Mulugeta F. Dinbabo • In developed and developing countries, the livelihoods of a lot of people in peri-urban areas depend on the informal economy (Coulibaly & Li 2020; Farrington 2001; Harrison & McVey 1997). The informal economy is defined by all jobs relating to individuals or businesses not appropriately catered for by statute, practice, or […]
This paper examines the emerging unexplored synergies between digital-mobile technologies and cross-border food remittances in Southern Africa. Cell phones and apps or applications for smart mobile devices offer migrants new formal ways of sending food remittances. With large volumes of cash and non-cash items flowing through it, the South Africa-Zimbabwe remittance corridor is a priority
This study examines the evolving connection between migrant networking on social media and cross-border food remittances in Southern Africa. Emerging research and academic debates have shown that social media platforms transform migration networks. But the role and link between migrant remittances and social media are generally overlooked and neglected. This paper contributes to the ongoing
— Master’s Thesis — The COVID-19 epidemic has been a devastating global health catastrophe, and the ensuing lockdowns and limitations have exacerbated numerous inequities along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines. Recent studies have shown that undocumented migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers have been further affected, due to policy responses that mostly exclude them from
— PhD Thesis — This dissertation investigates how myriad actors, including the state, citizens, civil society, refugees, and the media, intersect to shape refugee experiences in urban centers in South Africa. Building on six months of ethnographic fieldwork, it focuses on refugee lived experiences in this context to determine the actors, their relations, processes, and
Mobile transfers have become a defining feature of cross-border remittance transmission in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, recent studies on mobile transfers have mainly focused on cash remittances and need to pay more attention to mobile food transfers. This paper addresses this research gap on mobile food transfers by examining cross-border food remittances and mobile transfers
A notable silence in the emerging literature on migrant precarity is any consideration of the relationship between precarity and food insecurity. The links between migrant precarity and sudden economic, political or environmental shocks are relatively untheorized. Researchers were thus conceptually under-prepared to understand how and in what ways the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with general forms
Adopting a mixed methods approach including surveys, key informant interviews, and participatory methods, the project will apply a gender-sensitive analysis to explore the food insecurity experiences of Somali, Congolese and Zimbabwean migrants and refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims to provide critical decision-making and pandemic response data to local
This project, conducted as part of the Queen Elizabeth Advanced Scholars program at Laurier has three elements: 1) a food security household survey of 500 Zimbabwean migrant households in Cape Town, South Africa; 2) a similar survey conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa and 3) in-depth qualitative interviews with cross-border informal food traders in Harare, Zimbabwe.
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