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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Transformation of Transnationality among Mozambican Migrants in South Africa |
Author: | Lubkemann, Stephen C. |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | Canadian Journal of African Studies |
Volume: | 34 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 41-63 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | South Africa Mozambique |
Subjects: | labour migration polygamy Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Urbanization and Migration |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/486105 |
Abstract: | The Machaze area of Mozambique has been dependent on outmigration since at least the turn of the century and labour migration to South Africa has played a key role in Machazian social reproduction. However, the reorganization of Machazian society during and since the Mozambican civil war has radically altered the structure and implications of Machazian migration and marriage strategies. Before the war, men's migration strategies were primarily implicated in community and kinship status politics. However, during the war, new strategies of transnational polygyny became more prominent. Polygyny is no longer merely a strategy by which men constitute their social status; rather, it has increasingly been developed through transnationalization into a strategy for them to deal with broader political instability and economic insecurity. The reconfiguration of polygyny as a tool for coping with these new challenges has fundamentally altered the structure of Machazian households and the meanings of marriage, migration, community and identity. This article focuses on how these changes have been perceived by, and have influenced the life strategies of, Machazian men. It draws on twenty months of research (1996-1998) among Mozambicans in Machaze district and in the Vaal townships of South Africa. Notes, ref., sum. in French. |