To Stay Here Is to Suffer, to Return Home Is to Perish - Entangled Zimbabwean Migrants, Precarity, and the Crisis of Return in Post-Apartheid South Africa

To Stay Here Is to Suffer, to Return Home Is to Perish - Entangled Zimbabwean Migrants, Precarity, and the Crisis of Return in Post-Apartheid South Africa | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article To Stay Here Is to Suffer, to Return Home Is to Perish - Entangled Zimbabwean Migrants, Precarity, and the Crisis of Return in Post-Apartheid South Africa Johannes Bhanye This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7398493/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This paper examines the lived experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in post-apartheid South Africa, focusing on the crisis of return, identity negotiation, and precarious citizenship. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research conducted among Zimbabweans in various cities in South Africa, the study reveals a striking condition of double disenfranchisement: migrants are rendered precarious in South Africa’s increasingly xenophobic environment while simultaneously excluded from political and economic recovery in Zimbabwe, a state marked by collapse and authoritarian stagnation. Across interviews and observations, a recurring refrain echoed – “I want to go back home” - capturing both an emotional longing and a political impossibility. Framing the analysis through Judith Butler’s theory of precarity, Hannah Arendt’s notion of statelessness and the “right to have rights,” Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics, and transnational migration theories (Glick Schiller et al.), the paper argues that Zimbabwean migrants inhabit an extended condition of existential suspension. While many express a strong desire to return “home,” structural realities - hyperinflation, political repression, and a failing economy - make this return unattainable, producing a temporal limbo of deferred futures. Older, more established migrants and newer arrivals experience these dynamics differently: the former leveraging fragmented social capital accumulated over time, the latter facing deepening economic exclusion and systemic harassment. Additionally, aspirations to migrate onwards to Europe, Australia, and Canada are increasingly visible, reflecting emerging South-North migration imaginaries shaped by chronic precarity and disillusionment with South Africa’s post-apartheid promises. This Zimbabwean migrant experience highlights broader postcolonial crises of citizenship and belonging in Africa: neither fully included in host societies nor securely anchored in their countries of origin. I argue that sustainable solutions to forced migration must not only reform host country policies but also demand urgent political and economic reconstruction in sending countries like Zimbabwe. Without restoring democratic governance, stabilizing economies, and investing in human development, sending states will continue to externalize their crises, forcing citizens into precarious exile. Migration migrants citizenship xenophobia transnationalism statelessness Zimbabwe South Africa Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 1. Introduction On a humid morning in Cape Town, a Zimbabwean Uber driver taking me to the Central Business District (CBD) shares his story: “My brother….I want to go back home, but I am stuck here, brother. I can no longer stay here, South Africa is no longer the same, they no longer want us here. But I can’t go back home either, our Zimbabwean economy is terrible.” His words capture a profound existential tension faced by many Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa - caught between the growing roughness and hostility of their host country (South Africa) and the enduring collapse of their homeland (Zimbabwe). This pervasive sense of being both stuck and locked out animates the complex migratory experiences explored in this paper. Since the turn of the 21st century, Zimbabweans have constituted one of the largest groups of international migrants in South Africa, with estimates suggesting that between 1.5 to 2 million Zimbabweans currently reside in the country (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ; Musoni, 2020 ). Migration surged particularly after the economic and political meltdown of the early 2000s, when Zimbabwe experienced catastrophic events such as hyperinflation reaching 79.6 billion percent in 2008 (Hanke and Kwok, 2009 ), violent land seizures, and systemic political repression under ZANU-PF rule (Raftopoulos, 2009 ). While migration initially offered pathways to survival and renewal, the post-apartheid South African state - once a beacon of hope for African solidarity - has become increasingly hostile toward foreign Africans, particularly those from Zimbabwe. Migrants are scapegoated for rising unemployment (which stood at 32.9% nationally in South Africa as of 2024 according to Statistics South Africa, 2024), crime, and service delivery failures, reinforcing deep-seated xenophobic attitudes and exclusionary policies (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ). Simultaneously, persistent economic decline, political authoritarianism, and civil repression in Zimbabwe block any meaningful prospects of return, trapping many migrants in an ongoing state of legal, economic, and existential precarity (Bhanye et al., 2023 ). This paper contends that Zimbabwean migrants find themselves doubly disenfranchised - excluded from full social, political, and economic membership in South Africa while being effectively abandoned by their collapsing state of origin. The Zimbabwean migrant experience thus illustrates the paradox of belonging and exclusion in contemporary Africa, where the promise of postcolonial citizenship has been hollowed out by both domestic failure and regional hostility. As Butler ( 2004 ) argues, precarity is not merely an economic condition but a politically induced state of disposability, where certain populations are rendered vulnerable by deliberate political choices. Similarly, Arendt’s ( 1951 ) notion of “statelessness” and the deprivation of the “right to have rights” aptly captures the plight of Zimbabwean migrants who are denied meaningful belonging in both their home and host countries. This paper is structured around three central research questions: How do Zimbabwean migrants navigate identity, belonging, and exclusion in South Africa? What role does the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe and the rising xenophobia in South Africa play in shaping migrants’ precarious futures? How do migrants imagine “home” amidst these complex and shifting conditions? To address these questions, the paper draws on several interlocking theoretical frameworks. First, Judith Butler’s ( 2004 ) work on precarity and Miriam Ticktin’s ( 2011 ) reflections on precarious citizenship provide critical lenses for analyzing the manufactured vulnerabilities faced by migrants. Second, theories of diaspora and transnationalism (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc, 1995) illuminate how Zimbabwean migrants sustain transnational ties while navigating their marginalization in South Africa. Third, Achille Mbembe’s ( 2003 ) concept of necropolitics helps unpack how state and societal violence shape the migrant experience, rendering certain lives more expendable than others. Lastly, Hannah Arendt’s ( 1951 ) seminal insights on statelessness frame the Zimbabwean condition as a crisis of political existence, wherein migrants are stripped not only of national belonging but of the very infrastructure that enables rights and recognition. The Zimbabwean migrant story is not simply a tale of movement across borders; it is a narrative of deferred dreams, precarious survival, and the simultaneous longing for, and impossibility of, return. As demonstrated in this paper, the phrase often repeated by interviewees – “I want to go back home” - is not just an expression of nostalgia but a profound articulation of loss, displacement, and unfulfilled citizenship. Tracing the everyday realities, aspirations, and imagined futures of Zimbabwean migrants, this paper contributes to broader debates about migration, precarity, postcolonial belonging, and the unfinished struggles for dignity and recognition in the global South. 2. Contextual Background 2.1 Zimbabwe’s Political and Economic Collapse Zimbabwe’s post-independence trajectory, once celebrated as a model of African decolonization and self-determination, has over the past four decades spiraled into chronic political, economic, and social instability (Bhanye et al., 2023 ; Raftopoulos, 2009 ; Zhou and Zvoushe, 2012 ). Following a promising start after 1980 independence, marked by investments in education and healthcare, the country entered a prolonged period of authoritarian rule, economic mismanagement, and escalating human rights abuses, particularly under the leadership of Robert Mugabe and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) (Raftopoulos, 2009 ; Zhou and Zvoushe, 2012 ). The political environment deteriorated significantly in the late 1990s and early 2000s. State-led land reform programs, particularly the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) launched in 2000, while aiming to redress historical injustices, were marred by violence, patronage, and international isolation (Moyo, 2011 ; Scoones et al., 2010 ). As a result, Zimbabwe’s agricultural production - the backbone of its economy - collapsed, leading to severe food insecurity and economic contraction. The consequences of political repression and economic mismanagement culminated in one of the most extreme cases of hyperinflation in world history. By mid-2008, Zimbabwe’s inflation rate was estimated at 89.7 sextillion percent (Hanke and Kwok, 2009 ). Everyday life became a struggle for basic survival, with widespread shortages of fuel, food, and medical supplies. Unemployment soared to over 80%, while public services, including education and healthcare, virtually collapsed (Bracking, 2005 ). Scholars have characterized Zimbabwe as a “failed state” (Duffield, 2014 ; Rotberg, 2002 ), a term denoting the erosion of legitimate governance structures, the collapse of state capacity to provide public goods, and the pervasive use of violence against citizens. While critics have debated the analytical usefulness of “failed state” discourse (Chazan, 1992 ; Clapham, 2002 ), Zimbabwe undoubtedly exhibits many features associated with state failure: elite predation, political militarization, infrastructural decay, and mass out-migration. In the post-2008 era, following the Global Political Agreement and the formation of a short-lived Government of National Unity (GNU) (Raftopoulos, 2013 ), there were brief periods of stabilization. However, the deep structural crises remained unresolved. The rise of Emmerson Mnangagwa to power in 2017 following a military-assisted coup raised hopes of political renewal, yet these were quickly dashed as patterns of authoritarian governance, human rights violations, and economic decline persisted (Bhanye and Ngwenya, 2023 ; Bhanye et al., 2024). The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global economic shocks further exacerbated Zimbabwe’s fragility. Recent studies highlight that Zimbabwe’s economy remains characterized by severe currency instability, persistent food insecurity, and widespread informalization, with over 90% of the workforce operates outside the formal economy (Bushu and Kufakurinani, 2024 ; Kanyenze, Chitambara and Tyson, 2017 ). Today, the country’s political and economic collapse continues to drive out-migration, with South Africa remaining a primary destination for Zimbabweans seeking survival opportunities (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ). However, as this paper argues, the deteriorating situation in South Africa itself - marked by rising xenophobia and economic exclusion, is producing a situation where Zimbabwean migrants are caught between two failing systems, unable to fully integrate or safely return. Thus, Zimbabwe’s trajectory from a postcolonial success story to a paradigmatic case of state failure forms the indispensable backdrop to understanding the precarious conditions under which Zimbabwean migrants navigate their fractured existences in contemporary South Africa. Table 1 summarizes phases of Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. Table 1 Phases of Zimbabwe’s Economic Collapse Phase Period Key Characteristics Political Context Impact on Citizens Post-Independence Optimism 1980–1989 Moderate growth; investment in health and education; rising inequalities begin to surface. Robert Mugabe consolidates power; initial unity government. Rising expectations; relative stability. Structural Adjustment and Decline 1990–1999 Economic Structural Adjustment Programs (ESAP); deindustrialization; rising unemployment and poverty. Shift to neoliberal policies; growing political tensions. Increased hardship; strikes and protests. Crisis and Land Reform Chaos 2000–2007 Violent land seizures; collapse of agriculture; hyperinflation; mass emigration. Fast-Track Land Reform; ZANU-PF authoritarianism escalates. Food shortages; mass displacements. Hyperinflation and Dollarization 2007–2009 Inflation exceeds 79 billion percent; currency collapse; informal dollarization begins. Political violence (2008 elections); GNU formed under pressure. Salaries wiped out; savings destroyed. Government of National Unity (GNU) Recovery 2009–2013 Dollarization stabilizes economy; modest recovery in services and mining. Unity government (MDC–T and ZANU-PF coalition). Temporary relief; cautious optimism. Post-GNU Regression 2013–2017 Resurgent corruption; liquidity crisis; joblessness returns; rising bond notes crisis. ZANU-PF regains sole control; election manipulation. Return of economic desperation. Mnangagwa Era: False Dawn 2017–2019 Coup removes Mugabe; initial hope dashed by worsening economy, repression, and “new” old practices. Mnangagwa presidency; military-business elite dominance. Renewed protests; worsening austerity. Chronic Economic Collapse 2019–present Currency volatility; inflation resurges; massive unemployment; COVID-19 worsens economic crisis. Authoritarian tightening; violent repression of dissent. Severe hardship; renewed mass emigration. 2.2 Post-Apartheid South Africa and Migration While the dismantling of apartheid in 1994 was globally celebrated as the birth of a new democratic era, post-apartheid South Africa has struggled to fully realize the promises of inclusive citizenship, social justice, and African solidarity (Tshishonga, 2019 ). Instead, the country has increasingly witnessed rising socio-economic inequality, growing unemployment, political disillusionment, and an alarming surge in xenophobic violence, particularly targeting African migrants (Neocosmos, 2008 ; Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ). Figure 1 is a map of Southern Africa showing migration flows between Zimbabwe and South Africa. One of the most striking and disturbing phenomena has been the rise of Afrophobia - the specific hostility directed against migrants from other African countries. Unlike generalized xenophobia, Afrophobia in South Africa is deeply racialized, targeting black Africans from neighboring states while privileging Western expatriates and investors (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ). Major outbreaks of violence, such as the attacks in 2008 that displaced over 100,000 people and killed at least 62 (Misago, Landau, and Monson, 2009 ), and recurrent flare-ups in 2015, 2019, and 2022, reflect an entrenched hostility towards foreign Africans perceived to be “stealing jobs,” “overburdening services,” or “engaging in criminality.” The structural drivers of this hostility are multifaceted. South Africa faces persistently high levels of unemployment, with youth unemployment exceeding 50% (Statistics South Africa, 2021 ). Economic stagnation, compounded by state capture scandals, service delivery failures, and widening inequality, has fueled resentment among marginalized South African citizens (Ferguson, 2020 ; Madlingozi, 2017 ). In this context, migrants - particularly those visibly operating in informal economies such as street trading, hair salons, spaza shops, and ride-share services - become convenient scapegoats for systemic socio-economic failures. Policy responses have largely reinforced exclusion rather than protection. Despite South Africa’s constitutional commitment to human rights and dignity for all, immigration policy has grown increasingly restrictive over the past two decades (Amit, 2015 ). The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) scheme, initially introduced in 2009 to regularize the status of Zimbabwean migrants fleeing economic collapse, was framed as a temporary humanitarian gesture rather than a durable pathway to inclusion (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ). Its planned termination in 2021–2023, affecting over 178,000 Zimbabwean migrants, illustrates the precariousness of even limited legal recognition (Musoni, 2020 ). The termination of the ZEP reflects a broader shift towards securitized migration governance, where migrants are treated primarily as threats to national stability rather than as potential contributors to economic and social development (Vigneswaran, 2014 ). Regular police raids, workplace inspections, and community protests calling for the expulsion of foreigners have normalized a hostile environment, effectively shrinking the social and economic spaces available to African migrants (Van Hout and Wessels, 2023 ). Moreover, South Africa’s asylum system itself is mired in dysfunction, characterized by years-long delays, bureaucratic inefficiency, and widespread corruption (Amit, 2012 ). Many Zimbabweans who initially entered through asylum processes found themselves trapped in a legal limbo, unable to transition into permanent residency or citizenship, and vulnerable to arrest, extortion, and deportation (Tshabalala, 2025 ). This shrinking of opportunities and intensification of exclusion have profoundly shaped migrant strategies and imaginaries. For many Zimbabweans, South Africa - once envisioned as a stepping stone to stability - has itself become a site of insecurity and marginalization. As this paper shows, such conditions foster renewed desires to return “home,” seek onward migration to Europe, Australia, or North America, or, in some cases, retreat into tightly knit diasporic communities for survival. Thus, post-apartheid South Africa has paradoxically reproduced exclusionary logics reminiscent of its apartheid past, now redirected against African migrants who are positioned as perpetual outsiders, undeserving of belonging in the “new South Africa” (Neocosmos, 2006 ; Landau, 2011 ). Table 2 is a summary of migration dynamics in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Table 2 Post-Apartheid South Africa and Migration Dynamics Period Migration Dynamics Political-Economic Context Impact on Migrants Early Openness (1994–1999) Initial optimism; liberal migration policies; influx of regional migrants (especially SADC countries). New democracy; Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP); “African Renaissance” discourse. Relative welcoming environment; limited hostility. Rise of Informalization and Inequality (2000–2007) Increased informal migration; migrants fill low-wage sectors; rising urban informality. GEAR (neoliberal turn); rising unemployment; urban service delivery backlogs. Growing tension; emergence of low-level xenophobia. Xenophobic Violence Explosion (2008) Widespread anti-immigrant attacks; dozens killed; thousands displaced. Global financial crisis hits South Africa; local grievances over jobs and housing. Mass fear; deepening migrant precarity; securitized responses. Restrictive Turn and Border Militarization (2009–2015) Tightened asylum, refugee, and visa regimes; harsher deportation practices. Zuma administration; populist rhetoric blaming foreigners for economic woes. Increased undocumentedness; police harassment escalates. Institutionalized Afrophobia (2016–2019) Political scapegoating; growth of campaigns like “Operation Dudula” and “Put South Africans First.” Economic stagnation; political scandals; social frustrations rise. Normalization of everyday xenophobia; migrants vilified. Crisis Deepening and Migration Hardening (2020–present) COVID-19 intensifies exclusion; rising vigilante violence; calls for mass deportations. Ramaphosa era; worsening economic inequality; persistent unemployment crisis. Migrants increasingly seen as disposable; humanitarian crises. 2.3 South Africa’s Internal Borders While traditional notions of borders emphasize physical demarcations between nation-states, recent scholarship underscores how bordering extends deep into the social fabric of everyday life (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013 ; Balibar, 2012 ). In post-apartheid South Africa, internal bordering practices have become a central mechanism through which migrants - particularly Zimbabweans and other African nationals - are excluded, marginalized, and rendered precarious, even after formally crossing the national border. According to Mezzadra and Neilson ( 2013 ), the concept of “border as method” highlights how borders are not fixed lines but dynamic processes that operate through policing, documentation regimes, labor market segmentation, and social exclusion. In South Africa, these internal borders manifest across multiple scales: in workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and even in moments of everyday interaction. Migrants’ right to reside, work, access services, and even exist safely in urban spaces is continuously negotiated, contested, and often violently denied. The operation of internal borders in South Africa can be observed through both formal and informal practices. Formally, immigration enforcement is carried out through frequent police roadblocks, raids on shops and homes, and the monitoring of employment sites, disproportionately targeting black African migrants (Amit, 2015 ; Vigneswaran, 2014 ). Many migrants, even those with legal permits, report having their documentation arbitrarily confiscated or destroyed by police, effectively stripping them of legal personhood in the moment and subjecting them to detention, extortion, or deportation (Amit, 2012 ). Informally, internal borders are enacted through vigilantism, community-level “foreigner hunts,” and popular mobilizations that demand the removal of “illegal immigrants” from townships and informal settlements (Crush and Dodson, 2017 ; Landau, 2011 ). These practices are often framed as defensive reactions to “foreigners taking jobs” or “overburdening” local resources but are deeply rooted in historical anxieties about citizenship, belonging, and economic insecurity (Neocosmos, 2006 ). Importantly, internal bordering is not only a state-driven project but is co-produced by ordinary citizens, local authorities, and civil society actors (Moyo, 2020 ). Township business forums, for example, have been implicated in campaigns against migrant shop owners, combining economic competition with exclusionary nationalism. This reflects what Balibar ( 2012 ) calls “the proliferation of borders,” where borders multiply within society, not just at its edges. The consequences of these internal borders for Zimbabwean migrants are profound. Beyond physical violence and economic exclusion, internal bordering processes produce an everyday politics of fear, surveillance, and precarity. Migrants live with the constant threat of being stopped, questioned, dispossessed, and expelled - not merely at official checkpoints, but at any moment in their daily lives. This profoundly affects their spatial mobility, employment opportunities, mental health, and sense of belonging. Moreover, the intensification of internal borders intersects with broader processes of urban exclusion. Migrants are often pushed into marginalized, overcrowded, and precarious urban spaces where state services are minimal and where violence - both xenophobic and criminal - is rampant (Landau, 2011 ; Palmary, 2002 ). These spatial inequalities further entrench the disposability of migrant populations, constructing an urban geography of exclusion. Thus, in post-apartheid South Africa, the border is not merely at Beitbridge or Maseru Bridge - it is everywhere. It moves with the migrant, embedded within the very structures of law, society, and space. Understanding the everyday realities of Zimbabwean migrants requires recognizing how these internal borders systematically produce and sustain their precarity, even within the putative “open” society of a constitutional democracy. 3. Theoretical Framework 3.1 Precarious Lives and Precarious Citizenship Judith Butler’s ( 2004 ; 2016 ) theory of precarious life offers a critical lens through which to understand the existential and political vulnerability of Zimbabwean migrants in post-apartheid South Africa. For Butler, precarity is not a natural condition but a politically induced state wherein certain lives are systematically exposed to harm, neglect, and violence due to social, economic, and legal structures that fail - or refuse - to offer protection. Precarity, therefore, is deeply uneven, shaped by differential regimes of recognition and abandonment. In the South African context, Zimbabwean migrants occupy a position of heightened precarity. Their right to live, work, and access services is continually contested and subjected to withdrawal through practices of bureaucratic violence, policing, social exclusion, and xenophobic hostility (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ; Amit, 2015 ). Migrants’ legal and social existence is rendered contingent, where documentation can be revoked, opportunities denied, and bodies rendered disposable under the weight of populist and nationalist scapegoating (Landau, 2011 ; Neocosmos, 2008 ). Butler ( 2016 ) emphasizes that political and social frameworks determine whose lives are considered “grievable” - worthy of mourning and protection - and whose lives are effectively abandoned. Zimbabwean migrants, much like other marginalized African migrant groups, find themselves largely outside the sphere of national concern. Their suffering does not generate widespread public empathy or mobilization; rather, it is normalized, invisibilized, and at times, celebrated through violent practices of exclusion (Palmary, 2002 ; Misago, 2017). Moreover, the precariousness of Zimbabwean migrants is compounded by their embeddedness in transnational conditions of crisis. They are not simply vulnerable due to individual circumstances but are part of broader structural processes of economic collapse in Zimbabwe and social fragmentation in South Africa. In this sense, as Ticktin ( 2011 ) further argues, precarious citizenship emerges as a condition where individuals are formally tolerated but never fully incorporated - offered tenuous legal statuses like the Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEPs) that ultimately reinforce their marginalization rather than securing their rights. Thus, Zimbabwean migrants’ everyday experiences of harassment, exclusion, and instability exemplify the ways in which life itself becomes precarious under conditions of contingent belonging, and how citizenship - even in its most minimal forms - can be fundamentally precarious for those who fall outside the privileged circle of the national community. 