article · African Diaspora
Zimbabwean migration to South Africa has evolved from the era of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association to current times, creating a lasting paradox within the regional economy. Migrants remain economically indispensable yet face ongoing disposability characterised by xenophobic violence, precarious legal conditions, and social exclusion. Their lived experiences reflect a sustained struggle for recognition against entrenched systemic marginalisation. Beyond socioeconomic considerations, this condition represents a philosophical tension encompassing freedom and constraint, visibility and erasure, and the pursuit of survival alongside human dignity. Addressing these dynamics requires a fundamental shift in migration policies and public discourse. Rather than treating migrant workers solely as transient economic units, regional frameworks must recognise them as human beings navigating complex personal and social trajectories across Southern Africa.
Understanding the long historical trajectory of regional migration sheds light on persistent xenophobia and legal precarity in Southern Africa. Reframing migrants as human beings rather than temporary labour units provides policymakers and civil society organisations with a moral and conceptual foundation to reform migration frameworks, support social integration, and protect human dignity across borders.
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Abstract This study interrogates the historically constituted modes of being of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa, tracing their trajectories from the WENELA (Witwatersrand Native Labour Association) era to the present. It foregrounds the paradox of migrants as indispensable to South Africa’s economy yet rendered disposable through xenophobic violence, precarious legal status, and social exclusion. At the same time, it examines migrants’ lived experiences as a struggle for recognition in the face of systemic marginalization. It argues that the fate of Zimbabwean migrants is not merely a socioeconomic question but a philosophical one, revealing the tension between freedom and constraint, visibility and erasure, survival and dignity. Ultimately, the paper calls for a rethinking of migration policies and discourses that acknowledges migrants not as transient labor units but as human beings engaged in a dialectic of becoming in Southern Africa’s contested social landscape.
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DOI: 10.1163/18725465-bja10056
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