Where is my home? Rethinking person, family, ethnicity and home under increased transnational migration by Zimbabweans

Abstract

This article is premised on the idea that Zimbabweans have had a fractured concept of home along historical, spatial, political, racial, ethnic and personal lines – indeed, a multidimensional intersection of all these factors. Psychic tension induced by the poverty of home pre- and post-independence is examined alongside personal ambition in the context of migration. Language and education, two key determinants that have impacted on the migration experiences of Zimbabweans, are also explored. An argument is made that increased transnational migration has had an ambiguous effect on the concept of Zimbabwe as home. On the one hand, there is a confirmation of enduring ethnic and political rifts, and on the other, what appears to be the dissolution of these fissures. Thus, the collective trauma of Zimbabweans at one level perpetuates and, at another, reconfigures associational life between different ethnic groups, suggesting a trans-ethnic identity characterised by weakened class structures. The article also discusses how at a most personal level, transnational migration has affected Zimbabweans.

Keywords:

• Zimbabwe
• transnational migration
• home
• belonging
• ethnicity