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ABSTRACT
This article discusses the negotiation of undocumented cross-border movement, or assisted border crossings, at Beitbridge, South Africa’s border with Zimbabwe. By reading border practices as arising from a complex synthesis of state regulatory norms with social relations that shape everyday encounters with the Beitbridge border space, the article argues that assisted border crossings are temporally, structurally and experientially determined. The article proposes the local concept of ukutshokotsha as a way of understanding “border struggles” that shape this “morphogenesis.” Located in historical, regional, political-economic, as well as experiential contexts, assisted border crossings are analyzed as rooted in everyday encounters with a fraught border space, as opposed solely to the border’s official institutional norms. The article argues that a focus on border practices is important in as far as it privileges the complex agency of disparate border actors, of the border, and of the shifting meanings of borders that emerge from everyday practices. By describing the colonial style “illicit labour recruiting” and post-independence “assisted border crossings” as a socio-historical, phenomenological, and political process, the article emphasizes the active role of middlemen in shaping the nature and meaning of the Beitbridge border and of the political economic organization of cross-border movement in contemporary Southern Africa. The article argues that the social politics of movement across the Beitbridge border is as much a contingency of history, a material, social and existential aspect of contemporary border practices, and a characteristic of everyday forms of Southern African state formation in a general context of socio-economic crisis.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Literally translated; at uncle’s place. Underlying this descriptor is a significant message about the orientation of this space towards the social relations that are built around various forms of negotiation, conviviality and familiarity both in the quest to accelerate customs clearance procedures, the wilful pursuit of delays, and the social economies that these relations generate. I acknowledge the generous financial support for this research from REMESO, Linköping University; the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala University, as well as Sparbanksstiftelsen Alfa in Norrköping, Sweden.
2 Private transporters are called omalayitsha (plural) by the people they serve. A private transporter is called umalayitsha. Nevertheless, they call themselves and the people in their networks impisi, or hyenas, as an endearment as well as a descriptor of the embodied practices of negotiating passage at the border, and their transporting business in general. I detail the conceptual importance of impisi in later paragraphs.
3 Bakkie means a light truck in Afrikaans, and is a popular name used in this business.
4 See, for instance, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g293759-s602/Zimbabwe:Crossing.The.Border.html.
5 The empirical material used in this article is partly based on a survey of archival records at the South African National Archives (SANA) in Pretoria, and the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) in Bulawayo and Harare. This is complemented by a survey of authors who have published on similar archival records, such as Maxim Bolt (Citation2011), Alan Jeeves (Citation1983, Citation1985), and Martin Murray (Citation1995).
6 The exact numbers of undocumented migrants in South Africa are impossible to ascertain, although speculation of a number between 2.5 and 4 million strong has long been debated in academia, politics and the media. See (Minnar, Hough, and de Kock Citation1996; Oucho Citation2006; Segatti and Landau Citation2011).
7 Borrowed from Jonathan Anjaria (Citation2011), proximity is a way of understanding interaction between state officials and private citizens in the context of behavior that regulatory norms may designate as “illegal” practices. Proximity suggests that as opposed to seeing such practices as characterized by conflict, they should be seen as a way by which marginal populations navigate and secure claims within a fraught landscape.
8 These numbers are from Zimbabwe and the rest of the sub-Saharan region. See (Amit Citation2015).
9 According to Finmark Trust (Citation2012) over US$1 billion equivalent of remittances from South Africa to Zimbabwe were recorded in 2011. If undeclared remittances are included, and with the passage of time, it is reasonable to suggest that this number could be much higher. See also (Nyoni Citation2011; Thebe Citation2011).
10 Currently, over 370,000 trucks, 26,000 busses, 7,400,000 travelers, and 640,000 cars cross the Beitbridge border on an annual basis, factoring in an average of 33–45-hour transit time across the border (Trollip Citation2013). Given the place of graft in official legers, the actual numbers are presumably higher. Nevertheless, the numbers mean only a part of the actual interactions that take place at Beitbridge, whether within the official gates or outside.
11 NAZ S428/469/1939 Draft letter from The Chief Native Commissioner to the South African Secretary for Native Affairs, 15 May 1918.
12 Latitude 22 degrees was promulgated as part of the 1913 Aliens Control Act, in which Africans from within the tropic of Capricorn, including South Africans from the Venda homelands, were legally barred from traveling southwards in search for work.
13 SANA TAB GNLB 43 984 “Suggestion that the District around Messina mine be closed for Recruiting.” Acting Secretary to local Board, Messina, to Director of Native Affairs, Johannesburg, 13 March 1912.
14 NAZ S1226, “Native Labour”, circular letter to all CID stations, 28 February 1939. The latter at one point makes an explicit connection between the South African Chamber of Mines and recruiters of the Limpopo.
15 SANA TAB HKN 1/1/52 17N3/20/2 “Foreign Farm Scheme Louis Trichardt Main File.”
16 SAB NTS 2025 26/80 2598/14/473. Report no. 56/13/405, submitted to the Native Commissioner, Pietersburg on 13 August 1913.
17 NAZ S1226, Minute by Assistant Commissioner, CID, Bulawayo, 20 June 1942. From my experience and research, this “trick” was still in use as late as 2003, when I myself used it to get a visa to travel to South Africa on holiday.
18 NAZ S1226, NCO i/c, Kezi BSA Police to Assistant Commissioner, BSA Police, Bulawayo, 10 July 1942.
19 NAZ S1226, Report to the Native Detective, Musimane, 27 October 1939; S482/509/39, “Clandestine Migration of Natives to the Union”: general Summary, Sub Inspector Robotham, 5/1/45, 3 January 1945.
20 SANA TAB HKN 1/1/52 17N3/20/2 “Depots: Foreign Labour Recruiting Scheme.” Secretary of Native Affairs to Chief Native Officer, Pietersburg, 10 July 1947.
21 SANA TAB HKN 1/1/52 17N3/20/2 “Farm Labour Scheme: Special Instructions for the Native Commissioner, Louis Trichardt”. Secretary of Native Affairs to Chief Native Commissioner, Northern Areas, 3 March 1947.
22 SANA TAB HKN 1/1/51 17N3/20/2 “Foreign Labour Recruitment Scheme – Louis Trichardt.” Secretary for Native Affairs to Commissioner, South African police, 18 April 1953.
23 The article approaches make-belief as the largely invisible ways in which travelers use “sly civility” as a strategy of false compliance (Bhabha Citation1994, in Nyers Citation2015, 29). It also demonstrates how undocumented movement is negotiated at the border through alternative social codes, as well as how both omalayitsha and holder-less passports rely “vernacular forms of legal knowledge in which the passport is embedded” (Cabot Citation2012, 20) as an ethics of illegibility (following from Roitman’s Citation2006 ethics of illegality) to re-inscribe themselves into the border enforcement matrix, and thus creatively assert their agency in movement.