3.2 The Right to Have Rights The political condition of Zimbabwean migrants is also profoundly illuminated by Hannah Arendt’s ( 1951 ) seminal concept of the right to have rights . Writing in the aftermath of World War II and the mass displacement of stateless populations, Arendt observed that the loss of national belonging - the loss of membership in a political community -m strips individuals not only of legal protections but of their very capacity to claim rights. For Arendt, the fundamental human right is not the right to life or liberty per se, but the right to belong to a political order where such rights can be meaningfully realized. Without citizenship or recognized membership, human rights become mere abstractions - unenforceable promises without institutional grounding (Arendt, 1951 ). In the South African case, Zimbabwean migrants exemplify this condition of contemporary statelessness. Even when physically present within South Africa’s borders, they are frequently denied the effective enjoyment of rights to work, shelter, safety, healthcare, and due process. Temporary legal instruments like asylum seeker permits and ZEPs offer limited, revocable forms of recognition, but they do not guarantee a full political presence or protection against violence and exclusion (Amit, 2012 ; Musoni, 2020 ). Moreover, as Arendt warned, the condition of rightlessness leaves individuals extremely vulnerable to arbitrary treatment by states, police, and even ordinary citizens. The routine harassment of migrants by law enforcement, the selective denial of services, and the social relegation of migrants to precarious informal economies reflect this profound absence of political standing (Vigneswaran, 2014 ; Landau, 2011 ). Zimbabwean migrants thus exist in a liminal space - neither fully protected by South African citizenship nor able to reclaim security from the collapsed Zimbabwean state. Their stateless condition is not simply a matter of lacking formal documents; it is an existential political abandonment that strips them of the most basic guarantees of dignity, protection, and membership. Combining Butler’s ( 2004 ) theorization of precarious lives with Arendt’s notion of the “right to have rights,” this paper situates Zimbabwean migrants’ experiences within broader critiques of contemporary citizenship regimes. These frameworks illuminate how legal status alone is insufficient to protect vulnerable populations, and how political belonging is fundamentally contested, precarious, and exclusionary in contexts of deep postcolonial and neoliberal crisis. 3.3 Transnationalism and Deferred Return The experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa cannot be fully understood without engaging the theoretical lens of transnationalism, which highlights the ways in which migrants sustain social, economic, political, and emotional ties across national borders (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton, 1992 ; 1995). Rather than severing connections with their countries of origin, migrants like Zimbabweans actively maintain transnational practices—sending remittances, participating in diasporic associations, engaging in homeland politics, and nurturing aspirations for eventual return. Glick Schiller et al. ( 1992 ) emphasize that transnational migrants live simultaneously within multiple social fields. Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa embody this condition, balancing precarious lives in host communities with enduring obligations and attachments to families, communities, and political struggles in Zimbabwe. These transnational engagements are not merely economic but deeply emotional and symbolic, sustaining an imagined continuity of belonging even as physical return remains elusive. At the same time, the transnational imagination of “going back home” is fraught with deferral and uncertainty. Russel King (2000) and Peggy Levitt ( 2001 ) argue that the notion of return often exists more powerfully as an aspiration than a realized act. In contexts of ongoing political instability and economic collapse, such as contemporary Zimbabwe, return is repeatedly postponed, indefinitely deferred, or permanently reimagined. For many Zimbabweans, “I want to go back home” thus becomes a durable emotional horizon rather than an imminent plan. The desire for return is animated by nostalgia, hope, and visions of political renewal in Zimbabwe, but these imaginaries are increasingly challenged by the persistent failures of the Zimbabwean state and the practical challenges of reintegration after years or decades abroad (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ). Moreover, as King and Ghosh (2000) observes, the longer migrants stay abroad, the more complex their attachments become. Many Zimbabweans have built partial lives—however precarious - in South Africa, establishing social networks, economic survival strategies, and family ties. This layering of belonging complicates both the feasibility and the desirability of return. Thus, Zimbabwean migrants’ experiences are shaped by an ongoing dialectic between transnational belonging and deferred return , where home is simultaneously real, remembered, and reimagined - a powerful site of emotional investment but also a source of profound uncertainty and ambivalence. 3.4 Necropolitics and Migrant Death-Worlds While transnationalism captures the effective and social dimensions of migrant life, Achille Mbembe’s ( 2003 ) concept of necropolitics offers a stark account of the sovereign violence that shapes migrants’ material and existential conditions. Necropolitics, for Mbembe, refers to the exercise of state and social power over life and death - deciding who may live and who must die, who is protected and who is rendered disposable. South Africa’s contemporary political and social landscape can be read through a necropolitical lens, where migrants - especially African migrants - are positioned as subjects of abandonment rather than protection. Zimbabwean migrants are routinely exposed to structural violence, including police brutality, arbitrary detention, forced evictions, xenophobic attacks, and systemic exclusion from essential services like healthcare and housing (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ; Misago, 2017). These practices are not merely incidental or aberrational; they constitute an everyday politics of death, where migrants’ lives are actively made precarious and expendable within the spaces they inhabit. Mbembe ( 2003 ) emphasizes that necropolitics is enacted not only through spectacular violence but also through slow, bureaucratic, and infrastructural forms of killing - processes that erode the capacity to live with dignity, security, and hope. The proliferation of “death-worlds” (Mbembe, 2003 ) in South African informal settlements, townships, and marginal spaces - where many Zimbabwean migrants reside - reflects the normalization of systemic neglect, deprivation, and exposure to harm. Migrants are forced to live in environments characterized by high crime rates, poor sanitation, insecure tenure, and chronic police harassment, conditions that continuously threaten their physical and psychological survival (Palmary, 2002 ; Landau, 2011 ). Furthermore, the necropolitical ordering of space is racialized and classed: African migrants are disproportionately relegated to the most precarious urban peripheries, excluded from legal protections and public sympathy. In moments of intensified xenophobic violence, such as the 2008 and 2015 attacks, this latent death-world becomes vividly materialized, as migrant bodies are subject to direct physical assault and forced displacement (Misago, Landau, and Monson, 2009 ). Applying Mbembe’s framework, this paper highlights how Zimbabwean migrants’ vulnerability is not merely a byproduct of socio-economic exclusion but is actively produced and sustained through political and social systems that regard their lives as less valuable, less grievable, and less worthy of protection. Their precarity is thus not accidental but structural, deeply embedded in South Africa’s evolving regimes of migration governance, economic marginalization, and national belonging. 4. Methodology 4.1 Research Approach: Multi-Sited Ethnography This study employed a multi-sited ethnographic approach to capture the fragmented, mobile, and precarious lives of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa. Following George Marcus’ ( 1995 ) seminal call for multi-sited ethnography , the research moves beyond a singular, bounded field site to trace the connections, displacements, and strategies of survival across multiple urban spaces in South Africa. In contexts of transnational migration, where mobility, temporality, and uncertainty define everyday life, a traditional single-site ethnography risks obscuring the dispersed and networked realities of migrants (Falzon, 2016 ). Multi-sited ethnography allows for the following of people, practices, discourses, and objects across diverse spatial nodes, illuminating how migrants’ experiences of precarity and belonging are shaped across various everyday terrains. In particular, this approach is crucial for understanding how Zimbabwean migrants navigate precarious urban economies, transnational ties to Zimbabwe, and broader regimes of exclusion within South Africa’s fractured socio-political landscape (Marcus, 1995 ). 4.2 Research Sites and Participants Fieldwork for this study was conducted across multiple, interconnected urban and transnational spaces, capturing the complex textures of Zimbabwean migrant life (Table 3 ). Interviews and observations were carried out in public malls and shopping centers, where Zimbabweans working informally as vendors, cashiers, security guards, and cleaners articulated experiences of labor exploitation and everyday xenophobia. Uber and ride-share drivers provided mobile interview contexts, offering rich insights into issues of mobility, survival strategies, and labor precarity while navigating South African cities. Shops, restaurants, barbershops, and hair salons served as informal workspaces where many migrants are employed, and where observations revealed intricate social networks, precarious economic practices, and regular encounters with discrimination. Conversations at airports and border crossings - including OR Tambo International Airport and the Beitbridge Border Post - allowed the study to capture migrants’ return imaginaries, decision-making processes, and the emotional geographies of transit between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The study also engaged with Zimbabwean students and professionals at formal institutions such as the University of Cape Town (UCT), University of the Free State (UFS), University of Johannesburg (UJ), and University of Pretoria (UP), contrasting experiences of academic exclusion and aspirations for mobility with the harsh realities faced in the informal sector. Finally, encounters at seminars, public lectures, and academic conferences provided access to Zimbabwean intellectuals, activists, and diaspora leaders actively engaged in public discourse on migration, home, and political futures. Employing a multi-sited ethnographic approach across these diverse spaces, the research traces not only the precarious conditions Zimbabwean migrants face but also the varied strategies, imaginaries, and solidarities they mobilize in pursuit of dignity and belonging. Table 3 Research Sites and Participant Contexts Site/Location Participants Key Themes Explored Public Malls and Shopping Centers Vendors, cashiers, security guards, cleaners Informal labor, economic survival, workplace discrimination, everyday xenophobia Uber and Ride-Share Vehicles Uber and Bolt drivers Mobility, labor precarity, survival strategies, emotional geographies of migration Shops, Restaurants, Barbershops, Hair Salons Waiters, hairdressers, shop assistants, barbers Informal workspaces, social networks, xenophobic encounters, informal economies Airports and Border Crossings (e.g., OR Tambo, Beitbridge) Travelers, informal traders, cross-border workers Return imaginaries, mobility decisions, border policing, deferred migration futures Universities (UFS, UCT, UJ, UP) Students, researchers, academics Academic xenophobia, professional exclusion, formal integration vs precarious belonging Seminars, Public Lectures, Academic Conferences Intellectuals, activists, diaspora leaders Public discourse on migration, Zimbabwean politics, transnational identities This range of sites allowed for a comparative and layered understanding of how Zimbabwean migrants’ experiences differ based on class, education, occupation, and spatial location. 4.3 Data Collection Techniques Two primary qualitative methods were utilized: Semi-Structured Interviews A total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Zimbabwean migrants across different social strata (Table 4 ). This excludes the uncountable informal conversations I had with other Zimbabweans, that also relate to this study. Interviews focused on migration trajectories, experiences of precarity, imaginations of return, encounters with xenophobia, and future aspirations. The semi-structured format enabled flexibility, allowing participants to narrate experiences in their own terms while ensuring consistency across key thematic areas (Bernard, 2011). Table 4 Profile of Formal Respondents Pseudonym Occupation/Context Gender Age Research Site Tinashe Uber Driver Male 29 Cape Town Uber Service Nyasha Shop Assistant (Retail) Male 34 Mall, Johannesburg Patience Restaurant Waitress Female 24 Restaurant, Cape Town Admire Barber Male 36 Barbershop, Pretoria Chipo Market Vendor Female 35 Informal Market, Durban Tafadzwa Postgraduate Student (UJ) Male 31 University of Johannesburg Tendai Street Vendor Male 30 Taxi Rank, Johannesburg Rudo Domestic Worker Female 23 Private Home, Cape Town Farai Hairdresser Male 27 Hair Salon, Pretoria Memory Receptionist Female 27 Office, Durban Brighton Security Company Owner Male 51 Private Security, Durban Portia Informal Trader (Taxi Rank) Female 29 Beitbridge Border Crossing Kudakwashe PhD Student (UP) Male 33 University of Pretoria Brian Construction Worker Male 42 Construction Site, Johannesburg Tariro Informal Schoolteacher Female 41 Township School, Soweto Nomore Seminar Attendee (Migration Workshop) Male 33 Migration Conference, Pretoria Rumbidzai Hair Salon Owner Female 49 Salon, Johannesburg CBD Lorraine Master’s Student (UCT) Female 26 University of Cape Town Shelton Restaurant Worker Male 38 Food Court, Johannesburg Blessing Airport Porter Male 45 OR Tambo International Airport Netsai Informal Cross-border Trader Female 37 Border Crossing, Beitbridge Tapiwa Informal Barber and Street Vendor Male 28 Cape Town CBD Participant Observation : Extended participant observations were carried out at workplaces (shops, malls, salons), during Uber rides, at airports, and at academic conferences. Observational notes captured both spoken interactions and the everyday textures of migrant life: strategies of resilience, subtle acts of belonging, encounters with exclusion, and collective practices of survival (Musante and DeWalt, 2010 ). This combination of methods facilitated a grounded, relational, and multi-dimensional understanding of Zimbabwean migrant experiences. 4.4 Reflexivity and Positionality As an African researcher with Zimbabwean identity, my positionality was marked by a complex insider-outsider dynamic. While a shared experience of being a Zimbabwean facilitated rapport and access, it was critical to remain reflexively aware of differences in citizenship status, migration experience, and socio-economic positioning (England, 1994 ). Throughout the fieldwork process, I adopted reflexive practices, including field journaling, regular peer debriefings, and the critical interrogation of assumptions about “home,” “belonging,” and “precarity.” Migrants’ narratives were not taken at face value but were situated within broader social, political, and historical contexts (Clifford and Marcus, 2023 ). Moreover, given the sensitive nature of migration status and experiences of xenophobic violence, building trust was an ongoing, negotiated process that required ethical attentiveness and humility. 4.5 Ethical Considerations Given the precarious legal and social status of many participants, ethical sensitivity was paramount throughout the research process. Anonymity was strictly upheld: all participants’ names were anonymized, and identifying details were altered to safeguard their safety and privacy. Informed consent was carefully obtained prior to each interview or sustained interaction, with participants provided clear explanations about the voluntary nature of their involvement, the aims of the study, and their right to withdraw at any stage without penalty. Recognizing the potential for distress when recounting experiences of displacement, discrimination, and violence, interviews were conducted with particular sensitivity to trauma and precarity. Participants were allowed to steer conversations away from distressing topics if they chose, and referrals to migrant support organizations and mental health resources were offered when necessary. This approach sought not only to meet ethical obligations but also to create a research environment grounded in respect, dignity, and care for the vulnerable populations whose stories form the heart of this study. 5. Findings and Analysis 5.1 Living Precariously in South Africa The everyday lives of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa are shaped by profound and layered forms of precarity, deeply linked to insecure legal status, systemic discrimination, police harassment, labor exploitation, and the ever-present threat of deportation. Majority of Zimbabwean migrants live under what Butler ( 2004 ) describes as precarious conditions - where existence itself is rendered fragile, contingent, and exposed to systemic harm - and what Mbembe ( 2003 ) theorizes as necropolitical governance , wherein certain lives are made more vulnerable to death and social disappearance. Legal Limbo and the Collapse of Migrant Formal Documentation Pathways One of the most immediate sources of insecurity for Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa stems from the expiration and non-renewal of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEPs). Originally introduced as a temporary measure to regularize the status of Zimbabweans fleeing economic collapse and political repression, the ZEP scheme has now become a tool of managed marginalization and controlled disposability (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ; Musoni, 2020 ). Many respondents articulated deep anxiety about their future legal status. As one male shop assistant in Johannesburg explained: “They told us ZEP was a bridge to something better... but now it feels like the bridge is collapsing under our feet. We are standing on nothing. We are legal today, illegal tomorrow. How can you build a life like that?” Similarly, a 29-year-old Uber driver in Cape Town echoed the sense of temporal fragility: “Every day I wake up and wonder if today is the day they tell me to leave. You can’t plan, you can’t save, you can’t settle. It’s like living on borrowed time.” The revocation of ZEPs, without providing clear or affordable alternative pathways to legal residency or citizenship, has pushed thousands of Zimbabweans into irregular or undocumented status. As Butler ( 2004 ) argues, precarity is not just a condition of poverty, but a politically produced differential allocation of vulnerability, where certain populations are exposed to systemic harm, abandonment, and exclusion more than others. Worsening the situation is the near impossibility of accessing other visa types, such as general work permits, critical skills visas, study permits, or even visitor visas. Several participants shared stories of long application delays, arbitrary rejections, high costs, and systemic bias within South Africa’s immigration regime. A 26-year-old postgraduate student at the University of Johannesburg recounted her struggle to move from a ZEP to a study permit: “I submitted everything on time - letters from the university, proof of funding, even my ZEP - but they kept delaying and asking for more. Then they just rejected me with no reason. I had to beg the department to give me an extension so I wouldn’t get deregistered. I don’t know how long I can survive like this.” A 41-year-old father in Durban, who tried to apply for a relative visa to bring his wife legally into the country, shared: “They keep saying apply for a visa, apply the right way. But when you go through the proper way, they say no. It’s a trap. It feels like they want you undocumented so they can use that against you later.” These testimonies reflect what Amit ( 2012 ) calls “bureaucratic bordering”, where immigration systems act not as gateways to legal inclusion but as mechanisms of exclusion, filtering out the poor, racialized, and regionally mobile. The legal closure of the ZEP program has not been met with expanded legal pathways but with an intensified regime of exclusion. Instead of transitioning migrants into permanent residence or citizenship, South Africa has effectively withdrawn the promise of legal belonging, reinforcing their disposability through policy neglect, institutional obstruction, and securitized discourse. As one 34-year-old participant working as a barber in Pretoria put it succinctly: “It’s like they want us to vanish quietly. They don’t deport you, but they won’t give you papers either. You just hang in limbo, waiting to fall.” The legal limbo and revocation of ZEPs without viable alternative pathways to residency effectively pushes thousands of Zimbabweans into undocumented status, stripping them of basic protections and reinforcing what Butler ( 2016 ) calls the differential allocation of vulnerability , where some lives are systematically exposed to legal and social violence more than others. Discrimination, Police Harassment, and Labor Exploitation Across multiple sites: public malls, barbershops, restaurants, and transport hubs, migrants narrated experiences of routine discrimination and harassment by both state and non-state actors. Police harassment emerged as a particularly pervasive threat. A 36-year-old barber in Pretoria recounted: “Even when I show them my ZEP, they say it’s expired or fake. They take the paper, tear it, and say, ‘go home, you are finished here.’ Sometimes they ask for money. If you refuse, they arrest you or beat you.” The labor market similarly reflects deep precarity. Migrants, especially those without valid permits, are pushed into the most exploitative sectors of the economy - informal trading, domestic work, low-wage retail, and ride-share services. Employers exploit their precarious status to underpay them or deny basic labor rights. As a 24-year-old waitress in a Cape Town restaurant described: “They pay you less because you are foreign. They threaten you: ‘If you talk too much, we report you.’ You just work quietly, even when you are sick, even when they insult you. Otherwise, you lose everything.” These testimonies vividly illustrate how Zimbabwean migrants inhabit what Mbembe ( 2003 ) terms death-worlds : spaces where social death, through marginalization, disposability, and state-sanctioned neglect, is the norm rather than the exception. The Constant Threat of Deportation: “Waiting to Move or Waiting to Be Moved” A recurrent theme across interviews was the feeling of living under the constant threat of deportation or forced displacement. This condition of suspended temporality produces profound emotional and psychological tolls, as migrants live in a permanent state of uncertainty - neither fully settled nor fully transient. As a PhD student at the University of Pretoria eloquently put it: “You are always waiting - waiting for the police, waiting for papers to expire, waiting for someone to tell you, you don’t belong. It’s like living in a bus station where you never get on the bus. Waiting to move or waiting to be moved.” This poignant metaphor captures the brutal temporality of migrant life under necropolitical conditions: time itself becomes precarious, deferred, and colonized by fear (Hage, 2009 ). Importantly, this temporal uncertainty fractures social and personal futures. Migrants are unable to commit to long-term employment, education, property ownership, or family formation. They live in what Glick Schiller and Salazar (2013) call regimes of mobility control - spaces where movement is both necessary and punished, and where stability remains perpetually out of reach. These findings strongly confirm Judith Butler’s ( 2004 ) assertion that precarity is a politically induced vulnerability, not a natural condition. Zimbabwean migrants’ precarious legal statuses, economic exploitation, and exposure to violence are systematically produced by state decisions, exclusionary policies, and social hostility. Moreover, drawing on Achille Mbembe’s ( 2003 ) framework, Zimbabwean migrants occupy death-worlds where life is rendered expendable, slow death becomes normalized, and migrant bodies are made permanently precarious, both legally and existentially. The precarious existence of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa is thus not merely a humanitarian crisis but a profound political and ethical indictment of contemporary postcolonial citizenship regimes in Southern Africa. 5.2 Xenophobic Nationalisms and the Politics of “Putting South Africans First” While Zimbabwean migrants’ precariousness in South Africa is rooted in systemic exclusions and hostile policy environments, it is also amplified by the rise of virulent xenophobic nationalism, particularly targeting African migrants. Across interviews, respondents described living within an intensifying environment of public hostility, scapegoating, and politically sanctioned violence - manifesting both at the institutional level and within everyday social interactions. The Rise of “Put South Africans First” and Migrant Scapegoating In recent years, campaigns such as “Put South Africans First” have gained significant traction, framing African migrants - particularly Zimbabweans, Nigerians, and Somalis - as existential threats to South African jobs, services, and sovereignty. Emerging through social media activism and political populism, these campaigns advocate for mass deportations, exclusion from public services, and preferential employment for South Africans only (Tshabalala, 2025 ; Moyo, 2020 ). A 41-year-old Zimbabwean hair salon owner in Johannesburg captured the pervasive anxiety caused by these narratives: “Every day on social media, they say foreigners are stealing jobs. That we are the reason for everything bad here. Even when you walk in the streets, people shout ‘Go home!’ They don’t see us as people anymore - just as a problem to be removed.” The “Put South Africans First” (Fig. 2 ) campaign has been amplified by certain political actors, union leaders, and media outlets, who scapegoat migrants as responsible for unemployment, crime, and service delivery failures - despite a lack of empirical evidence to support such claims (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ; Landau, 2011 ). Operation Dudula, based in Soweto, and the Dudula Movement that started in Alexandra also popularized xenophobia in South Africa. They both share strong anti-foreigner views, blaming undocumented foreigners for crime and for ‘stealing’ jobs from South Africans. According to the Operation Dudula campaigners, South African authorities have not responded to their concerns, so they must carry out citizens’ arrests. Everyday Xenophobic Violence and Exclusion Beyond rhetorical campaigns, xenophobic nationalism materializes violently in everyday spaces. Respondents recounted experiences of assault, eviction, extortion, and harassment directly linked to anti-migrant sentiment. A 36-year-old Uber driver based in Pretoria recalled: “When they [protesters] march, they come to the shops and taxis looking for foreigners. They check your ID. If you are Zimbabwean, they beat you. They loot your things. The police stand there and watch or sometimes join in.” Another respondent, a 29-year-old market vendor in Durban, shared: “Landlords tell you: ‘You foreigners must leave. We don’t want problems with the community.’ Even your customers insult you. They say, ‘Why are you here selling when South Africans are jobless?’ Every day, you feel like you are breathing borrowed air.” This normalization of everyday bordering practices - where landlords, customers, and even coworkers act as informal immigration enforcers - echoes Mezzadra and Neilson’s ( 2013 ) theory of bordering within society : migrants are constantly surveilled, questioned, and excluded even after crossing the national frontier. The Deepening of Social Death and Precarious Belonging The xenophobic landscape renders Zimbabwean migrants socially dead long before they might be physically displaced. They are erased from rights-bearing membership, treated not as neighbors or co-workers but as perpetual outsiders to be purged in times of political or economic crisis. As a 32-year-old Zimbabwean postgraduate student at the University of Cape Town explained: “It’s not just about legal documents anymore. Even if you have a visa, even if you work hard, you are still seen as a foreigner, a threat. You are always on the outside looking in. South Africa is not a home - it’s a waiting room where they can ask you to leave anytime.” Thus, xenophobia is not episodic but systematic and structural, producing an everyday geography of exclusion, violence, and insecurity that governs Zimbabwean migrants’ lives. The rise of anti-immigrant nationalism exemplified by “Put South Africans First” deepens the precarious citizenship (Butler, 2016 ) and necropolitical exposure (Mbembe, 2003 ) already shaping Zimbabwean migrant lives. Campaigns of scapegoating not only deny migrants’ claims to urban space, labor markets, and institutional belonging but also justify systemic practices of disposability. In this context, Zimbabwean migrants are not simply surviving in South Africa; they are surviving against a public narrative that paints their very presence as a crime. These findings further reinforce that Zimbabwean migrants’ vulnerability is not the byproduct of individual misfortune but the predictable outcome of intersecting state policies, public discourses, and social practices of exclusion - operating together to produce an unlivable present and a suspended, uncertain future. Figure 3 shows a man waves a stick in front a burning piece of furniture during a riot and looting, torching of foreign-owned shops in the Johannesburg suburb of Turffontein. 5.2 The Crisis of Return: Home is No Longer Home While many Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa express a profound and persistent desire to return “home,” return is largely imagined rather than practically realizable. Participants across diverse sites - malls, airports, salons, universities - narrated a powerful emotional attachment to Zimbabwe, yet simultaneously acknowledged that economic collapse, hyperinflation 1 , political repression, and personal insecurity made actual return impossible. This condition of suspended return exemplifies what King and Ghosh (2000) describes as the deferred temporality of return migration, and what Peggy Levitt ( 2001 ) frames as the emotional salience of “home” amidst the realities of exile. Figure 4 shows Zimbabwean banknotes ranging from 10 dollars to 100 billion dollars printed within a one-year period. The magnitude of the currency scalars signifies the extent of the hyperinflation. Home as an Imagined Refuge, but an Impossible Reality The dream of going back was almost universally articulated among respondents, but it was marked by profound ambivalence. As one Uber driver in Johannesburg explained: “Every day I dream of going back. I miss my mother, my brothers, even the smell of the rains there. But go back to what? No jobs, no future, no peace. Going back would just mean dying slowly.” Similarly, a 35-year-old Zimbabwean woman selling wares in a Cape Town market described: “Home is sweet in memory but bitter in reality. I follow the news every day hoping for change, but each election, each promise, just breaks your heart more. Going back now would be suicide.” These narratives reveal that Zimbabwe functions more as an emotional refuge - a site of imagined restoration of dignity and belonging - than a viable place of return. The tension between memory and material reality underscores the impossibility of return in the face of structural crises: hyperinflation, collapsing public services, political violence, and state predation (Raftopoulos, 2009 ; Sachikonye, 2011). The “return home” is therefore endlessly deferred, reshaping migrants’ temporal horizons: home is longed for, invoked, and mourned, but rarely enacted. Double Disenfranchisement: Excluded from South Africa, Abandoned by Zimbabwe The emotions of respondents were dominated by a profound sense of double disenfranchisement. Migrants expressed feeling simultaneously excluded from full membership in South Africa and betrayed by the political and economic implosion of Zimbabwe. A 29-year-old student at the University of Cape Town powerfully captured this tension: “Here [in South Africa], you are always the outsider. They remind you with their words, their eyes, even the way they serve you in shops. But back there [Zimbabwe] is also gone. My country does not want me either. It failed us. It’s like being homeless even when you have two houses.” Another respondent, a 42-year-old construction worker in Pretoria, similarly lamented: We fought to free Zimbabwe. Our fathers died for that land. Now we run away from it like criminals. Here they beat us, there we starve. Where do you belong when both homes betray you?” This pervasive sense of betrayal is not unfounded. Zimbabwe’s authoritarian political landscape -marked by widespread repression, human rights abuses, and state violence - has systematically destroyed the social contract between citizens and the state. Since the early 2000s, successive Zimbabwean governments have been accused of orchestrating electoral fraud, suppressing political dissent, violently crushing protests, and using security forces to intimidate opposition groups and civil society activists (Raftopoulos, 2009 ; Bracking, 2005 ; Sachikonye, 2011). Many migrants spoke about living through these abuses firsthand. A 38-year-old informal trader in Johannesburg recounted: “I still have scars on my back from when they [police] beat us for protesting about the failing economy. They tear gas you, they shoot rubber bullets, and then they go on TV and say everything is normal. How do you return to that kind of normal?” The image of riot police arresting and forcibly apprehending protesters during demonstrations in Harare (Fig. 5 ) - a scene familiar to many respondents - symbolizes the violent repression that migrants fled, and the persistent climate of fear that erases any realistic hope of safe return. These testimonies vividly illustrate Hannah Arendt’s ( 1951 ) seminal insight into statelessness: when individuals lose the protection of a political community - when no polity recognizes or values their rights - they are stripped not merely of legal entitlements but of political existence itself. Zimbabwean migrants find themselves trapped in precisely this liminal condition: their Zimbabwean nationality offers them no functional security or citizenship rights, while South Africa treats them as perpetual outsiders and security threats. In Arendtian terms, the Zimbabwean migrant has lost the “right to have rights” - that is, the foundational membership in a political community that guarantees recognition, protection, and dignity. Without such membership, rights become rhetorical ideals rather than lived realities, and migrant lives are exposed to contingent goodwill, structural hostility, and systemic violence across multiple borders (Bhanye, 2024 ). The findings powerfully illustrate that for Zimbabwean migrants, home has become both a longed-for emotional horizon and an impossible material destination. Their existence is shaped by an unresolvable tension between belonging and exclusion, memory and reality. The concept of statelessness (Arendt, 1951 ) provides a crucial theoretical lens for understanding this condition: Zimbabwean migrants are not merely displaced geographically, but politically abandoned - excluded from any effective system of rights, recognition, and belonging. As Levitt ( 2001 ) and King (2000) argue, while transnational ties and imaginaries sustain emotional connections to the homeland, they cannot substitute for the material guarantees of security and dignity that functioning states are meant to provide. Thus, migrants live with the constant ache of longing for home, even as they acknowledge that home - as a place of safety and belonging - no longer exists (Bhanye et al., 2025 ). 5.3 Transnational Identities and Deferred Futures While physically located in South Africa, Zimbabwean migrants maintain powerful emotional, economic, and political ties to Zimbabwe. Their lives are shaped by what Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton ( 1992 ; 1995) conceptualize as transnationalism: the active construction and maintenance of simultaneous attachments across multiple national spaces. Yet these transnational practices occur against the backdrop of permanent transit, where neither stable integration into South Africa nor definitive return to Zimbabwe seems possible. This condition of suspended belonging profoundly affects migrants’ futures, aspirations, and daily lives, resonating strongly with Ghassan Hage’s ( 2009 ) theorization of stuckedness and the temporalities of migration. Strong Ties to Zimbabwe: Remittances, Political Involvement, Emotional Attachment Despite the risks, discrimination, and precariousness they face in South Africa, Zimbabwean migrants maintain dense transnational engagements with their homeland. Financial remittances remain a vital survival strategy for families in Zimbabwe, contributing significantly to the national economy (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ). As a 38-year-old restaurant worker in Durban explained: “Even when I earn little, I send something home every month. My mother depends on it to buy maize meal. I cannot abandon them because even if I suffer here, they suffer worse.” Beyond financial remittances, many migrants stay deeply involved in Zimbabwean politics and civil society, following developments closely, participating in diaspora forums, and voting (when possible) in elections. A 31-year-old postgraduate student at the University of Johannesburg shared: “We are still Zimbabweans. We watch the news, we debate politics, we hope for change. Maybe one day, if it gets better, we can go back and rebuild. But that day keeps running away from us.” These attachments demonstrate that migrants are not deracinated from their homeland but are actively embedded in its social, political, and emotional landscapes, sustaining what Glick Schiller et al. (1995) call transnational social fields . Aspirations to Migrate Further: Europe, Australia, Canada and beyond Facing persistent xenophobia, labor market exclusion, and restrictive migration policies in South Africa, many Zimbabwean migrants are increasingly looking beyond the region toward new global destinations. Aspirations to migrate to Europe, Australia, Canada, and even New Zealand surfaced repeatedly during interviews. A 27-year-old hairdresser in Cape Town captured this shifting imaginary: “South Africa was our plan A. But Plan A has failed. Now we dream of Germany, the UK, even Australia. Anywhere we can be safe, respected, treated like a human being.” Similarly, a 41-year-old Zimbabwean Uber driver expressed: “It’s not that we love to keep moving. It’s survival. South Africa is closing its doors. Zimbabwe is broken. So we have to find a Plan B, Plan C, whatever it takes.” These aspirations reflect a new phase in the migratory trajectories of Zimbabweans - what Bakewell ( 2013 ) calls secondary migrations - where initial destinations no longer fulfill migrants’ needs, prompting onward mobility despite significant risks. However, as respondents acknowledged, access to these new destinations is heavily stratified: younger, highly educated, or skilled migrants are more likely to qualify for work visas or study permits abroad, while older and less-educated migrants often remain trapped in South Africa’s precarious informal economy. Living in Permanent Transit: Suspended Lives, Deferred Futures Zimbabwean migrants’ narratives vividly capture what Hage ( 2009 ) describes as the politics of stuckedness - a condition where migrants remain physically mobile but existentially immobilized, unable to settle, return, or move forward with certainty. As a 33-year-old seminar attendee at a migration workshop in Pretoria explained: “We are like ships without harbors. We float from place to place, but there is no anchor. South Africa does not want us. Zimbabwe has nothing for us. And Europe is a dream that may never come true.” Another respondent, a 25-year-old Zimbabwean studying engineering at the University of Pretoria, stated: “It feels like time is standing still. I am studying hard, but after graduation, what next? No permit, no job, no future. Just waiting, hoping, applying, and being disappointed.” These testimonies reveal that migrants experience time itself as precarious, living with deferred dreams, interrupted life plans, and chronic uncertainty. They are simultaneously tethered to Zimbabwe through transnational practices and emotionally invested in new imagined futures abroad, yet trapped in an in-between condition in South Africa where settlement remains elusive. Thus, Zimbabwean migrants are not only spatially displaced but temporally dislocated—their futures perpetually deferred, their presents characterized by precarity, and their pasts saturated with unfulfilled promises. The lived experiences of Zimbabwean migrants exemplify the core dynamics of transnational migration: sustaining multi-local attachments while navigating marginalization and exclusion in host societies (Glick Schiller et al., 1992 ; 1995). At the same time, the overwhelming sense of permanent transit and deferred futures reflects the temporal violence that undergirds contemporary migratory regimes, as theorized by Hage ( 2009 ). These findings demonstrate that for Zimbabwean migrants, precarity is not only spatial but deeply temporal: belonging, security, and dignity are suspended across fragmented geographies and uncertain futures. 5.4 Generational and Class Differences The experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa are not homogeneous. Rather, they are deeply stratified along generational and class lines, producing markedly different trajectories of integration, precarity, and aspiration. Older Zimbabwean migrants - those who arrived in the 1990s and early 2000s - tend to be relatively better established, while younger, newer migrants face harsher economic realities and far stricter migration regimes. Similarly, educational attainment emerges as a crucial axis shaping access to employment, social mobility, and migratory futures. These dynamics resonate strongly with migration scholarship emphasizing the intersectionality of migrant experiences (Vertovec, 2007 ; Bakewell, 2013 ). Older Migrants: Relative Stability Amidst Growing Precarity Zimbabwean migrants who arrived during the late 1990s and early 2000s often did so under conditions of relatively greater opportunity. During the early post-apartheid period, South Africa’s economy was expanding, immigration controls were less restrictive, and Zimbabwe’s collapse was only beginning (Crush and Tevera, 2010 ). As a 49-year-old hair salon owner in Johannesburg recalled: “When I came in 2001, things were different. You could find a job quickly, you could even open a small business without too much harassment. We were building lives then. Now, it feels like a war zone for the new ones.” Another older migrant, a 51-year-old security company owner in Durban, reflected: “We were lucky. Papers were easier, work was there. Even South Africans welcomed us because we brought skills. Now, everyone looks at you like you are the problem.” While these older migrants have faced growing hostility in recent years, many have established businesses, secured permanent residency, or built extensive social networks that provide some buffer against precarity. However, their narratives also reveal anxieties about a deteriorating environment for African migrants overall, threatening even previously stable livelihoods. Newer Migrants: Facing Harsher Conditions and Closing Doors By contrast, younger Zimbabwean migrants - those arriving post-2015 - encounter a much more hostile landscape marked by shrinking economic opportunities, tightened immigration controls, and intensified xenophobia (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ; Amit, 2015 ). A 26-year-old recent arrival working as a parking attendant in Pretoria shared: “I came here thinking I would find something better, but South Africa is not the place it used to be. Jobs are gone, papers are impossible, police chase you like a criminal. You hustle or you die.” Similarly, a 23-year-old domestic worker in Cape Town explained: “I paid so much to come here. Now I work for half the minimum wage, and even then, you are scared every day of being fired or arrested. It’s like we are living on the edge, every minute.” Newer migrants often enter informal, exploitative labor markets without the protective networks that earlier migrants built, leaving them profoundly exposed to economic and social precarity. Moreover, newer arrivals face policy environments like the termination of ZEP permits, closure of asylum pathways, and aggressive immigration enforcement that severely constrain possibilities for legal settlement (Musoni, 2020 ). Educational Divides: Professional Aspirations vs. Survivalist Hustling Educational background significantly differentiates Zimbabwean migrants’ experiences in South Africa, shaping not only access to economic opportunities but also the imagination of future possibilities. Highly educated migrants - those with university degrees or professional training—tend to harbor aspirations for formal employment, professional advancement, and onward global migration (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, 2015 ). A 32-year-old Master’s student at the University of Cape Town explained: “I came here to study because I believe education is my ticket out of this cycle. I dream of getting a scholarship abroad or finding a job where my skills are valued. I refuse to be stuck.” However, even for highly educated Zimbabweans, professional integration has become increasingly fraught. Employment discrimination, precarious legal statuses, the devaluation of foreign qualifications, and systemic documentation barriers sharply curtail their ability to transition into secure formal employment (Amit, 2012 ). Moreover, a particularly insidious form of exclusion - academic xenophobia - has emerged within South Africa’s universities, affecting even the most credentialed migrants (Simba, Walters and Jansen, 2025 ). Respondents narrated experiences of being overlooked for permanent or senior positions, despite holding advanced qualifications and international experience. Zimbabwean academics, alongside other foreign African scholars, are often relegated to temporary, adjunct, or contract-based roles, excluded from decision-making spaces, and treated as “outsiders” within institutions supposedly committed to diversity and global knowledge exchange. As a 41-year-old Zimbabwean postdoctoral fellow at a Gauteng university noted: “No matter how many degrees you have, you are never truly accepted. They hire you for skills, but when it’s time for permanent posts or leadership, they say you are ‘not rooted’ enough. It’s a polite way of saying you are not South African, and you will never belong.” This academic xenophobia, distinct yet related to broader societal Afrophobia, reflects deep-seated biases within South African higher education, where foreign African scholars are subtly, and sometimes overtly, excluded from full institutional citizenship (Heleta, 2016 ; Nyamnjoh, 2012 ; Simba, Walters and Jansen, 2025 ). Such patterns reproduce the very hierarchies that universities claim to challenge and mirror similar exclusionary practices across other formal sectors, including healthcare, civil service, and professional industries. In stark contrast, less-educated Zimbabwean migrants - those with only secondary schooling or vocational training - are often forced into survivalist hustling: informal street vending, piecework, domestic labor, and precarious construction work. Their engagement with the economy is shaped by immediate material needs rather than long-term professional trajectories. As a 29-year-old informal trader at the Beitbridge taxi rank recounted: “School certificates mean nothing here. No one asks if you passed your exams. They only care if you can push goods, clean houses, or drive. We survive by hustling, not dreaming.” Thus, the education divide is not merely about differential access to opportunity but also about the scale, imagination, and feasibility of future horizons. Highly educated migrants often envision eventual escape routes - through scholarships, skilled migration, or professional networking - whereas less-educated migrants are locked into immediate, survival-driven economies with far fewer exit options. Crucially, both groups encounter ceilings - formal and informal - that limit their social mobility and entrench their structural precarity, albeit through different pathways. Education provides aspirational resources but does not, on its own, dismantle the systemic exclusions deeply embedded within South Africa’s post-apartheid labor markets and institutions (Crush and Tawodzera, 2017 ; Heleta, 2016 ). This confirms that generation and class intersect powerfully to shape Zimbabwean migrants’ experiences in South Africa. Older migrants benefitted from earlier periods of relative openness and stability, while newer migrants confront heightened precarity and restricted mobility (Crush and Tevera, 2010 ; Musoni, 2020 ). 5.5 Everyday Xenophobia and the Politics of Exclusion While structural precarity profoundly shapes Zimbabwean migrants’ lives in South Africa, xenophobia - specifically Afrophobia directed at black African migrants - constitutes a central axis of everyday violence, exclusion, and marginalization. This section explores migrants’ experiences of xenophobia in urban spaces, the political scapegoating of foreign Africans in public narratives, and the proliferation of everyday bordering practices (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013 ) that normalize exclusion through routine interactions. Experiences of Afrophobia in Urban Areas Respondents consistently narrated experiences of overt hostility, discrimination, and fear in South African urban spaces - markets, townships, transport hubs, and workplaces. Unlike general xenophobia, Afrophobia is specifically directed at black African migrants and is deeply racialized and classed (Crush and Ramachandran, 2010 ; Neocosmos, 2008 ). A 30-year-old Zimbabwean street vendor in Johannesburg described: “When things go wrong, we are the first ones they blame. If there is no water, it’s because of foreigners. If there are no jobs, it’s because of foreigners. They say it openly: ‘You people must go back where you came from.’” Similarly, a 35-year-old Zimbabwean Uber driver in Cape Town recalled: “Even customers insult you. They get into your car and the first thing they ask is, ‘Are you one of those Zimbabweans stealing our jobs?’ You drive them politely, but inside it cuts you. You are always reminded you don’t belong.” These experiences confirm Crush and Ramachandran’s ( 2010 ) argument that migrants are constructed as scapegoats for South Africa’s persistent socio-economic crises, reinforcing patterns of everyday hostility and systemic marginalization. Political Scapegoating of Migrants: Media Narratives of “Job Theft” and “Criminality” Respondents repeatedly pointed to the role of political leaders and media narratives in fueling xenophobic sentiments. Politicians, especially at local levels, often scapegoat migrants during election periods, framing them as threats to national security, economic prosperity, and social stability (Landau, 2011 ; Tshabalala, 2025 ). A 41-year-old Zimbabwean schoolteacher working informally in Soweto stated: “You hear leaders saying ‘foreigners must fall,’ ‘foreigners must be removed.’ It’s on TV, on radios, even at community meetings. How can you feel safe when the leaders want you gone?” Media representations similarly reinforce exclusionary discourses. Zimbabweans, along with Nigerians and Somalis, are frequently depicted as “stealing jobs,” “bringing drugs,” or “overrunning healthcare facilities” (Crush and Tevera, 2010 ). As a 27-year-old Zimbabwean receptionist in Durban reflected: “You feel hunted. You read the newspapers, you listen to the news, and you realize you are the enemy in their story. No matter how hard you work or how honestly you live, you are already guilty because you are foreign.” Such representations not only normalize societal hostility but also justify restrictive immigration policies and street-level violence, embedding Afrophobia into everyday political and media discourse. Everyday Bordering: Policing, Landlord Evictions, Workplace Discrimination Drawing on Mezzadra and Neilson’s ( 2013 ) concept of everyday bordering, Zimbabwean migrants’ accounts reveal how exclusion operates not only through formal immigration enforcement but through mundane, dispersed practices across society. Police harassment was almost universally reported. A 29-year-old waiter in Pretoria explained: “Police stop you on the street, in taxis, even when you are shopping. First they ask for your ID. If you show ZEP, they say it’s expired or fake. Then you must pay or they arrest you.” Housing discrimination was another pervasive form of bordering. Migrants often reported being evicted or denied rentals based on their nationality. As a 34-year-old domestic worker in Cape Town recounted: “When the landlord found out I was Zimbabwean, he said the rent is doubled. ‘You foreigners must pay more or leave,’ he said. No contract, no rights, nothing.” Workplace discrimination further compounded precarity. Migrants described being denied contracts, paid below minimum wage, or subjected to verbal abuse. A 25-year-old Zimbabwean man working in a construction firm stated: “When you are Zimbabwean, they don’t give you papers. They can fire you anytime without notice. You are just a tool they use until they don’t need you.” These acts of everyday bordering reveal how exclusion is diffused across the urban landscape - not confined to state checkpoints but enacted in homes, streets, shops, and workplaces. Migrants’ existence is continuously policed, questioned, and destabilized (Vigneswaran, 2014 ). Thus xenophobia in South Africa operates not only as episodic violence but as an ongoing structure of exclusion. Zimbabwean migrants live under what Mezzadra and Neilson ( 2013 ) term a multiplication of borders - constantly surveilled, questioned, and marginalized across every domain of life. Moreover, these bordering practices are socially produced and politically sanctioned, rooted in broader narratives that construct migrants as threats and burdens rather than contributors (Crush and Dodson, 2017 ; Neocosmos, 2006 ). The result is an environment where precarity is not accidental but actively manufactured, what Mbembe ( 2003 ) would describe as a necropolitical ordering of space. In this context, Zimbabwean migrants are forced to survive in an urban landscape saturated with hostility, exclusion, and vulnerability, a landscape where rights are contingent, precarious, and revocable at any moment. 6. Conclusion: Between a Broken Home and a Hostile Host - The Unfinished Struggles of Zimbabwean Migrants This paper critically examined the lived experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in post-apartheid South Africa, foregrounding themes of precarity, disenfranchisement, and deferred return. