Development Studies Working Paper, no. 11

Abstract

Communities which have been characterised by migrancy for a long period of time, such as the Xhosa and the Italians considered in this paper, develop sets 6f terms which describe migrants. The Xhosa have varied criteria for their categories, e.g. amajoyini - those on contract to mainly the mining and construction industries; abafuduga - those who deliberately sell up and go elsewhere; amagoduka - those who intend to return home; imfiki - impoverished migrants from white owned farms. Italians tend to view the crossing of international boundaries as the essence of migration and classify their migrants by the state in which they work e.g. Inglesi, Americani, rather than by the more complex terminology of the Xhosa. Some terms are simply descriptions, others are categories with wider connotations, into which people place others and themselves. As far as possible we shall use the peoples' own categories, which define their relationships to "home", the region to which they migrate and to migrancy as a way of life, as these have important implications for what happens at home.Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER