Moving Bodies: Omalayitsha, Transnational Practices, and the Embodying of Movement between South Western Zimbabwe and South Africa

Citizenship and Ethnic Relations: Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives

Abstract

This project examines circular movement in Southern Africa in the context of entrepreneurship, multiple logics of legitimacy, and everyday interaction between travelers and state functionaries. The project builds on the ideas of the human economy and embodiment as a way to investigate how movement can be understood by those that are involved in its everyday practice. The projects specifically focuses on the practice of private transporting of goods, people and ideas between South-Western Zimbabwe and South Africa. A focus on practices of movement has some implications for the understanding of migration in Southern Africa, of economic livelihoods and of the continued development of the African state in general.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship, Migration, Transnational, Private transporting, Circular movement