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research and rich theoretical frameworks, the analysis has demonstrated that Zimbabwean migrants inhabit an extended condition of liminality: marginalized in South Africa’s increasingly hostile socio-political landscape, yet simultaneously unable to return to a Zimbabwe devastated by economic collapse, political repression, and state failure. Through the lenses of Butler’s ( 2004 , 2016 ) concept of precarious life , Arendt’s ( 1951 ) notion of statelessness and the right to have rights , and Mbembe’s ( 2003 ) theory of necropolitics , this study has shown how Zimbabwean migrants’ lives are rendered disposable, caught between the violence of exclusion in South Africa and the abandonment of rights and protections in their home country. Glick Schiller’s (1992, 1995) framework of transnationalism and Hage’s ( 2009 ) analysis of temporal stuckedness further illuminate the migrants’ experiences of living across multiple spaces and deferred futures without security, settlement, or full political belonging. Connecting the Zimbabwean case to global discourses on statelessness and disposability, it becomes clear that these migrants represent a contemporary form of what Arendt ( 1951 ) called the loss of the right to have rights . Zimbabwean migrants are citizens of a failed state unable to guarantee their social, economic, or political security; yet, in South Africa, they are treated as suspect, criminalized, and unwanted. In Butler’s ( 2004 ) terms, their lives are rendered precarious not by accident, but through deliberate political processes that systematically deny them recognition, security, and livable futures. Precarity becomes a mode of governance, a way of regulating populations deemed surplus to the requirements of the neoliberal, securitized nation-state. Mbembe’s ( 2003 ) necropolitics further sharpens this analysis: the urban spaces Zimbabwean migrants inhabit - informal settlements, overcrowded townships, marginal workplaces - are not just sites of neglect but active spaces of death-worlds, where slow forms of social death (displacement, exclusion, poverty, violence) are normalized and managed. The Zimbabwean migrant experience emerges, therefore, as emblematic of broader African postcolonial crises: a stark indictment of the failure of post-independence nation-states to guarantee dignity, security, and political inclusion to their citizens. It simultaneously reflects the deep fractures within post-apartheid South Africa’s project of liberation, where the dreams of pan-African solidarity have been replaced by exclusionary nationalisms, socio-economic stratification, and violent bordering practices. Migrants are thus left to navigate fragmented identities, contested spaces, and precarious futures - existing as disenfranchised citizens of nowhere, living in urban peripheries that materialize the failures of both Zimbabwe’s postcolonial project and South Africa’s democratic promises. Rather than fulfilling the pan-African dream of continental unity and liberation, post-apartheid South Africa has retrenched into narrow nationalisms, exclusionary economic practices, and internal bordering that violently marginalize African migrants (Neocosmos, 2008 ; Landau, 2011 ). As a result, Zimbabwean migrants find themselves in an urban landscape where belonging is perpetually conditional and precarious, where survival requires navigating everyday violence, discrimination, and disposability. The findings point urgently to the need for a fundamental rethinking of migration governance in South Africa and beyond. Rather than relying on securitized, exclusionary, and discriminatory frameworks, South Africa must adopt rights-based, inclusive approaches that recognize the humanity, contributions, and dignities of migrants. As long as immigration is governed through logics of threat and exclusion, migrants will remain trapped in cycles of precarity that undermine not only their futures but the broader project of democratic and social justice. While host states bear crucial responsibilities, the Zimbabwean case loudly demonstrates that sending states must also address their deep structural failures. Zimbabwe’s ongoing political authoritarianism, economic mismanagement, and systemic corruption have produced the conditions of mass displacement. The Zimbabwean migrant experience not only exposes the failings of host societies like South Africa but also shines a harsh light on the profound dysfunctions of sending states themselves. If mass displacement and precarious exile are to be addressed sustainably, countries like Zimbabwe must confront the political and economic crises that force their citizens into migration under conditions of desperation and indignity. Zimbabwe’s long-standing political authoritarianism, economic collapse, and pervasive corruption have systematically stripped millions of citizens of the possibility of a dignified life at home (Raftopoulos ( 2009 ). Migration, in this sense, is not merely a choice or an economic strategy - it is a forced survival tactic, an act of flight from unlivable conditions. The testimonies of migrants captured in this study - longing for home yet terrified of return - speak to the depth of betrayal experienced by citizens abandoned by their own states. Without fundamental transformation at home, Zimbabwean migration futures will remain shaped by exile, precarity, and deferred dreams. Thus, sustainable solutions to forced migration must begin at the source. Zimbabwe, and similar sending states across Africa, must engage in radical internal repair: Restoring Democratic Governance : There is an urgent need to dismantle authoritarian political structures, end repression, and rebuild transparent, accountable governance systems where citizens’ rights are respected and protected. Revitalizing Economic Foundations : Beyond piecemeal reforms, Zimbabwe must pursue deep economic restructuring that stabilizes the currency, promotes diversified and sustainable growth, and prioritizes employment creation - especially for youth and marginalized groups. Tackling Systemic Corruption : Ending elite capture and rent-seeking practices is crucial to restore public trust and ensure that national resources are directed toward the collective good, not siphoned into private hands. Investing in Human Development : Education, healthcare, and social services must be rebuilt as pillars of national resilience and opportunity. A country that neglects its human capital guarantees future cycles of displacement and impoverishment. Strengthening Regional and Continental Commitments : Zimbabwe must also align with African Union and SADC protocols promoting good governance, human rights, and free movement, not only as a diplomatic posture but as a domestic development strategy. As Bakewell ( 2013 ) argues, treating migration merely as a border management problem ignores the root causes embedded in state failure and economic exclusion. Until sending countries address these internal contradictions, migration pressures will persist, and migrants will continue to navigate hostile terrains of survival abroad. In short, Zimbabwe must stop exporting its citizens as survival labor and start creating a country where staying becomes not an act of desperation, but a viable, fulfilling choice. Without this shift - without fixing (and fixing fundamentally) their politics, economies, and social contracts - sending countries will remain complicit in the production of precarious migrant lives across the continent and beyond. A functioning, inclusive Zimbabwean state is the most sustainable solution to reducing forced displacement, restoring dignity to migrants, and enabling real rather than imagined returns. Looking ahead, Zimbabwean migrants confront highly uneven futures. A minority - mostly the highly educated and globally mobile - may access onward migration pathways to Europe, Canada, or Australia. Yet the majority are likely to remain trapped in precarious conditions within South Africa and other neighboring states, caught between fractured homes and fractured host societies. Migration futures are thus bifurcated: shaped by class, education, and opportunity, but always undergirded by the enduring global hierarchies that produce mobility for some and immobilization for others. The Zimbabwean migrant story is not simply one of victimhood, but also of endurance, creativity, and the stubborn pursuit of life under impossible conditions. Yet their predicament lays bare the global failures of postcolonial nation-states and neoliberal migration regimes alike. Addressing these failures requires not only better migration policies but also rebuilding broken states, imagining post-national forms of belonging, and forging transnational solidarities that affirm migrants’ rights to dignity, security, and full political existence across borders. In honoring Zimbabwean migrants’ struggles, we are called to reimagine political community itself: a community where no human being is disposable, and where the right to belong is no longer a deferred dream, but a lived reality. Declarations Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. Disclaimer: Liability for commissions, omissions and/or views expressed in this paper remains entirely the responsibility of the author. Funding: This study did not receive any funding Data availability (data transparency) Some of the data that underlie the findings of this study may be made available upon request from the authors. Informed consent All participants provided written informed consent before inclusion in the study. The process included a clear explanation of the study, potential risks, benefits, and the voluntary nature of participation. Ethics The research was ethically approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Zimbabwe. Prior to participation, all participants were duly informed of their rights and responsibilities and provided explicit written consent. The study was conducted in agreement with the guidelines governing research involving human participants, as outlined by the Ethics Committee of the University of Zimbabwe. Consent to participate Written, freely given, informed consent to participate was obtained from all adult participants prior to data collection. No participants under the age of 18 were enrolled in this study. Consent to publish Written informed consent to publish was obtained from all participants for the publication of anonymized interview data and for any potentially identifiable images or details; where individuals are depicted in human-identifiable images, explicit consent to publish those images was obtained from the persons shown. No participants under 18 were included; therefore, parental or guardian consent was not required. Clinical trial number: not applicable. 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14:59:48","extension":"xml","order_by":13,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":192794,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"6924267e001a468baef98d0f6804ebdd1structuring.xml","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/458bbc04fe2f883a5471a17b.xml"},{"id":91725580,"identity":"d44446e7-81c6-4ed0-bccf-8649df856ea7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-19 14:59:48","extension":"html","order_by":14,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":205152,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"earlyproof.html","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/dc6d39bb462b33b0318a013f.html"},{"id":91725564,"identity":"4bc396e0-21da-4c73-971d-37108ffab9e8","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-19 14:59:47","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":673755,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMap of Southern Africa showing migration flows between Zimbabwe and South Africa\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSource: Adapted from Omer et al., 2022\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/b63e5860f80498cd7ce72e5b.png"},{"id":91727355,"identity":"a5b2381e-008b-4dd5-9536-c73c6f2c0fc7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-19 15:15:47","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":731127,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e#Put South Africans First campaign reigniting xenophobic rhetoric in South Africa\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSource: Nebe, 2022\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/f412b9ced414192b47b024bb.png"},{"id":91725568,"identity":"3c61ed18-66fa-4755-b6ad-381653b0bf36","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-19 14:59:48","extension":"jpeg","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":567387,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA man waves a stick in front a burning piece of furniture during a riot, and looting, torching of foreign-owned shops in the Johannesburg suburb of Turffontein\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSource: Sguazzin \u0026amp; Osae-Brown, 2019\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image3.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/989ae229fb2571c2fb4137f2.jpeg"},{"id":91726385,"identity":"585cde83-df28-4889-9c01-53cf81cef724","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-19 15:07:48","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":435304,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eZimbabwean banknotes ranging from 10 dollars to 100 billion dollars printed within a one-year period\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/f15cc4719b12851a9e287104.png"},{"id":91725565,"identity":"b1f90bae-0647-4794-b3b7-65fcbbd3ddd6","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-19 14:59:47","extension":"jpeg","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":90009,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRiot police arresting and forcibly apprehending protesters during protests in Harare, Zimbabwe\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image5.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/0ae3d9aefa5beb02a6154117.jpeg"},{"id":94672078,"identity":"1483b459-d5ab-4e6c-a8ed-49f81da7e4a7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-29 13:38:26","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":4269667,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7398493/v1/4d49b893-70b4-4446-882c-e43aea9dc766.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"To Stay Here Is to Suffer, to Return Home Is to Perish - Entangled Zimbabwean Migrants, Precarity, and the Crisis of Return in Post-Apartheid South Africa","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eOn a humid morning in Cape Town, a Zimbabwean Uber driver taking me to the Central Business District (CBD) shares his story: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;My brother\u0026hellip;.I want to go back home, but I am stuck here, brother. I can no longer stay here, South Africa is no longer the same, they no longer want us here. But I can\u0026rsquo;t go back home either, our Zimbabwean economy is terrible.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e His words capture a profound existential tension faced by many Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa - caught between the growing roughness and hostility of their host country (South Africa) and the enduring collapse of their homeland (Zimbabwe). This pervasive sense of being both stuck and locked out animates the complex migratory experiences explored in this paper.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSince the turn of the 21st century, Zimbabweans have constituted one of the largest groups of international migrants in South Africa, with estimates suggesting that between 1.5 to 2\u0026nbsp;million Zimbabweans currently reside in the country (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Musoni, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Migration surged particularly after the economic and political meltdown of the early 2000s, when Zimbabwe experienced catastrophic events such as hyperinflation reaching 79.6\u0026nbsp;billion percent in 2008 (Hanke and Kwok, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e), violent land seizures, and systemic political repression under ZANU-PF rule (Raftopoulos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile migration initially offered pathways to survival and renewal, the post-apartheid South African state - once a beacon of hope for African solidarity - has become increasingly hostile toward foreign Africans, particularly those from Zimbabwe. Migrants are scapegoated for rising unemployment (which stood at 32.9% nationally in South Africa as of 2024 according to Statistics South Africa, 2024), crime, and service delivery failures, reinforcing deep-seated xenophobic attitudes and exclusionary policies (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSimultaneously, persistent economic decline, political authoritarianism, and civil repression in Zimbabwe block any meaningful prospects of return, trapping many migrants in an ongoing state of legal, economic, and existential precarity (Bhanye et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis paper contends that Zimbabwean migrants find themselves doubly disenfranchised - excluded from full social, political, and economic membership in South Africa while being effectively abandoned by their collapsing state of origin. The Zimbabwean migrant experience thus illustrates the paradox of belonging and exclusion in contemporary Africa, where the promise of postcolonial citizenship has been hollowed out by both domestic failure and regional hostility.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Butler (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) argues, precarity is not merely an economic condition but a politically induced state of disposability, where certain populations are rendered vulnerable by deliberate political choices. Similarly, Arendt\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) notion of \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;statelessness\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e and the deprivation of the \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;right to have rights\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e aptly captures the plight of Zimbabwean migrants who are denied meaningful belonging in both their home and host countries.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis paper is structured around three central research questions:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003col\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow do Zimbabwean migrants navigate identity, belonging, and exclusion in South Africa?\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat role does the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe and the rising xenophobia in South Africa play in shaping migrants\u0026rsquo; precarious futures?\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow do migrants imagine \u0026ldquo;home\u0026rdquo; amidst these complex and shifting conditions?\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo address these questions, the paper draws on several interlocking theoretical frameworks. First, Judith Butler\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) work on precarity and Miriam Ticktin\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e) reflections on precarious citizenship provide critical lenses for analyzing the manufactured vulnerabilities faced by migrants. Second, theories of diaspora and transnationalism (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc, 1995) illuminate how Zimbabwean migrants sustain transnational ties while navigating their marginalization in South Africa. Third, Achille Mbembe\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) concept of necropolitics helps unpack how state and societal violence shape the migrant experience, rendering certain lives more expendable than others. Lastly, Hannah Arendt\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) seminal insights on statelessness frame the Zimbabwean condition as a crisis of political existence, wherein migrants are stripped not only of national belonging but of the very infrastructure that enables rights and recognition.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Zimbabwean migrant story is not simply a tale of movement across borders; it is a narrative of deferred dreams, precarious survival, and the simultaneous longing for, and impossibility of, return. As demonstrated in this paper, the phrase often repeated by interviewees \u0026ndash; \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I want to go back home\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e - is not just an expression of nostalgia but a profound articulation of loss, displacement, and unfulfilled citizenship. Tracing the everyday realities, aspirations, and imagined futures of Zimbabwean migrants, this paper contributes to broader debates about migration, precarity, postcolonial belonging, and the unfinished struggles for dignity and recognition in the global South.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Contextual Background","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.1 Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s Political and Economic Collapse\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eZimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s post-independence trajectory, once celebrated as a model of African decolonization and self-determination, has over the past four decades spiraled into chronic political, economic, and social instability (Bhanye et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e; Raftopoulos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Zhou and Zvoushe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). Following a promising start after 1980 independence, marked by investments in education and healthcare, the country entered a prolonged period of authoritarian rule, economic mismanagement, and escalating human rights abuses, particularly under the leadership of Robert Mugabe and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) (Raftopoulos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Zhou and Zvoushe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe political environment deteriorated significantly in the late 1990s and early 2000s. State-led land reform programs, particularly the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) launched in 2000, while aiming to redress historical injustices, were marred by violence, patronage, and international isolation (Moyo, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Scoones et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR54\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). As a result, Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s agricultural production - the backbone of its economy - collapsed, leading to severe food insecurity and economic contraction.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe consequences of political repression and economic mismanagement culminated in one of the most extreme cases of hyperinflation in world history. By mid-2008, Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s inflation rate was estimated at 89.7 sextillion percent (Hanke and Kwok, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Everyday life became a struggle for basic survival, with widespread shortages of fuel, food, and medical supplies. Unemployment soared to over 80%, while public services, including education and healthcare, virtually collapsed (Bracking, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScholars have characterized Zimbabwe as a \u0026ldquo;failed state\u0026rdquo; (Duffield, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Rotberg, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e), a term denoting the erosion of legitimate governance structures, the collapse of state capacity to provide public goods, and the pervasive use of violence against citizens. While critics have debated the analytical usefulness of \u0026ldquo;failed state\u0026rdquo; discourse (Chazan, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e; Clapham, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e), Zimbabwe undoubtedly exhibits many features associated with state failure: elite predation, political militarization, infrastructural decay, and mass out-migration.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the post-2008 era, following the Global Political Agreement and the formation of a short-lived Government of National Unity (GNU) (Raftopoulos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e), there were brief periods of stabilization. However, the deep structural crises remained unresolved. The rise of Emmerson Mnangagwa to power in 2017 following a military-assisted coup raised hopes of political renewal, yet these were quickly dashed as patterns of authoritarian governance, human rights violations, and economic decline persisted (Bhanye and Ngwenya, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e; Bhanye et al., 2024).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global economic shocks further exacerbated Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s fragility. Recent studies highlight that Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s economy remains characterized by severe currency instability, persistent food insecurity, and widespread informalization, with over 90% of the workforce operates outside the formal economy (Bushu and Kufakurinani, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Kanyenze, Chitambara and Tyson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eToday, the country\u0026rsquo;s political and economic collapse continues to drive out-migration, with South Africa remaining a primary destination for Zimbabweans seeking survival opportunities (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). However, as this paper argues, the deteriorating situation in South Africa itself - marked by rising xenophobia and economic exclusion, is producing a situation where Zimbabwean migrants are caught between two failing systems, unable to fully integrate or safely return.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s trajectory from a postcolonial success story to a paradigmatic case of state failure forms the indispensable backdrop to understanding the precarious conditions under which Zimbabwean migrants navigate their fractured existences in contemporary South Africa. Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e summarizes phases of Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s economic collapse.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhases of Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s Economic Collapse\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhase\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeriod\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eKey Characteristics\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePolitical Context\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eImpact on Citizens\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePost-Independence Optimism\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1980\u0026ndash;1989\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eModerate growth; investment in health and education; rising inequalities begin to surface.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRobert Mugabe consolidates power; initial unity government.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRising expectations; relative stability.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStructural Adjustment and Decline\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1990\u0026ndash;1999\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEconomic Structural Adjustment Programs (ESAP); deindustrialization; rising unemployment and poverty.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eShift to neoliberal policies; growing political tensions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIncreased hardship; strikes and protests.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCrisis and Land Reform Chaos\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2000\u0026ndash;2007\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eViolent land seizures; collapse of agriculture; hyperinflation; mass emigration.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFast-Track Land Reform; ZANU-PF authoritarianism escalates.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFood shortages; mass displacements.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHyperinflation and Dollarization\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2007\u0026ndash;2009\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInflation exceeds 79\u0026nbsp;billion percent; currency collapse; informal dollarization begins.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePolitical violence (2008 elections); GNU formed under pressure.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSalaries wiped out; savings destroyed.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGovernment of National Unity (GNU) Recovery\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2009\u0026ndash;2013\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDollarization stabilizes economy; modest recovery in services and mining.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnity government (MDC\u0026ndash;T and ZANU-PF coalition).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTemporary relief; cautious optimism.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePost-GNU Regression\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2013\u0026ndash;2017\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eResurgent corruption; liquidity crisis; joblessness returns; rising bond notes crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eZANU-PF regains sole control; election manipulation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eReturn of economic desperation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMnangagwa Era: False Dawn\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2017\u0026ndash;2019\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCoup removes Mugabe; initial hope dashed by worsening economy, repression, and \u0026ldquo;new\u0026rdquo; old practices.