Transactional and Supplementary Strategies for Accessing Land Among Migrants on the Margins: An Ethnographic Study Among Malawian Migrants at Lydiate Informal Settlement, Zimbabwe

Abstract

This chapter examines the various transactional and supplementary strategies adopted by migrants on the margins to access much-coveted land. Situated in transnational theory, the study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Lydiate, a peri-urban informal settlement of Norton town, a secondary city in Zimbabwe. The study revealed that left alone, marginalised migrants in secondary cities resort to transactions in the form of inheritance, purchase, and rentals based on fictive kin. They also affiliate with modern political patrons, traditional leaders, and investors in accessing land. In other instances, migrants turn to supplementary strategies such as using occult, witchcraft, and land seizures to secure land. However, supplementary strategies are measures of last resort. The study concludes that informal settlements in secondary cities emerge as ‘hyperactive’ spaces with novel forms of authority that regulate access and security over resources for urban settlement and production. It also emerges as a zone of conviviality, where people deploy time and affection in generating resources necessary for their reproduction in contested spaces that they too eye for as home of a sort. These insights are consistent with transactional theory in social anthropology that argues that individuals are not limited by hostile or risky environments in which they live. They create shortcuts, bypass agreed social rules, and find strategies to secure resources and achieve long-term interests. However, marginalised populations do not always adopt competitive strategies to access resources, as postulated by transnational theory. What is modest in this study is that sometimes people enter into conviviality and other cooperation mechanisms within themselves and across to secure their interests and belonging. The study recommends that responsible authorities craft policies and arrangements to ensure that marginalised migrants have formal land access in fast-growing secondary cities.