Negotiating Beitbridge: The politics of mobility in cross-border trade and labour between South Africa and Zimbabwe
2024
Malubane, Basetsane Eulenda Mikateko | Rink, Bradley
Mobility has many meanings besides a geographical movement of people, non-human animals, capital, objects, and information. It also refers to the different practices and subjectivities of movement. This study addresses the interconnectedness of mobility dynamics with the growing nature of cross-border trading and labour migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Scholarship on migration and mobilities view men as the sole breadwinners of households, overlooking the role of women in providing for their household. While the literature evidences growth of women in cross-border trading, little is known about women migrating to work as domestic labourers. This study aims to highlight women's narratives of both cross-border trading and labour migration to investigate their experiences negotiating mobility regimes and temporal migration trajectories from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Using ethnographic methods, this research gathers data through participant observations and semi-structured interviews. Analysed using Creswell’s politics of mobility, findings are intended to shed light on how female cross-border traders and labourers negotiate the mobilities that move their bodies, capital, and goods across the international border between Zimbabwe and South Africa in pursuit of their livelihoods. The concept of identity, mobilities and cross-border regimes in this study sheds light on the social differentiation that female’s cross-border traders and labourers go through amongst themselves and men.
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