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMnangagwa presidency; military-business elite dominance.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRenewed protests; worsening austerity.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eChronic Economic Collapse\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2019\u0026ndash;present\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCurrency volatility; inflation resurges; massive unemployment; COVID-19 worsens economic crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthoritarian tightening; violent repression of dissent.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSevere hardship; renewed mass emigration.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.2 Post-Apartheid South Africa and Migration\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile the dismantling of apartheid in 1994 was globally celebrated as the birth of a new democratic era, post-apartheid South Africa has struggled to fully realize the promises of inclusive citizenship, social justice, and African solidarity (Tshishonga, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Instead, the country has increasingly witnessed rising socio-economic inequality, growing unemployment, political disillusionment, and an alarming surge in xenophobic violence, particularly targeting African migrants (Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e; Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). Figure\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e is a map of Southern Africa showing migration flows between Zimbabwe and South Africa.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the most striking and disturbing phenomena has been the rise of Afrophobia - the specific hostility directed against migrants from other African countries. Unlike generalized xenophobia, Afrophobia in South Africa is deeply racialized, targeting black Africans from neighboring states while privileging Western expatriates and investors (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). Major outbreaks of violence, such as the attacks in 2008 that displaced over 100,000 people and killed at least 62 (Misago, Landau, and Monson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e), and recurrent flare-ups in 2015, 2019, and 2022, reflect an entrenched hostility towards foreign Africans perceived to be \u0026ldquo;stealing jobs,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;overburdening services,\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;engaging in criminality.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe structural drivers of this hostility are multifaceted. South Africa faces persistently high levels of unemployment, with youth unemployment exceeding 50% (Statistics South Africa, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). Economic stagnation, compounded by state capture scandals, service delivery failures, and widening inequality, has fueled resentment among marginalized South African citizens (Ferguson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Madlingozi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). In this context, migrants - particularly those visibly operating in informal economies such as street trading, hair salons, spaza shops, and ride-share services - become convenient scapegoats for systemic socio-economic failures.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePolicy responses have largely reinforced exclusion rather than protection. Despite South Africa\u0026rsquo;s constitutional commitment to human rights and dignity for all, immigration policy has grown increasingly restrictive over the past two decades (Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) scheme, initially introduced in 2009 to regularize the status of Zimbabwean migrants fleeing economic collapse, was framed as a temporary humanitarian gesture rather than a durable pathway to inclusion (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Its planned termination in 2021\u0026ndash;2023, affecting over 178,000 Zimbabwean migrants, illustrates the precariousness of even limited legal recognition (Musoni, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe termination of the ZEP reflects a broader shift towards securitized migration governance, where migrants are treated primarily as threats to national stability rather than as potential contributors to economic and social development (Vigneswaran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Regular police raids, workplace inspections, and community protests calling for the expulsion of foreigners have normalized a hostile environment, effectively shrinking the social and economic spaces available to African migrants (Van Hout and Wessels, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoreover, South Africa\u0026rsquo;s asylum system itself is mired in dysfunction, characterized by years-long delays, bureaucratic inefficiency, and widespread corruption (Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). Many Zimbabweans who initially entered through asylum processes found themselves trapped in a legal limbo, unable to transition into permanent residency or citizenship, and vulnerable to arrest, extortion, and deportation (Tshabalala, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis shrinking of opportunities and intensification of exclusion have profoundly shaped migrant strategies and imaginaries. For many Zimbabweans, South Africa - once envisioned as a stepping stone to stability - has itself become a site of insecurity and marginalization. As this paper shows, such conditions foster renewed desires to return \u0026ldquo;home,\u0026rdquo; seek onward migration to Europe, Australia, or North America, or, in some cases, retreat into tightly knit diasporic communities for survival.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, post-apartheid South Africa has paradoxically reproduced exclusionary logics reminiscent of its apartheid past, now redirected against African migrants who are positioned as perpetual outsiders, undeserving of belonging in the \u0026ldquo;new South Africa\u0026rdquo; (Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e is a summary of migration dynamics in Post-Apartheid South Africa.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab2\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 2\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePost-Apartheid South Africa and Migration Dynamics\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"4\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeriod\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMigration Dynamics\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePolitical-Economic Context\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eImpact on Migrants\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly Openness (1994\u0026ndash;1999)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInitial optimism; liberal migration policies; influx of regional migrants (especially SADC countries).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNew democracy; Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP); \u0026ldquo;African Renaissance\u0026rdquo; discourse.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRelative welcoming environment; limited hostility.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRise of Informalization and Inequality (2000\u0026ndash;2007)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIncreased informal migration; migrants fill low-wage sectors; rising urban informality.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGEAR (neoliberal turn); rising unemployment; urban service delivery backlogs.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrowing tension; emergence of low-level xenophobia.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eXenophobic Violence Explosion (2008)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWidespread anti-immigrant attacks; dozens killed; thousands displaced.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGlobal financial crisis hits South Africa; local grievances over jobs and housing.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMass fear; deepening migrant precarity; securitized responses.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRestrictive Turn and Border Militarization (2009\u0026ndash;2015)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTightened asylum, refugee, and visa regimes; harsher deportation practices.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eZuma administration; populist rhetoric blaming foreigners for economic woes.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIncreased undocumentedness; police harassment escalates.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInstitutionalized Afrophobia (2016\u0026ndash;2019)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePolitical scapegoating; growth of campaigns like \u0026ldquo;Operation Dudula\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Put South Africans First.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEconomic stagnation; political scandals; social frustrations rise.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNormalization of everyday xenophobia; migrants vilified.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCrisis Deepening and Migration Hardening (2020\u0026ndash;present)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCOVID-19 intensifies exclusion; rising vigilante violence; calls for mass deportations.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRamaphosa era; worsening economic inequality; persistent unemployment crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMigrants increasingly seen as disposable; humanitarian crises.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.3 South Africa\u0026rsquo;s Internal Borders\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile traditional notions of borders emphasize physical demarcations between nation-states, recent scholarship underscores how bordering extends deep into the social fabric of everyday life (Mezzadra and Neilson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Balibar, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). In post-apartheid South Africa, internal bordering practices have become a central mechanism through which migrants - particularly Zimbabweans and other African nationals - are excluded, marginalized, and rendered precarious, even after formally crossing the national border.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccording to Mezzadra and Neilson (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e), the concept of \u0026ldquo;border as method\u0026rdquo; highlights how borders are not fixed lines but dynamic processes that operate through policing, documentation regimes, labor market segmentation, and social exclusion. In South Africa, these internal borders manifest across multiple scales: in workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and even in moments of everyday interaction. Migrants\u0026rsquo; right to reside, work, access services, and even exist safely in urban spaces is continuously negotiated, contested, and often violently denied.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe operation of internal borders in South Africa can be observed through both formal and informal practices. Formally, immigration enforcement is carried out through frequent police roadblocks, raids on shops and homes, and the monitoring of employment sites, disproportionately targeting black African migrants (Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Vigneswaran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Many migrants, even those with legal permits, report having their documentation arbitrarily confiscated or destroyed by police, effectively stripping them of legal personhood in the moment and subjecting them to detention, extortion, or deportation (Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformally, internal borders are enacted through vigilantism, community-level \u0026ldquo;foreigner hunts,\u0026rdquo; and popular mobilizations that demand the removal of \u0026ldquo;illegal immigrants\u0026rdquo; from townships and informal settlements (Crush and Dodson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). These practices are often framed as defensive reactions to \u0026ldquo;foreigners taking jobs\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;overburdening\u0026rdquo; local resources but are deeply rooted in historical anxieties about citizenship, belonging, and economic insecurity (Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eImportantly, internal bordering is not only a state-driven project but is co-produced by ordinary citizens, local authorities, and civil society actors (Moyo, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Township business forums, for example, have been implicated in campaigns against migrant shop owners, combining economic competition with exclusionary nationalism. This reflects what Balibar (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) calls \u0026ldquo;the proliferation of borders,\u0026rdquo; where borders multiply within society, not just at its edges.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe consequences of these internal borders for Zimbabwean migrants are profound. Beyond physical violence and economic exclusion, internal bordering processes produce an everyday politics of fear, surveillance, and precarity. Migrants live with the constant threat of being stopped, questioned, dispossessed, and expelled - not merely at official checkpoints, but at any moment in their daily lives. This profoundly affects their spatial mobility, employment opportunities, mental health, and sense of belonging.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoreover, the intensification of internal borders intersects with broader processes of urban exclusion. Migrants are often pushed into marginalized, overcrowded, and precarious urban spaces where state services are minimal and where violence - both xenophobic and criminal - is rampant (Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Palmary, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e). These spatial inequalities further entrench the disposability of migrant populations, constructing an urban geography of exclusion.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, in post-apartheid South Africa, the border is not merely at Beitbridge or Maseru Bridge - it is everywhere. It moves with the migrant, embedded within the very structures of law, society, and space. Understanding the everyday realities of Zimbabwean migrants requires recognizing how these internal borders systematically produce and sustain their precarity, even within the putative \u0026ldquo;open\u0026rdquo; society of a constitutional democracy.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"3. Theoretical Framework","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.1 Precarious Lives and Precarious Citizenship\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eJudith Butler\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) theory of \u003cem\u003eprecarious life\u003c/em\u003e offers a critical lens through which to understand the existential and political vulnerability of Zimbabwean migrants in post-apartheid South Africa. For Butler, precarity is not a natural condition but a politically induced state wherein certain lives are systematically exposed to harm, neglect, and violence due to social, economic, and legal structures that fail - or refuse - to offer protection. Precarity, therefore, is deeply uneven, shaped by differential regimes of recognition and abandonment.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the South African context, Zimbabwean migrants occupy a position of heightened precarity. Their right to live, work, and access services is continually contested and subjected to withdrawal through practices of bureaucratic violence, policing, social exclusion, and xenophobic hostility (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Migrants\u0026rsquo; legal and social existence is rendered contingent, where documentation can be revoked, opportunities denied, and bodies rendered disposable under the weight of populist and nationalist scapegoating (Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eButler (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) emphasizes that political and social frameworks determine whose lives are considered \u0026ldquo;grievable\u0026rdquo; - worthy of mourning and protection - and whose lives are effectively abandoned. Zimbabwean migrants, much like other marginalized African migrant groups, find themselves largely outside the sphere of national concern. Their suffering does not generate widespread public empathy or mobilization; rather, it is normalized, invisibilized, and at times, celebrated through violent practices of exclusion (Palmary, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e; Misago, 2017).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoreover, the precariousness of Zimbabwean migrants is compounded by their embeddedness in transnational conditions of crisis. They are not simply vulnerable due to individual circumstances but are part of broader structural processes of economic collapse in Zimbabwe and social fragmentation in South Africa. In this sense, as Ticktin (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e) further argues, precarious citizenship emerges as a condition where individuals are formally tolerated but never fully incorporated - offered tenuous legal statuses like the Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEPs) that ultimately reinforce their marginalization rather than securing their rights.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; everyday experiences of harassment, exclusion, and instability exemplify the ways in which life itself becomes precarious under conditions of contingent belonging, and how citizenship - even in its most minimal forms - can be fundamentally precarious for those who fall outside the privileged circle of the national community.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2 The Right to Have Rights\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe political condition of Zimbabwean migrants is also profoundly illuminated by Hannah Arendt\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) seminal concept of \u003cem\u003ethe right to have rights\u003c/em\u003e. Writing in the aftermath of World War II and the mass displacement of stateless populations, Arendt observed that the loss of national belonging - the loss of membership in a political community -m strips individuals not only of legal protections but of their very capacity to claim rights.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor Arendt, the fundamental human right is not the right to life or liberty per se, but the right to belong to a political order where such rights can be meaningfully realized. Without citizenship or recognized membership, human rights become mere abstractions - unenforceable promises without institutional grounding (Arendt, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the South African case, Zimbabwean migrants exemplify this condition of contemporary statelessness. Even when physically present within South Africa\u0026rsquo;s borders, they are frequently denied the effective enjoyment of rights to work, shelter, safety, healthcare, and due process. Temporary legal instruments like asylum seeker permits and ZEPs offer limited, revocable forms of recognition, but they do not guarantee a full political presence or protection against violence and exclusion (Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Musoni, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoreover, as Arendt warned, the condition of rightlessness leaves individuals extremely vulnerable to arbitrary treatment by states, police, and even ordinary citizens. The routine harassment of migrants by law enforcement, the selective denial of services, and the social relegation of migrants to precarious informal economies reflect this profound absence of political standing (Vigneswaran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eZimbabwean migrants thus exist in a liminal space - neither fully protected by South African citizenship nor able to reclaim security from the collapsed Zimbabwean state. Their stateless condition is not simply a matter of lacking formal documents; it is an existential political abandonment that strips them of the most basic guarantees of dignity, protection, and membership.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCombining Butler\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) theorization of precarious lives with Arendt\u0026rsquo;s notion of the \u0026ldquo;right to have rights,\u0026rdquo; this paper situates Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences within broader critiques of contemporary citizenship regimes. These frameworks illuminate how legal status alone is insufficient to protect vulnerable populations, and how political belonging is fundamentally contested, precarious, and exclusionary in contexts of deep postcolonial and neoliberal crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.3 Transnationalism and Deferred Return\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa cannot be fully understood without engaging the theoretical lens of transnationalism, which highlights the ways in which migrants sustain social, economic, political, and emotional ties across national borders (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e; 1995). Rather than severing connections with their countries of origin, migrants like Zimbabweans actively maintain transnational practices\u0026mdash;sending remittances, participating in diasporic associations, engaging in homeland politics, and nurturing aspirations for eventual return.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGlick Schiller et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e) emphasize that transnational migrants live simultaneously within multiple social fields. Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa embody this condition, balancing precarious lives in host communities with enduring obligations and attachments to families, communities, and political struggles in Zimbabwe. These transnational engagements are not merely economic but deeply emotional and symbolic, sustaining an imagined continuity of belonging even as physical return remains elusive.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, the transnational imagination of \u0026ldquo;going back home\u0026rdquo; is fraught with deferral and uncertainty. Russel King (2000) and Peggy Levitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e) argue that the notion of return often exists more powerfully as an aspiration than a realized act. In contexts of ongoing political instability and economic collapse, such as contemporary Zimbabwe, return is repeatedly postponed, indefinitely deferred, or permanently reimagined.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor many Zimbabweans, \u0026ldquo;I want to go back home\u0026rdquo; thus becomes a durable emotional horizon rather than an imminent plan. The desire for return is animated by nostalgia, hope, and visions of political renewal in Zimbabwe, but these imaginaries are increasingly challenged by the persistent failures of the Zimbabwean state and the practical challenges of reintegration after years or decades abroad (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoreover, as King and Ghosh (2000) observes, the longer migrants stay abroad, the more complex their attachments become. Many Zimbabweans have built partial lives\u0026mdash;however precarious - in South Africa, establishing social networks, economic survival strategies, and family ties. This layering of belonging complicates both the feasibility and the desirability of return.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences are shaped by an ongoing dialectic between \u003cem\u003etransnational belonging\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003edeferred return\u003c/em\u003e, where home is simultaneously real, remembered, and reimagined - a powerful site of emotional investment but also a source of profound uncertainty and ambivalence.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.4 Necropolitics and Migrant Death-Worlds\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile transnationalism captures the effective and social dimensions of migrant life, Achille Mbembe\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) concept of necropolitics offers a stark account of the sovereign violence that shapes migrants\u0026rsquo; material and existential conditions. Necropolitics, for Mbembe, refers to the exercise of state and social power over life and death - deciding who may live and who must die, who is protected and who is rendered disposable.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSouth Africa\u0026rsquo;s contemporary political and social landscape can be read through a necropolitical lens, where migrants - especially African migrants - are positioned as subjects of abandonment rather than protection. Zimbabwean migrants are routinely exposed to structural violence, including police brutality, arbitrary detention, forced evictions, xenophobic attacks, and systemic exclusion from essential services like healthcare and housing (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Misago, 2017).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese practices are not merely incidental or aberrational; they constitute an everyday politics of death, where migrants\u0026rsquo; lives are actively made precarious and expendable within the spaces they inhabit. Mbembe (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) emphasizes that necropolitics is enacted not only through spectacular violence but also through slow, bureaucratic, and infrastructural forms of killing - processes that erode the capacity to live with dignity, security, and hope.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe proliferation of \u0026ldquo;death-worlds\u0026rdquo; (Mbembe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) in South African informal settlements, townships, and marginal spaces - where many Zimbabwean migrants reside - reflects the normalization of systemic neglect, deprivation, and exposure to harm. Migrants are forced to live in environments characterized by high crime rates, poor sanitation, insecure tenure, and chronic police harassment, conditions that continuously threaten their physical and psychological survival (Palmary, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e; Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, the necropolitical ordering of space is racialized and classed: African migrants are disproportionately relegated to the most precarious urban peripheries, excluded from legal protections and public sympathy. In moments of intensified xenophobic violence, such as the 2008 and 2015 attacks, this latent death-world becomes vividly materialized, as migrant bodies are subject to direct physical assault and forced displacement (Misago, Landau, and Monson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eApplying Mbembe\u0026rsquo;s framework, this paper highlights how Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; vulnerability is not merely a byproduct of socio-economic exclusion but is actively produced and sustained through political and social systems that regard their lives as less valuable, less grievable, and less worthy of protection. Their precarity is thus not accidental but structural, deeply embedded in South Africa\u0026rsquo;s evolving regimes of migration governance, economic marginalization, and national belonging.