Migration. Memory. Identity. Belonging
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Migration. Memory. Identity. Belonging 〰️
An archive of belonging
We are the story: Migration, Memory, Identity and Belonging is a documentary research project that explores Malawian Zimbabwean identity and belonging by exploring issues of colonial labour migration, family fragmentation and postcolonial citizenship. The project utilises my own family’s history and lived experiences and that of others to interrogate the notion of identity and belonging to people living in Zimbabwe, with Malawian ancestry. These stories are explored through photography, oral testimonies and personal archives.
One of the central questions is that of belonging – what does belonging mean when you have a parent who is Zimbabwean and another Malawian? I was born and raised in Zimbabwe to a Zimbabwean mother and a Malawian father and later lived in Malawi. My sister on the other hand, was born in Zimbabwe, educated in Malawi and returned to Zimbabwe in 1980. Our different experiences demonstrate that identity can be shaped by a number of factors which also determine what belonging means. My and my sister’s stories are not unique as other project participants have similar ones. The project situates all these experiences within the much larger context of history and regional mobility.
One key issue to the labour migration issue was the partition of Africa into colonial territories where Nyasaland was a British Protectorate. According to the Annual Colonial Report of 1934, 120,000 Nyasaland ‘Natives’ were absent from the Protectorate (Makambe, 1979). Of this number, 75,000 were in Southern Rhodesia and 20,000 in the Union of South Africa. The same report stated that there were fewer prospects in Nyasaland and the failure to pay hut taxes forced the people to emigrate to places with better prospects, such as Southern Rhodesia. The report stated that between 25-30 percent of the emigrants never returned.
This fact is backed by Groves who makes reference to the machona (or matchona in the Chitumbuka language of northern Malawi) as ‘the lost ones’ or ‘those who lost contact with home’ who are the ones who never made it back home (Groves, 2020).
Since many of these migrants did not return home, they married and had families where they had settled. The migrants from Nyasaland formed strong bonds and created communities in the townships, particularly in the form of religious and cultural groups. Despite the challenges of urban life, Nyasa migrants still found and created a sense of community in Salisbury’s townships. Entire families from Nyasaland settled in the city, laying down roots and paving the way for successive generations of migration from Malawi (Groves, 2012).
“These religious groups played a role in the construction of new urban identities and helped migrants to create a sense of belonging in the city particularly during periods of rapid urbanisation and political change.” (Groves, 2012)
The establishment of the Federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesia in 1953 also compounded an existing issue of migration from Nyasaland to other countries in the region. Nyasaland became a source of labour for the entire region, particularly Southern Rhodesia, which was developing rapidly at the expense of both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Groves asserts that
“Nyasa’ labour migrants were among the first Africans to work and settle in Salisbury during the colonial period.” (Groves, 2012). The industries in Southern Rhodesia heavily depended on cheap labour from Nyasaland for the farms and mines (Groves, 2012).
The colonial system of partitioning the continent into different administrative territories, while depending on labour mobility across the different regions created a contradiction that is still being experienced by the descendants of colonial migrants mainly in the form of family fragmentation.
The documentary argues that identity is not as clear cut as being a citizen of a particular nation, but complex, negotiated and historically produced by colonialism instead of the relationships and interconnectedness of the African communities. Questions about the inherited colonial borders in which historical family connections were broken and translated into questions of nationality, origin and belonging still linger. The requirement for individuals to be classified into singular forms of national belonging, limits understanding of identity and belonging. While official documents can state a person’s citizenship, it does not fully take into account how a person can belong to more than one place. Migration then becomes more than a journey, but a complex social process.
The documentary asks: When the migration system that necessitated movement ends, what happens to families and individuals? What happens to descendants of colonial migrants when inherited colonial borders continue postcolonial? How is identity constructed and what does belonging mean when one’s family history exists across more than one national border?
Although the borders between Malawi and Zimbabwe separate two sovereign nations, the project demonstrates that borders cannot fully contain the histories, relationships, identity and memories that colonial migration set in motion.