MIGRATION, TRANSLOCAL NETWORKS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRATIFICATION IN NAMIBIA

Migrant networks are usually thought of as being supportive and beneficial for their members and the households involved. Remittances in cash and kind supply additional income, enhance food security and offer access to viable resources. In short, migration and migrant networks reduce the risk of deprivation in the face of internal and external stressors and shocks. A growing body of literature recognizes the critical role of rural–urban networks and migration for poverty alleviation and food security (Lynch 2005; Satterthwaite and Tacoli 2002; Schmidt-Kallert 2009). This fits neatly into the ‘new enthusiasm’ for migration, in which migrants and their networks are increasingly conceived of as agents of development of their home communities (Faist 2008: 21). In this contribution I demonstrate that migrant networks are not solely supportive, but that they can also further socio-economic stratification and exclusionary practices. Based on ethnographic data from Namibia, I highlight the role of migration and rural– urban networks in reinforcing processes of socio-economic stratification. In doing so, I have focused on the impact these developments have had on the rural areas where modern urban forms of stratification, induced by education and income from wage labour, are on the increase; where township-style brick houses stand beside traditional clay hamlets, elaborate residences of rich migrants beside the wooden shacks of their workers. While studies on migration have largely focused on the hybridization of identities (see for example Bank 2001) and the role in enhancing livelihoods, the stratifying dynamics of migration processes have tended to be under-represented in the scholarly literature. In this literature, migration has been conceived of largely as permanent relocation in the attempt to overcome disparities in wealth existing between different regions, motivated by pull factors or individual cost– benefit calculations (for example, Harris and Todaro 1970; Lee 1966). With regard to sub-Saharan Africa, this picture began to change in the 1980s, at least since Jamal and Weeks (1988) observed a ‘vanishing gap’ between rural and urban incomes. The earlier post-colonial pattern of development, based on a ‘fundamental division in privilege and wealth’ between rural and urban areas, was beginning to dissolve (ibid.: 271). Falling real wages, economic crisis, structural adjustment programmes and growing instability of urban labour markets throughout recent decades had caused a dramatic deterioration of urban conditions (Potts 1997). These developments, however, did not lead to a more CLEMENS GREINER is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne. His current research focuses on land-use change, conflict and the transformation of social-ecological systems in East Pokot, Kenya. Previously he taught anthropology at the University of Hamburg, where he received his PhD with a multi-sited ethnography on migration and livelihoods in Namibia. Email: clemens.greiner@unikoeln.de