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. Methodology","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.1 Research Approach: Multi-Sited Ethnography\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study employed a multi-sited ethnographic approach to capture the fragmented, mobile, and precarious lives of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa. Following George Marcus\u0026rsquo; (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e) seminal call for \u003cem\u003emulti-sited ethnography\u003c/em\u003e, the research moves beyond a singular, bounded field site to trace the connections, displacements, and strategies of survival across multiple urban spaces in South Africa.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn contexts of transnational migration, where mobility, temporality, and uncertainty define everyday life, a traditional single-site ethnography risks obscuring the dispersed and networked realities of migrants (Falzon, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Multi-sited ethnography allows for the following of people, practices, discourses, and objects across diverse spatial nodes, illuminating how migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences of precarity and belonging are shaped across various everyday terrains.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn particular, this approach is crucial for understanding how Zimbabwean migrants navigate precarious urban economies, transnational ties to Zimbabwe, and broader regimes of exclusion within South Africa\u0026rsquo;s fractured socio-political landscape (Marcus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.2 Research Sites and Participants\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eFieldwork for this study was conducted across multiple, interconnected urban and transnational spaces, capturing the complex textures of Zimbabwean migrant life (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). Interviews and observations were carried out in public malls and shopping centers, where Zimbabweans working informally as vendors, cashiers, security guards, and cleaners articulated experiences of labor exploitation and everyday xenophobia. Uber and ride-share drivers provided mobile interview contexts, offering rich insights into issues of mobility, survival strategies, and labor precarity while navigating South African cities. Shops, restaurants, barbershops, and hair salons served as informal workspaces where many migrants are employed, and where observations revealed intricate social networks, precarious economic practices, and regular encounters with discrimination. Conversations at airports and border crossings - including OR Tambo International Airport and the Beitbridge Border Post - allowed the study to capture migrants\u0026rsquo; return imaginaries, decision-making processes, and the emotional geographies of transit between South Africa and Zimbabwe.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe study also engaged with Zimbabwean students and professionals at formal institutions such as the University of Cape Town (UCT), University of the Free State (UFS), University of Johannesburg (UJ), and University of Pretoria (UP), contrasting experiences of academic exclusion and aspirations for mobility with the harsh realities faced in the informal sector. Finally, encounters at seminars, public lectures, and academic conferences provided access to Zimbabwean intellectuals, activists, and diaspora leaders actively engaged in public discourse on migration, home, and political futures. Employing a multi-sited ethnographic approach across these diverse spaces, the research traces not only the precarious conditions Zimbabwean migrants face but also the varied strategies, imaginaries, and solidarities they mobilize in pursuit of dignity and belonging.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab3\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 3\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eResearch Sites and Participant Contexts\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite/Location\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eParticipants\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eKey Themes Explored\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePublic Malls and Shopping Centers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eVendors, cashiers, security guards, cleaners\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal labor, economic survival, workplace discrimination, everyday xenophobia\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUber and Ride-Share Vehicles\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUber and Bolt drivers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMobility, labor precarity, survival strategies, emotional geographies of migration\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eShops, Restaurants, Barbershops, Hair Salons\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWaiters, hairdressers, shop assistants, barbers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal workspaces, social networks, xenophobic encounters, informal economies\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAirports and Border Crossings (e.g., OR Tambo, Beitbridge)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTravelers, informal traders, cross-border workers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eReturn imaginaries, mobility decisions, border policing, deferred migration futures\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUniversities (UFS, UCT, UJ, UP)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStudents, researchers, academics\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcademic xenophobia, professional exclusion, formal integration vs precarious belonging\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeminars, Public Lectures, Academic Conferences\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntellectuals, activists, diaspora leaders\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePublic discourse on migration, Zimbabwean politics, transnational identities\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis range of sites allowed for a comparative and layered understanding of how Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences differ based on class, education, occupation, and spatial location.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.3 Data Collection Techniques\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo primary qualitative methods were utilized:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSemi-Structured Interviews\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cp\u003eA total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Zimbabwean migrants across different social strata (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e). This excludes the uncountable informal conversations I had with other Zimbabweans, that also relate to this study. Interviews focused on migration trajectories, experiences of precarity, imaginations of return, encounters with xenophobia, and future aspirations. The semi-structured format enabled flexibility, allowing participants to narrate experiences in their own terms while ensuring consistency across key thematic areas (Bernard, 2011).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab4\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 4\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eProfile of Formal Respondents\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePseudonym\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eOccupation/Context\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGender\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAge\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eResearch Site\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTinashe\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUber Driver\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e29\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCape Town Uber Service\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNyasha\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eShop Assistant (Retail)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e34\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMall, Johannesburg\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePatience\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRestaurant Waitress\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e24\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRestaurant, Cape Town\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdmire\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarber\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarbershop, Pretoria\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eChipo\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarket Vendor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e35\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal Market, Durban\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTafadzwa\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePostgraduate Student (UJ)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e31\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUniversity of Johannesburg\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTendai\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStreet Vendor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e30\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTaxi Rank, Johannesburg\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRudo\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDomestic Worker\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e23\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrivate Home, Cape Town\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFarai\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHairdresser\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e27\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHair Salon, Pretoria\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMemory\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eReceptionist\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e27\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eOffice, Durban\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBrighton\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecurity Company Owner\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e51\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrivate Security, Durban\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePortia\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal Trader (Taxi Rank)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e29\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeitbridge Border Crossing\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eKudakwashe\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhD Student (UP)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e33\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUniversity of Pretoria\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBrian\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConstruction Worker\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e42\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConstruction Site, Johannesburg\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTariro\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal Schoolteacher\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e41\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTownship School, Soweto\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNomore\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeminar Attendee (Migration Workshop)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e33\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMigration Conference, Pretoria\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRumbidzai\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHair Salon Owner\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e49\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSalon, Johannesburg CBD\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eLorraine\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaster\u0026rsquo;s Student (UCT)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e26\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUniversity of Cape Town\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eShelton\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRestaurant Worker\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e38\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFood Court, Johannesburg\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlessing\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAirport Porter\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e45\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eOR Tambo International Airport\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNetsai\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal Cross-border Trader\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFemale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e37\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorder Crossing, Beitbridge\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTapiwa\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInformal Barber and Street Vendor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMale\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e28\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCape Town CBD\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eParticipant Observation\u003c/b\u003e: Extended participant observations were carried out at workplaces (shops, malls, salons), during Uber rides, at airports, and at academic conferences. Observational notes captured both spoken interactions and the everyday textures of migrant life: strategies of resilience, subtle acts of belonging, encounters with exclusion, and collective practices of survival (Musante and DeWalt, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). This combination of methods facilitated a grounded, relational, and multi-dimensional understanding of Zimbabwean migrant experiences.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.4 Reflexivity and Positionality\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs an African researcher with Zimbabwean identity, my positionality was marked by a complex insider-outsider dynamic. While a shared experience of being a Zimbabwean facilitated rapport and access, it was critical to remain reflexively aware of differences in citizenship status, migration experience, and socio-economic positioning (England, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1994\u003c/span\u003e). Throughout the fieldwork process, I adopted reflexive practices, including field journaling, regular peer debriefings, and the critical interrogation of assumptions about \u0026ldquo;home,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;belonging,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;precarity.\u0026rdquo; Migrants\u0026rsquo; narratives were not taken at face value but were situated within broader social, political, and historical contexts (Clifford and Marcus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Moreover, given the sensitive nature of migration status and experiences of xenophobic violence, building trust was an ongoing, negotiated process that required ethical attentiveness and humility.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.5 Ethical Considerations\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eGiven the precarious legal and social status of many participants, ethical sensitivity was paramount throughout the research process. Anonymity was strictly upheld: all participants\u0026rsquo; names were anonymized, and identifying details were altered to safeguard their safety and privacy. Informed consent was carefully obtained prior to each interview or sustained interaction, with participants provided clear explanations about the voluntary nature of their involvement, the aims of the study, and their right to withdraw at any stage without penalty. Recognizing the potential for distress when recounting experiences of displacement, discrimination, and violence, interviews were conducted with particular sensitivity to trauma and precarity. Participants were allowed to steer conversations away from distressing topics if they chose, and referrals to migrant support organizations and mental health resources were offered when necessary. This approach sought not only to meet ethical obligations but also to create a research environment grounded in respect, dignity, and care for the vulnerable populations whose stories form the heart of this study.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. Findings and Analysis","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec18\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.1 Living Precariously in South Africa\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe everyday lives of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa are shaped by profound and layered forms of precarity, deeply linked to insecure legal status, systemic discrimination, police harassment, labor exploitation, and the ever-present threat of deportation. Majority of Zimbabwean migrants live under what Butler (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) describes as \u003cem\u003eprecarious conditions\u003c/em\u003e - where existence itself is rendered fragile, contingent, and exposed to systemic harm - and what Mbembe (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) theorizes as \u003cem\u003enecropolitical governance\u003c/em\u003e, wherein certain lives are made more vulnerable to death and social disappearance.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLegal Limbo and the Collapse of Migrant Formal Documentation Pathways\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the most immediate sources of insecurity for Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa stems from the expiration and non-renewal of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEPs). Originally introduced as a temporary measure to regularize the status of Zimbabweans fleeing economic collapse and political repression, the ZEP scheme has now become a tool of managed marginalization and controlled disposability (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Musoni, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany respondents articulated deep anxiety about their future legal status. As one male shop assistant in Johannesburg explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;They told us ZEP was a bridge to something better... but now it feels like the bridge is collapsing under our feet. We are standing on nothing. We are legal today, illegal tomorrow. How can you build a life like that?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Similarly, a 29-year-old Uber driver in Cape Town echoed the sense of temporal fragility: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Every day I wake up and wonder if today is the day they tell me to leave. You can\u0026rsquo;t plan, you can\u0026rsquo;t save, you can\u0026rsquo;t settle. It\u0026rsquo;s like living on borrowed time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe revocation of ZEPs, without providing clear or affordable alternative pathways to legal residency or citizenship, has pushed thousands of Zimbabweans into irregular or undocumented status. As Butler (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) argues, precarity is not just a condition of poverty, but a politically produced differential allocation of vulnerability, where certain populations are exposed to systemic harm, abandonment, and exclusion more than others. Worsening the situation is the near impossibility of accessing other visa types, such as general work permits, critical skills visas, study permits, or even visitor visas. Several participants shared stories of long application delays, arbitrary rejections, high costs, and systemic bias within South Africa\u0026rsquo;s immigration regime. A 26-year-old postgraduate student at the University of Johannesburg recounted her struggle to move from a ZEP to a study permit: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I submitted everything on time - letters from the university, proof of funding, even my ZEP - but they kept delaying and asking for more. Then they just rejected me with no reason. I had to beg the department to give me an extension so I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t get deregistered. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how long I can survive like this.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e A 41-year-old father in Durban, who tried to apply for a relative visa to bring his wife legally into the country, shared: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;They keep saying apply for a visa, apply the right way. But when you go through the proper way, they say no. It\u0026rsquo;s a trap. It feels like they want you undocumented so they can use that against you later.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e These testimonies reflect what Amit (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e) calls \u0026ldquo;bureaucratic bordering\u0026rdquo;, where immigration systems act not as gateways to legal inclusion but as mechanisms of exclusion, filtering out the poor, racialized, and regionally mobile.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e The legal closure of the ZEP program has not been met with expanded legal pathways but with an intensified regime of exclusion. Instead of transitioning migrants into permanent residence or citizenship, South Africa has effectively withdrawn the promise of legal belonging, reinforcing their disposability through policy neglect, institutional obstruction, and securitized discourse.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs one 34-year-old participant working as a barber in Pretoria put it succinctly: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s like they want us to vanish quietly. They don\u0026rsquo;t deport you, but they won\u0026rsquo;t give you papers either. You just hang in limbo, waiting to fall.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e The legal limbo and revocation of ZEPs without viable alternative pathways to residency effectively pushes thousands of Zimbabweans into undocumented status, stripping them of basic protections and reinforcing what Butler (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) calls the \u003cem\u003edifferential allocation of vulnerability\u003c/em\u003e, where some lives are systematically exposed to legal and social violence more than others.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDiscrimination, Police Harassment, and Labor Exploitation\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcross multiple sites: public malls, barbershops, restaurants, and transport hubs, migrants narrated experiences of routine discrimination and harassment by both state and non-state actors. Police harassment emerged as a particularly pervasive threat. A 36-year-old barber in Pretoria recounted: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Even when I show them my ZEP, they say it\u0026rsquo;s expired or fake. They take the paper, tear it, and say, \u0026lsquo;go home, you are finished here.\u0026rsquo; Sometimes they ask for money. If you refuse, they arrest you or beat you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e The labor market similarly reflects deep precarity. Migrants, especially those without valid permits, are pushed into the most exploitative sectors of the economy - informal trading, domestic work, low-wage retail, and ride-share services. Employers exploit their precarious status to underpay them or deny basic labor rights. As a 24-year-old waitress in a Cape Town restaurant described: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;They pay you less because you are foreign. They threaten you: \u0026lsquo;If you talk too much, we report you.\u0026rsquo; You just work quietly, even when you are sick, even when they insult you. Otherwise, you lose everything.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e These testimonies vividly illustrate how Zimbabwean migrants inhabit what Mbembe (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) terms \u003cem\u003edeath-worlds\u003c/em\u003e: spaces where social death, through marginalization, disposability, and state-sanctioned neglect, is the norm rather than the exception.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Constant Threat of Deportation: \u0026ldquo;Waiting to Move or Waiting to Be Moved\u0026rdquo;\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA recurrent theme across interviews was the feeling of living under the constant threat of deportation or forced displacement. This condition of suspended temporality produces profound emotional and psychological tolls, as migrants live in a permanent state of uncertainty - neither fully settled nor fully transient. As a PhD student at the University of Pretoria eloquently put it: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;You are always waiting - waiting for the police, waiting for papers to expire, waiting for someone to tell you, you don\u0026rsquo;t belong. It\u0026rsquo;s like living in a bus station where you never get on the bus. Waiting to move or waiting to be moved.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e This poignant metaphor captures the brutal temporality of migrant life under necropolitical conditions: time itself becomes precarious, deferred, and colonized by fear (Hage, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eImportantly, this temporal uncertainty fractures social and personal futures. Migrants are unable to commit to long-term employment, education, property ownership, or family formation. They live in what Glick Schiller and Salazar (2013) call \u003cem\u003eregimes of mobility control\u003c/em\u003e - spaces where movement is both necessary and punished, and where stability remains perpetually out of reach. These findings strongly confirm Judith Butler\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) assertion that precarity is a politically induced vulnerability, not a natural condition. Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; precarious legal statuses, economic exploitation, and exposure to violence are systematically produced by state decisions, exclusionary policies, and social hostility. Moreover, drawing on Achille Mbembe\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) framework, Zimbabwean migrants occupy death-worlds where life is rendered expendable, slow death becomes normalized, and migrant bodies are made permanently precarious, both legally and existentially. The precarious existence of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa is thus not merely a humanitarian crisis but a profound political and ethical indictment of contemporary postcolonial citizenship regimes in Southern Africa.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec19\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2 Xenophobic Nationalisms and the Politics of \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Putting South Africans First\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; precariousness in South Africa is rooted in systemic exclusions and hostile policy environments, it is also amplified by the rise of virulent xenophobic nationalism, particularly targeting African migrants. Across interviews, respondents described living within an intensifying environment of public hostility, scapegoating, and politically sanctioned violence - manifesting both at the institutional level and within everyday social interactions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Rise of \u0026ldquo;Put South Africans First\u0026rdquo; and Migrant Scapegoating\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn recent years, campaigns such as \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Put South Africans First\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e have gained significant traction, framing African migrants - particularly Zimbabweans, Nigerians, and Somalis - as existential threats to South African jobs, services, and sovereignty. Emerging through social media activism and political populism, these campaigns advocate for mass deportations, exclusion from public services, and preferential employment for South Africans only (Tshabalala, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Moyo, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). A 41-year-old Zimbabwean hair salon owner in Johannesburg captured the pervasive anxiety caused by these narratives: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Every day on social media, they say foreigners are stealing jobs. That we are the reason for everything bad here. Even when you walk in the streets, people shout \u0026lsquo;Go home!