Immigration, Transit and Urban Transformation: A Comparative Study of Post-Apartheid Migration and Urbanisation in Lubumbashi, Maputo, and Johannesburg (FSP Research Project)

This project is a joint initiative from the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS – University of the Witwatersrand) and the French Institute of South Africa. It is part of an international research programme on “International Migration, Territorial Recomposition and Development in Africa” funded by the French Department of Foreign Affairs (FSP MIGRATIONS) and coordinated by the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD). The end of Apartheid in South Africa has engendered new regional migration systems, building on, reshaping, and occasionally supplanting long-standing patterns of labour migration. By coupling new quantitative data with contextualized qualitative analysis, this project explores how State policies and practices influence and are transformed by human migration into and through Southern Africa’s urban centres. Its main aim is to produce primary data on international migrants in three Southern African cities: Johannesburg, Lubumbashi and Maputo and to reveal who is coming to the region’s cities, the institutional challenges of responding to human mobility, the transnational connections among the three cities and the novel social configurations produced by the convergence of disparate populations. This collaborative research project involves scholars from France and Southern Africa.

Research focus areas

The project developed along three phases beginning with a survey of international and domestic migrants and ‘host’ populations in central Maputo, Lubumbashi, and Johannesburg. By adapting an existing questionnaire and including new cities and population, this project capitalised on existing resources while generating a more robust and comparable data set that then formed the basis for qualitative inquiry and longitudinal comparison. The use of multiple sites joined by diasporic networks also brought into relief connections and linkages that would otherwise have remained invisible. Data generated were then compiled in preparation for Phase Two during which site specific and comparative inquiries incorporating quantitative data and qualitative research were conducted. Phase Three will include further comparative analysis, synthesis, and drafting for publication.

The quantitative survey is part of the FSMP African Cities Survey (insert LINK) The data base will be made available to the public after completion of the project. Access can be granted to research upon request (see contact details below).

Qualitative projects
Available on request.

Project details
Duration: June 2006 – December 2009
Coordinators: Loren Landau,(FMSP, Univ. Of the Witwatersrand) & Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti (IRD, FMSP, Wits)
Total grant: 45 000 €
Geographical areas:Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, South Africa

Project members:

South Africa

  • Loren B. Landau, Director, Forced Migration Studies Programme, Univ. of the Witwatersrand, PhD Political Science / Development Studies
  • Caroline Kihato, University of South Africa (UNISA), PhD candidate Sociology
  • Peter Kankonde, University of the Witwatersrand, MA student, Forced Migration
  • Jean-Pierre Misago, University of the Witwatersrand, researcher, Forced Migration
  • Brian Ngandu & Véronique Gindrey, Statistics resource persons
  • Aurelia Wa Kabwe – Segatti, (IRD UR 201, FMSP, Univ. of the Witwatersrand since Sept. 2008), PhD Political Science / African Studies

France

  • Dominique Vidal, University of Lille 3, PhD Sociology
  • Elise Palomares, University of Rouen/Laboratoire URMIS-CNRS, PhD Sociology

Democratic Republic of Congo

  • Donatien Dibwe dia Mwembu, University of Lubumbashi, Observatoire du Changement Urbain, PhD History
  • Joseph Kanku Mukengeshayi, University of Lubumbashi, Institut Supérieur de Statistiques, PhD Demographics

Mozambique

  • Ines Raimundo, University Eduardo Mondlane, PhD candidate Demographic History

Update 2010-2011:

  • The Final FSP Project report was handed in in December 2009. Available upon request.
  • A Regional Workshop and Public Symposium on Mobility and Urban Growth in Post-Independence in Southern African cities were held in Johannesburg in October 2010.

Contacts
Loren Landau: loren@migration.org.za
Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti: aurelia.wakabwe@wits.ac.za