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Credit apartheid, migrants, mines and money
Migrant life has long required a careful balancing of responsibilities. Migrants travel to earn a wage in a capitalist economy while saving resources and honouring obligations that arise in a seemingly less-than-capitalist one. Various agents – rural patriarchs, traders, government authorities, appliance retailers – have used techniques to keep wages beyond migrants' control. Paradoxically, similar techniques have, on occasion, been eagerly embraced by migrants themselves, who know that these resources will need to be husbanded for the upkeep of home. This article explores these contradictions, showing that recent forms of debt build on expectations born of forms of credit that proliferated earlier, but differ in consolidating these forms of credit to produce an unimpeded flow of money into migrants' bank accounts and out of them again. It looks at the advantages and dangers of the recent expansion of credit to constituencies – like migrants – where it previously did not reach.
Funding
ESRC; RES-062-23-1290
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
African StudiesISSN
0002-0184Publisher
Taylor and FrancisExternal DOI
Issue
3Volume
73Page range
455-476Department affiliated with
- Anthropology Publications
Notes
Published online: 06 Nov 2014Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2015-01-15Usage metrics
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