\u0026rsquo; They don\u0026rsquo;t see us as people anymore - just as a problem to be removed.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Put South Africans First\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e) campaign has been amplified by certain political actors, union leaders, and media outlets, who scapegoat migrants as responsible for unemployment, crime, and service delivery failures - despite a lack of empirical evidence to support such claims (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). Operation Dudula, based in Soweto, and the Dudula Movement that started in Alexandra also popularized xenophobia in South Africa. They both share strong anti-foreigner views, blaming undocumented foreigners for crime and for \u0026lsquo;stealing\u0026rsquo; jobs from South Africans. According to the Operation Dudula campaigners, South African authorities have not responded to their concerns, so they must carry out citizens\u0026rsquo; arrests.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEveryday Xenophobic Violence and Exclusion\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond rhetorical campaigns, xenophobic nationalism materializes violently in everyday spaces. Respondents recounted experiences of assault, eviction, extortion, and harassment directly linked to anti-migrant sentiment. A 36-year-old Uber driver based in Pretoria recalled: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;When they [protesters] march, they come to the shops and taxis looking for foreigners. They check your ID. If you are Zimbabwean, they beat you. They loot your things. The police stand there and watch or sometimes join in.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Another respondent, a 29-year-old market vendor in Durban, shared: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Landlords tell you: \u0026lsquo;You foreigners must leave. We don\u0026rsquo;t want problems with the community.\u0026rsquo; Even your customers insult you. They say, \u0026lsquo;Why are you here selling when South Africans are jobless?\u0026rsquo; Every day, you feel like you are breathing borrowed air.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e This normalization of everyday bordering practices - where landlords, customers, and even coworkers act as informal immigration enforcers - echoes Mezzadra and Neilson\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) theory of \u003cem\u003ebordering within society\u003c/em\u003e: migrants are constantly surveilled, questioned, and excluded even after crossing the national frontier.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Deepening of Social Death and Precarious Belonging\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe xenophobic landscape renders Zimbabwean migrants socially dead long before they might be physically displaced. They are erased from rights-bearing membership, treated not as neighbors or co-workers but as perpetual outsiders to be purged in times of political or economic crisis. As a 32-year-old Zimbabwean postgraduate student at the University of Cape Town explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not just about legal documents anymore. Even if you have a visa, even if you work hard, you are still seen as a foreigner, a threat. You are always on the outside looking in. South Africa is not a home - it\u0026rsquo;s a waiting room where they can ask you to leave anytime.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, xenophobia is not episodic but systematic and structural, producing an everyday geography of exclusion, violence, and insecurity that governs Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; lives. The rise of anti-immigrant nationalism exemplified by \u0026ldquo;Put South Africans First\u0026rdquo; deepens the precarious citizenship (Butler, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) and necropolitical exposure (Mbembe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) already shaping Zimbabwean migrant lives. Campaigns of scapegoating not only deny migrants\u0026rsquo; claims to urban space, labor markets, and institutional belonging but also justify systemic practices of disposability.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this context, Zimbabwean migrants are not simply surviving in South Africa; they are surviving against a public narrative that paints their very presence as a crime. These findings further reinforce that Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; vulnerability is not the byproduct of individual misfortune but the predictable outcome of intersecting state policies, public discourses, and social practices of exclusion - operating together to produce an unlivable present and a suspended, uncertain future. Figure\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e shows a man waves a stick in front a burning piece of furniture during a riot and looting, torching of foreign-owned shops in the Johannesburg suburb of Turffontein.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec20\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2 The Crisis of Return: Home is No Longer Home\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile many Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa express a profound and persistent desire to return \u0026ldquo;home,\u0026rdquo; return is largely imagined rather than practically realizable. Participants across diverse sites - malls, airports, salons, universities - narrated a powerful emotional attachment to Zimbabwe, yet simultaneously acknowledged that economic collapse, hyperinflation\u003ca class=\"FNLink\" href=\"#Fn1\" id=\"#FNLinkFn1\"\u003e\u003csup\u003e1\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, political repression, and personal insecurity made actual return impossible. This condition of suspended return exemplifies what King and Ghosh (2000) describes as the deferred temporality of return migration, and what Peggy Levitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e) frames as the emotional salience of \u0026ldquo;home\u0026rdquo; amidst the realities of exile. Figure\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e shows Zimbabwean banknotes ranging from 10 dollars to 100\u0026nbsp;billion dollars printed within a one-year period. The magnitude of the currency scalars signifies the extent of the hyperinflation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHome as an Imagined Refuge, but an Impossible Reality\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dream of going back was almost universally articulated among respondents, but it was marked by profound ambivalence. As one Uber driver in Johannesburg explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Every day I dream of going back. I miss my mother, my brothers, even the smell of the rains there. But go back to what? No jobs, no future, no peace. Going back would just mean dying slowly.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Similarly, a 35-year-old Zimbabwean woman selling wares in a Cape Town market described: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Home is sweet in memory but bitter in reality. I follow the news every day hoping for change, but each election, each promise, just breaks your heart more. Going back now would be suicide.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e These narratives reveal that Zimbabwe functions more as an \u003cem\u003eemotional refuge\u003c/em\u003e - a site of imagined restoration of dignity and belonging - than a viable place of return. The tension between memory and material reality underscores the impossibility of return in the face of structural crises: hyperinflation, collapsing public services, political violence, and state predation (Raftopoulos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Sachikonye, 2011). The \u0026ldquo;return home\u0026rdquo; is therefore endlessly deferred, reshaping migrants\u0026rsquo; temporal horizons: home is longed for, invoked, and mourned, but rarely enacted.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDouble Disenfranchisement: Excluded from South Africa, Abandoned by Zimbabwe\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe emotions of respondents were dominated by a profound sense of \u003cem\u003edouble disenfranchisement.\u003c/em\u003e Migrants expressed feeling simultaneously excluded from full membership in South Africa and betrayed by the political and economic implosion of Zimbabwe. A 29-year-old student at the University of Cape Town powerfully captured this tension: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Here [in South Africa], you are always the outsider. They remind you with their words, their eyes, even the way they serve you in shops. But back there [Zimbabwe] is also gone. My country does not want me either. It failed us. It\u0026rsquo;s like being homeless even when you have two houses.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother respondent, a 42-year-old construction worker in Pretoria, similarly lamented: \u003cem\u003eWe fought to free Zimbabwe. Our fathers died for that land. Now we run away from it like criminals. Here they beat us, there we starve. Where do you belong when both homes betray you?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e This pervasive sense of betrayal is not unfounded. Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s authoritarian political landscape -marked by widespread repression, human rights abuses, and state violence - has systematically destroyed the social contract between citizens and the state. Since the early 2000s, successive Zimbabwean governments have been accused of orchestrating electoral fraud, suppressing political dissent, violently crushing protests, and using security forces to intimidate opposition groups and civil society activists (Raftopoulos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Bracking, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e; Sachikonye, 2011).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany migrants spoke about living through these abuses firsthand. A 38-year-old informal trader in Johannesburg recounted: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I still have scars on my back from when they [police] beat us for protesting about the failing economy. They tear gas you, they shoot rubber bullets, and then they go on TV and say everything is normal. How do you return to that kind of normal?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe image of \u003cem\u003eriot police arresting and forcibly apprehending protesters during demonstrations in Harare\u003c/em\u003e (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e) - a scene familiar to many respondents - symbolizes the violent repression that migrants fled, and the persistent climate of fear that erases any realistic hope of safe return.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese testimonies vividly illustrate Hannah Arendt\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) seminal insight into statelessness: when individuals lose the protection of a political community - when no polity recognizes or values their rights - they are stripped not merely of legal entitlements but of political existence itself. Zimbabwean migrants find themselves trapped in precisely this liminal condition: their Zimbabwean nationality offers them no functional security or citizenship rights, while South Africa treats them as perpetual outsiders and security threats.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Arendtian terms, the Zimbabwean migrant has lost the \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;right to have rights\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e - that is, the foundational membership in a political community that guarantees recognition, protection, and dignity. Without such membership, rights become rhetorical ideals rather than lived realities, and migrant lives are exposed to contingent goodwill, structural hostility, and systemic violence across multiple borders (Bhanye, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe findings powerfully illustrate that for Zimbabwean migrants, \u003cem\u003ehome\u003c/em\u003e has become both a longed-for emotional horizon and an impossible material destination. Their existence is shaped by an unresolvable tension between belonging and exclusion, memory and reality. The concept of \u003cem\u003estatelessness\u003c/em\u003e (Arendt, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) provides a crucial theoretical lens for understanding this condition: Zimbabwean migrants are not merely displaced geographically, but politically abandoned - excluded from any effective system of rights, recognition, and belonging. As Levitt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e) and King (2000) argue, while transnational ties and imaginaries sustain emotional connections to the homeland, they cannot substitute for the material guarantees of security and dignity that functioning states are meant to provide. Thus, migrants live with the constant ache of longing for home, even as they acknowledge that home - as a place of safety and belonging - no longer exists (Bhanye et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec21\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.3 Transnational Identities and Deferred Futures\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile physically located in South Africa, Zimbabwean migrants maintain powerful emotional, economic, and political ties to Zimbabwe. Their lives are shaped by what Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e; 1995) conceptualize as transnationalism: the active construction and maintenance of simultaneous attachments across multiple national spaces. Yet these transnational practices occur against the backdrop of permanent transit, where neither stable integration into South Africa nor definitive return to Zimbabwe seems possible. This condition of \u003cem\u003esuspended belonging\u003c/em\u003e profoundly affects migrants\u0026rsquo; futures, aspirations, and daily lives, resonating strongly with Ghassan Hage\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e) theorization of stuckedness and the temporalities of migration.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eStrong Ties to Zimbabwe: Remittances, Political Involvement, Emotional Attachment\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDespite the risks, discrimination, and precariousness they face in South Africa, Zimbabwean migrants maintain dense transnational engagements with their homeland. Financial remittances remain a vital survival strategy for families in Zimbabwe, contributing significantly to the national economy (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). As a 38-year-old restaurant worker in Durban explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Even when I earn little, I send something home every month. My mother depends on it to buy maize meal. I cannot abandon them because even if I suffer here, they suffer worse.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond financial remittances, many migrants stay deeply involved in Zimbabwean politics and civil society, following developments closely, participating in diaspora forums, and voting (when possible) in elections. A 31-year-old postgraduate student at the University of Johannesburg shared: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;We are still Zimbabweans. We watch the news, we debate politics, we hope for change. Maybe one day, if it gets better, we can go back and rebuild. But that day keeps running away from us.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e These attachments demonstrate that migrants are not deracinated from their homeland but are actively embedded in its social, political, and emotional landscapes, sustaining what Glick Schiller et al. (1995) call \u003cem\u003etransnational social fields\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAspirations to Migrate Further: Europe, Australia, Canada and beyond\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFacing persistent xenophobia, labor market exclusion, and restrictive migration policies in South Africa, many Zimbabwean migrants are increasingly looking beyond the region toward new global destinations. Aspirations to migrate to Europe, Australia, Canada, and even New Zealand surfaced repeatedly during interviews. A 27-year-old hairdresser in Cape Town captured this shifting imaginary: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;South Africa was our plan A. But Plan A has failed. Now we dream of Germany, the UK, even Australia. Anywhere we can be safe, respected, treated like a human being.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Similarly, a 41-year-old Zimbabwean Uber driver expressed: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not that we love to keep moving. It\u0026rsquo;s survival. South Africa is closing its doors. Zimbabwe is broken. So we have to find a Plan B, Plan C, whatever it takes.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese aspirations reflect a new phase in the migratory trajectories of Zimbabweans - what Bakewell (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) calls \u003cem\u003esecondary migrations\u003c/em\u003e - where initial destinations no longer fulfill migrants\u0026rsquo; needs, prompting onward mobility despite significant risks. However, as respondents acknowledged, access to these new destinations is heavily stratified: younger, highly educated, or skilled migrants are more likely to qualify for work visas or study permits abroad, while older and less-educated migrants often remain trapped in South Africa\u0026rsquo;s precarious informal economy.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLiving in Permanent Transit: Suspended Lives, Deferred Futures\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eZimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; narratives vividly capture what Hage (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e) describes as the politics of stuckedness - a condition where migrants remain physically mobile but existentially immobilized, unable to settle, return, or move forward with certainty. As a 33-year-old seminar attendee at a migration workshop in Pretoria explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;We are like ships without harbors. We float from place to place, but there is no anchor. South Africa does not want us. Zimbabwe has nothing for us. And Europe is a dream that may never come true.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Another respondent, a 25-year-old Zimbabwean studying engineering at the University of Pretoria, stated: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;It feels like time is standing still. I am studying hard, but after graduation, what next? No permit, no job, no future. Just waiting, hoping, applying, and being disappointed.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese testimonies reveal that migrants experience time itself as precarious, living with deferred dreams, interrupted life plans, and chronic uncertainty. They are simultaneously tethered to Zimbabwe through transnational practices and emotionally invested in new imagined futures abroad, yet trapped in an in-between condition in South Africa where settlement remains elusive. Thus, Zimbabwean migrants are not only spatially displaced but temporally dislocated\u0026mdash;their futures perpetually deferred, their presents characterized by precarity, and their pasts saturated with unfulfilled promises.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe lived experiences of Zimbabwean migrants exemplify the core dynamics of transnational migration: sustaining multi-local attachments while navigating marginalization and exclusion in host societies (Glick Schiller et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e; 1995). At the same time, the overwhelming sense of \u003cem\u003epermanent transit\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003edeferred futures\u003c/em\u003e reflects the temporal violence that undergirds contemporary migratory regimes, as theorized by Hage (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). These findings demonstrate that for Zimbabwean migrants, precarity is not only spatial but deeply temporal: belonging, security, and dignity are suspended across fragmented geographies and uncertain futures.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec22\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.4 Generational and Class Differences\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa are not homogeneous. Rather, they are deeply stratified along generational and class lines, producing markedly different trajectories of integration, precarity, and aspiration. Older Zimbabwean migrants - those who arrived in the 1990s and early 2000s - tend to be relatively better established, while younger, newer migrants face harsher economic realities and far stricter migration regimes. Similarly, educational attainment emerges as a crucial axis shaping access to employment, social mobility, and migratory futures. These dynamics resonate strongly with migration scholarship emphasizing the intersectionality of migrant experiences (Vertovec, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Bakewell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOlder Migrants: Relative Stability Amidst Growing Precarity\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eZimbabwean migrants who arrived during the late 1990s and early 2000s often did so under conditions of relatively greater opportunity. During the early post-apartheid period, South Africa\u0026rsquo;s economy was expanding, immigration controls were less restrictive, and Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s collapse was only beginning (Crush and Tevera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). As a 49-year-old hair salon owner in Johannesburg recalled: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;When I came in 2001, things were different. You could find a job quickly, you could even open a small business without too much harassment. We were building lives then. Now, it feels like a war zone for the new ones.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother older migrant, a 51-year-old security company owner in Durban, reflected: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;We were lucky. Papers were easier, work was there. Even South Africans welcomed us because we brought skills. Now, everyone looks at you like you are the problem.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e While these older migrants have faced growing hostility in recent years, many have established businesses, secured permanent residency, or built extensive social networks that provide some buffer against precarity. However, their narratives also reveal anxieties about a deteriorating environment for African migrants overall, threatening even previously stable livelihoods.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNewer Migrants: Facing Harsher Conditions and Closing Doors\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy contrast, younger Zimbabwean migrants - those arriving post-2015 - encounter a much more hostile landscape marked by shrinking economic opportunities, tightened immigration controls, and intensified xenophobia (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). A 26-year-old recent arrival working as a parking attendant in Pretoria shared: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I came here thinking I would find something better, but South Africa is not the place it used to be. Jobs are gone, papers are impossible, police chase you like a criminal. You hustle or you die.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSimilarly, a 23-year-old domestic worker in Cape Town explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I paid so much to come here. Now I work for half the minimum wage, and even then, you are scared every day of being fired or arrested. It\u0026rsquo;s like we are living on the edge, every minute.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Newer migrants often enter informal, exploitative labor markets without the protective networks that earlier migrants built, leaving them profoundly exposed to economic and social precarity. Moreover, newer arrivals face policy environments like the termination of ZEP permits, closure of asylum pathways, and aggressive immigration enforcement that severely constrain possibilities for legal settlement (Musoni, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEducational Divides: Professional Aspirations vs. Survivalist Hustling\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEducational background significantly differentiates Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences in South Africa, shaping not only access to economic opportunities but also the imagination of future possibilities. Highly educated migrants - those with university degrees or professional training\u0026mdash;tend to harbor aspirations for formal employment, professional advancement, and onward global migration (Crush, Chikanda, and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). A 32-year-old Master\u0026rsquo;s student at the University of Cape Town explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I came here to study because I believe education is my ticket out of this cycle. I dream of getting a scholarship abroad or finding a job where my skills are valued. I refuse to be stuck.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHowever, even for highly educated Zimbabweans, professional integration has become increasingly fraught. Employment discrimination, precarious legal statuses, the devaluation of foreign qualifications, and systemic documentation barriers sharply curtail their ability to transition into secure formal employment (Amit, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). Moreover, a particularly insidious form of exclusion - \u003cem\u003eacademic xenophobia\u003c/em\u003e - has emerged within South Africa\u0026rsquo;s universities, affecting even the most credentialed migrants (Simba, Walters and Jansen, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Respondents narrated experiences of being overlooked for permanent or senior positions, despite holding advanced qualifications and international experience. Zimbabwean academics, alongside other foreign African scholars, are often relegated to temporary, adjunct, or contract-based roles, excluded from decision-making spaces, and treated as \u0026ldquo;outsiders\u0026rdquo; within institutions supposedly committed to diversity and global knowledge exchange. As a 41-year-old Zimbabwean postdoctoral fellow at a Gauteng university noted:\u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;No matter how many degrees you have, you are never truly accepted. They hire you for skills, but when it\u0026rsquo;s time for permanent posts or leadership, they say you are \u0026lsquo;not rooted\u0026rsquo; enough. It\u0026rsquo;s a polite way of saying you are not South African, and you will never belong.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis academic xenophobia, distinct yet related to broader societal Afrophobia, reflects deep-seated biases within South African higher education, where foreign African scholars are subtly, and sometimes overtly, excluded from full institutional citizenship (Heleta, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Nyamnjoh, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Simba, Walters and Jansen, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Such patterns reproduce the very hierarchies that universities claim to challenge and mirror similar exclusionary practices across other formal sectors, including healthcare, civil service, and professional industries. In stark contrast, less-educated Zimbabwean migrants - those with only secondary schooling or vocational training - are often forced into survivalist hustling: informal street vending, piecework, domestic labor, and precarious construction work. Their engagement with the economy is shaped by immediate material needs rather than long-term professional trajectories. As a 29-year-old informal trader at the Beitbridge taxi rank recounted: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;School certificates mean nothing here. No one asks if you passed your exams. They only care if you can push goods, clean houses, or drive. We survive by hustling, not dreaming.