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- Title
Making Life Liveable in an Informal Market: Infrastructures of Friendship amongst Migrant Street Traders in Durban, South Africa.
- Authors
Mbatha, Nomkhosi; Koskimaki, Leah
- Abstract
African migrants working in street trading business in Durban, South Africa often face xenophobia and must navigate policies regulating the informal economy. However, they sustain livelihoods in urban markets through building friendships while maintaining transnational connections back home. Based on qualitative research conducted in 2019 and 2021 with thirty street traders from Senegal, The Gambia, Nigeria, and Malawi at the Workshop Flea Market in Durban, the article interrogates the way in which friendship and conviviality emerge in informal market spaces. Building on AbdouMaliq Simone's concept of "people as infrastructure," we show how migrant street traders in the Workshop Market invest in the urban collective, while locally and transnationally connected through economic and affective exchanges.
- Subjects
DURBAN (South Africa); INFRASTRUCTURE (Economics); FRIENDSHIP; FLEA markets; INFORMAL sector; AFRICANS
- Publication
Migration & Society, 2023, Vol 6, Issue 1, p43
- ISSN
2574-1306
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3167/arms.2023.060105