation. See SAHRC, Lindela at the Crossroadsfor Detention and Repatriation: An assessment of the conditionsof detention (South African Human Rights Commission, Johannesburg,2000).^38. For example, an ongoing survey among international bus passengersleaving Lilongwe for Johannesburg indicates that 61 percentof the travellers originating from Mzimba district (n = 294),expects to be accommodated by a relative upon arrival.^39. Due to lack of uniformity in the products traded, reliable pricecomparisons between the Johannesburg and Mzimba markets aredifficult to make. Common model mobile phones, such as the Nokia3310, are an exception. In 2005, a used Nokia 3310 fetched some300–400 rands in Johannesburg, which amounts to 5,700–7,600Malawian kwacha. In Mzimba, these phones are usually sold for5,000–6,000 kwacha.