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, the education divide is not merely about differential access to opportunity but also about the scale, imagination, and feasibility of future horizons. Highly educated migrants often envision eventual escape routes - through scholarships, skilled migration, or professional networking - whereas less-educated migrants are locked into immediate, survival-driven economies with far fewer exit options. Crucially, both groups encounter ceilings - formal and informal - that limit their social mobility and entrench their structural precarity, albeit through different pathways. Education provides aspirational resources but does not, on its own, dismantle the systemic exclusions deeply embedded within South Africa\u0026rsquo;s post-apartheid labor markets and institutions (Crush and Tawodzera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Heleta, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). This confirms that generation and class intersect powerfully to shape Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences in South Africa. Older migrants benefitted from earlier periods of relative openness and stability, while newer migrants confront heightened precarity and restricted mobility (Crush and Tevera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Musoni, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec23\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.5 Everyday Xenophobia and the Politics of Exclusion\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile structural precarity profoundly shapes Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; lives in South Africa, xenophobia - specifically Afrophobia directed at black African migrants - constitutes a central axis of everyday violence, exclusion, and marginalization. This section explores migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences of xenophobia in urban spaces, the political scapegoating of foreign Africans in public narratives, and the proliferation of everyday bordering practices (Mezzadra and Neilson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) that normalize exclusion through routine interactions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExperiences of Afrophobia in Urban Areas\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRespondents consistently narrated experiences of overt hostility, discrimination, and fear in South African urban spaces - markets, townships, transport hubs, and workplaces. Unlike general xenophobia, Afrophobia is specifically directed at black African migrants and is deeply racialized and classed (Crush and Ramachandran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e). A 30-year-old Zimbabwean street vendor in Johannesburg described: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;When things go wrong, we are the first ones they blame. If there is no water, it\u0026rsquo;s because of foreigners. If there are no jobs, it\u0026rsquo;s because of foreigners. They say it openly: \u0026lsquo;You people must go back where you came from.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSimilarly, a 35-year-old Zimbabwean Uber driver in Cape Town recalled: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Even customers insult you. They get into your car and the first thing they ask is, \u0026lsquo;Are you one of those Zimbabweans stealing our jobs?\u0026rsquo; You drive them politely, but inside it cuts you. You are always reminded you don\u0026rsquo;t belong.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e These experiences confirm Crush and Ramachandran\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e) argument that migrants are constructed as scapegoats for South Africa\u0026rsquo;s persistent socio-economic crises, reinforcing patterns of everyday hostility and systemic marginalization.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePolitical Scapegoating of Migrants: Media Narratives of \u0026ldquo;Job Theft\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Criminality\u0026rdquo;\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRespondents repeatedly pointed to the role of political leaders and media narratives in fueling xenophobic sentiments. Politicians, especially at local levels, often scapegoat migrants during election periods, framing them as threats to national security, economic prosperity, and social stability (Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Tshabalala, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). A 41-year-old Zimbabwean schoolteacher working informally in Soweto stated: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;You hear leaders saying \u0026lsquo;foreigners must fall,\u0026rsquo; \u0026lsquo;foreigners must be removed.\u0026rsquo; It\u0026rsquo;s on TV, on radios, even at community meetings. How can you feel safe when the leaders want you gone?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Media representations similarly reinforce exclusionary discourses. Zimbabweans, along with Nigerians and Somalis, are frequently depicted as \u0026ldquo;stealing jobs,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;bringing drugs,\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;overrunning healthcare facilities\u0026rdquo; (Crush and Tevera, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). As a 27-year-old Zimbabwean receptionist in Durban reflected: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;You feel hunted. You read the newspapers, you listen to the news, and you realize you are the enemy in their story. No matter how hard you work or how honestly you live, you are already guilty because you are foreign.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Such representations not only normalize societal hostility but also justify restrictive immigration policies and street-level violence, embedding Afrophobia into everyday political and media discourse.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEveryday Bordering: Policing, Landlord Evictions, Workplace Discrimination\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on Mezzadra and Neilson\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) concept of everyday bordering, Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; accounts reveal how exclusion operates not only through formal immigration enforcement but through mundane, dispersed practices across society. Police harassment was almost universally reported. A 29-year-old waiter in Pretoria explained: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;Police stop you on the street, in taxis, even when you are shopping. First they ask for your ID. If you show ZEP, they say it\u0026rsquo;s expired or fake. Then you must pay or they arrest you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHousing discrimination was another pervasive form of bordering. Migrants often reported being evicted or denied rentals based on their nationality. As a 34-year-old domestic worker in Cape Town recounted: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;When the landlord found out I was Zimbabwean, he said the rent is doubled. \u0026lsquo;You foreigners must pay more or leave,\u0026rsquo; he said. No contract, no rights, nothing.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e Workplace discrimination further compounded precarity. Migrants described being denied contracts, paid below minimum wage, or subjected to verbal abuse. A 25-year-old Zimbabwean man working in a construction firm stated: \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;When you are Zimbabwean, they don\u0026rsquo;t give you papers. They can fire you anytime without notice. You are just a tool they use until they don\u0026rsquo;t need you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese acts of everyday bordering reveal how exclusion is diffused across the urban landscape - not confined to state checkpoints but enacted in homes, streets, shops, and workplaces. Migrants\u0026rsquo; existence is continuously policed, questioned, and destabilized (Vigneswaran, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Thus xenophobia in South Africa operates not only as episodic violence but as an ongoing structure of exclusion. Zimbabwean migrants live under what Mezzadra and Neilson (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) term a multiplication of borders - constantly surveilled, questioned, and marginalized across every domain of life. Moreover, these bordering practices are socially produced and politically sanctioned, rooted in broader narratives that construct migrants as threats and burdens rather than contributors (Crush and Dodson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e). The result is an environment where precarity is not accidental but actively manufactured, what Mbembe (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) would describe as a necropolitical ordering of space. In this context, Zimbabwean migrants are forced to survive in an urban landscape saturated with hostility, exclusion, and vulnerability, a landscape where rights are contingent, precarious, and revocable at any moment.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"6. Conclusion: Between a Broken Home and a Hostile Host - The Unfinished Struggles of Zimbabwean Migrants","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis paper critically examined the lived experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in post-apartheid South Africa, foregrounding themes of precarity, disenfranchisement, and deferred return. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research and rich theoretical frameworks, the analysis has demonstrated that Zimbabwean migrants inhabit an extended condition of liminality: marginalized in South Africa\u0026rsquo;s increasingly hostile socio-political landscape, yet simultaneously unable to return to a Zimbabwe devastated by economic collapse, political repression, and state failure.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough the lenses of Butler\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) concept of \u003cem\u003eprecarious life\u003c/em\u003e, Arendt\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) notion of \u003cem\u003estatelessness\u003c/em\u003e and the \u003cem\u003eright to have rights\u003c/em\u003e, and Mbembe\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) theory of \u003cem\u003enecropolitics\u003c/em\u003e, this study has shown how Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; lives are rendered disposable, caught between the violence of exclusion in South Africa and the abandonment of rights and protections in their home country. Glick Schiller\u0026rsquo;s (1992, 1995) framework of \u003cem\u003etransnationalism\u003c/em\u003e and Hage\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e) analysis of \u003cem\u003etemporal stuckedness\u003c/em\u003e further illuminate the migrants\u0026rsquo; experiences of living across multiple spaces and deferred futures without security, settlement, or full political belonging.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConnecting the Zimbabwean case to global discourses on statelessness and disposability, it becomes clear that these migrants represent a contemporary form of what Arendt (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1951\u003c/span\u003e) called \u003cem\u003ethe loss of the right to have rights\u003c/em\u003e. Zimbabwean migrants are citizens of a failed state unable to guarantee their social, economic, or political security; yet, in South Africa, they are treated as suspect, criminalized, and unwanted.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Butler\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e) terms, their lives are rendered \u003cem\u003eprecarious\u003c/em\u003e not by accident, but through deliberate political processes that systematically deny them recognition, security, and livable futures. Precarity becomes a mode of governance, a way of regulating populations deemed surplus to the requirements of the neoliberal, securitized nation-state.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMbembe\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e) necropolitics further sharpens this analysis: the urban spaces Zimbabwean migrants inhabit - informal settlements, overcrowded townships, marginal workplaces - are not just sites of neglect but active spaces of death-worlds, where slow forms of social death (displacement, exclusion, poverty, violence) are normalized and managed.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Zimbabwean migrant experience emerges, therefore, as emblematic of broader African postcolonial crises: a stark indictment of the failure of post-independence nation-states to guarantee dignity, security, and political inclusion to their citizens. It simultaneously reflects the deep fractures within post-apartheid South Africa\u0026rsquo;s project of liberation, where the dreams of pan-African solidarity have been replaced by exclusionary nationalisms, socio-economic stratification, and violent bordering practices. Migrants are thus left to navigate fragmented identities, contested spaces, and precarious futures - existing as disenfranchised citizens of nowhere, living in urban peripheries that materialize the failures of both Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s postcolonial project and South Africa\u0026rsquo;s democratic promises.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRather than fulfilling the pan-African dream of continental unity and liberation, post-apartheid South Africa has retrenched into narrow nationalisms, exclusionary economic practices, and internal bordering that violently marginalize African migrants (Neocosmos, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e; Landau, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). As a result, Zimbabwean migrants find themselves in an urban landscape where belonging is perpetually conditional and precarious, where survival requires navigating everyday violence, discrimination, and disposability.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe findings point urgently to the need for a fundamental rethinking of migration governance in South Africa and beyond. Rather than relying on securitized, exclusionary, and discriminatory frameworks, South Africa must adopt rights-based, inclusive approaches that recognize the humanity, contributions, and dignities of migrants. As long as immigration is governed through logics of threat and exclusion, migrants will remain trapped in cycles of precarity that undermine not only their futures but the broader project of democratic and social justice.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile host states bear crucial responsibilities, the Zimbabwean case loudly demonstrates that sending states must also address their deep structural failures. Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s ongoing political authoritarianism, economic mismanagement, and systemic corruption have produced the conditions of mass displacement. The Zimbabwean migrant experience not only exposes the failings of host societies like South Africa but also shines a harsh light on the profound dysfunctions of sending states themselves. If mass displacement and precarious exile are to be addressed sustainably, countries like Zimbabwe must confront the political and economic crises that force their citizens into migration under conditions of desperation and indignity.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eZimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s long-standing political authoritarianism, economic collapse, and pervasive corruption have systematically stripped millions of citizens of the possibility of a dignified life at home (Raftopoulos (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Migration, in this sense, is not merely a choice or an economic strategy - it is a forced survival tactic, an act of flight from unlivable conditions. The testimonies of migrants captured in this study - longing for home yet terrified of return - speak to the depth of betrayal experienced by citizens abandoned by their own states. Without fundamental transformation at home, Zimbabwean migration futures will remain shaped by exile, precarity, and deferred dreams. Thus, sustainable solutions to forced migration must begin at the source. Zimbabwe, and similar sending states across Africa, must engage in radical internal repair:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cul\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRestoring Democratic Governance\u003c/b\u003e: There is an urgent need to dismantle authoritarian political structures, end repression, and rebuild transparent, accountable governance systems where citizens\u0026rsquo; rights are respected and protected.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRevitalizing Economic Foundations\u003c/b\u003e: Beyond piecemeal reforms, Zimbabwe must pursue deep economic restructuring that stabilizes the currency, promotes diversified and sustainable growth, and prioritizes employment creation - especially for youth and marginalized groups.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTackling Systemic Corruption\u003c/b\u003e: Ending elite capture and rent-seeking practices is crucial to restore public trust and ensure that national resources are directed toward the collective good, not siphoned into private hands.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eInvesting in Human Development\u003c/b\u003e: Education, healthcare, and social services must be rebuilt as pillars of national resilience and opportunity. A country that neglects its human capital guarantees future cycles of displacement and impoverishment.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eStrengthening Regional and Continental Commitments\u003c/b\u003e: Zimbabwe must also align with African Union and SADC protocols promoting good governance, human rights, and free movement, not only as a diplomatic posture but as a domestic development strategy.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ul\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Bakewell (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) argues, treating migration merely as a border management problem ignores the root causes embedded in state failure and economic exclusion. Until sending countries address these internal contradictions, migration pressures will persist, and migrants will continue to navigate hostile terrains of survival abroad. In short, Zimbabwe must stop exporting its citizens as survival labor and start creating a country where staying becomes not an act of desperation, but a viable, fulfilling choice. Without this shift - without fixing (and fixing fundamentally) their politics, economies, and social contracts - sending countries will remain complicit in the production of precarious migrant lives across the continent and beyond. A functioning, inclusive Zimbabwean state is the most sustainable solution to reducing forced displacement, restoring dignity to migrants, and enabling real rather than imagined returns.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLooking ahead, Zimbabwean migrants confront highly uneven futures. A minority - mostly the highly educated and globally mobile - may access onward migration pathways to Europe, Canada, or Australia. Yet the majority are likely to remain trapped in precarious conditions within South Africa and other neighboring states, caught between fractured homes and fractured host societies. Migration futures are thus bifurcated: shaped by class, education, and opportunity, but always undergirded by the enduring global hierarchies that produce mobility for some and immobilization for others.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Zimbabwean migrant story is not simply one of victimhood, but also of endurance, creativity, and the stubborn pursuit of life under impossible conditions. Yet their predicament lays bare the global failures of postcolonial nation-states and neoliberal migration regimes alike. Addressing these failures requires not only better migration policies but also rebuilding broken states, imagining post-national forms of belonging, and forging transnational solidarities that affirm migrants\u0026rsquo; rights to dignity, security, and full political existence across borders.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn honoring Zimbabwean migrants\u0026rsquo; struggles, we are called to reimagine political community itself: a community where no human being is disposable, and where the right to belong is no longer a deferred dream, but a lived reality.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDisclosure statement:\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDisclaimer:\u003c/strong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiability for commissions, omissions and/or views expressed in this paper remains entirely the responsibility of the author.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding:\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study did not receive any funding\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability\u0026nbsp;(data transparency)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome of the data that underlie the findings of this study may be made available upon request from the authors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInformed consent\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll participants provided written informed consent before inclusion in the study. The process included a clear explanation of the study, potential risks, benefits, and the voluntary nature of participation.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe research was ethically approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Zimbabwe. Prior to participation, all participants were duly informed of their rights and responsibilities and provided explicit written consent. The study was conducted in agreement with the guidelines governing research involving human participants, as outlined by the Ethics Committee of the University of Zimbabwe.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to participate\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWritten, freely given, informed consent to participate was obtained from all adult participants prior to data collection. No participants under the age of 18 were enrolled in this study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to publish\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWritten informed consent to publish was obtained from all participants for the publication of anonymized interview data and for any potentially identifiable images or details; where individuals are depicted in human-identifiable images, explicit consent to publish those images was obtained from the persons shown. No participants under 18 were included; therefore, parental or guardian consent was not required.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eClinical trial number:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003enot applicable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to Publish declaration:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003enot applicable\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAmit, R. (2012). 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The contours of disorder: Crime maps and territorial policing in South Africa. \u003cem\u003eEnvironment and Planning D: Society and Space\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e32\u003c/em\u003e(1), 91-107.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eZhou, G., \u0026amp; Zvoushe, H. (2012). Public policy making in Zimbabwe: A three decade perspective. \u003cem\u003eInternational Journal of Humanities and Social Science\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e2\u003c/em\u003e(8), 212-222.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Footnotes","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe is an ongoing period of currency instability in Zimbabwe which, using Cagan's definition of hyperinflation, began in February 2007. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Migration, migrants, citizenship, xenophobia, transnationalism, statelessness, Zimbabwe, South Africa","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7398493/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7398493/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis paper examines the lived experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in post-apartheid South Africa, focusing on the crisis of return, identity negotiation, and precarious citizenship. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research conducted among Zimbabweans in various cities in South Africa, the study reveals a striking condition of double disenfranchisement: migrants are rendered precarious in South Africa\u0026rsquo;s increasingly xenophobic environment while simultaneously excluded from political and economic recovery in Zimbabwe, a state marked by collapse and authoritarian stagnation. Across interviews and observations, a recurring refrain echoed \u0026ndash; \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;I want to go back home\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e - capturing both an emotional longing and a political impossibility. Framing the analysis through Judith Butler\u0026rsquo;s theory of precarity, Hannah Arendt\u0026rsquo;s notion of statelessness and the \u0026ldquo;right to have rights,\u0026rdquo; Achille Mbembe\u0026rsquo;s concept of necropolitics, and transnational migration theories (Glick Schiller et al.), the paper argues that Zimbabwean migrants inhabit an extended condition of existential suspension. While many express a strong desire to return \u0026ldquo;home,\u0026rdquo; structural realities - hyperinflation, political repression, and a failing economy - make this return unattainable, producing a temporal limbo of deferred futures. Older, more established migrants and newer arrivals experience these dynamics differently: the former leveraging fragmented social capital accumulated over time, the latter facing deepening economic exclusion and systemic harassment. Additionally, aspirations to migrate onwards to Europe, Australia, and Canada are increasingly visible, reflecting emerging South-North migration imaginaries shaped by chronic precarity and disillusionment with South Africa\u0026rsquo;s post-apartheid promises. This Zimbabwean migrant experience highlights broader postcolonial crises of citizenship and belonging in Africa: neither fully included in host societies nor securely anchored in their countries of origin. I argue that sustainable solutions to forced migration must not only reform host country policies but also demand urgent political and economic reconstruction in sending countries like Zimbabwe. Without restoring democratic governance, stabilizing economies, and investing in human development, sending states will continue to externalize their crises, forcing citizens into precarious exile.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"To Stay Here Is to Suffer, to Return Home Is to Perish - Entangled Zimbabwean Migrants, Precarity, and the Crisis of Return in Post-Apartheid South Africa","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-09-19 14:59:43","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7398493/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c3a897d6-8517-41e7-b471-69b2db9c033d","owner":[],"postedDate":"September 19th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-11-18T18:23:30+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-09-19 14:59:43","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7398493","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7398493","identity":"rs-7398493","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}