Unequal Interdependency: Chinese Petty Entrepreneurs and Zimbabwean Migrant Labourers

Abstract

Exploring the cultural politics of diasporic entrepreneurs and migrant labourers through an examination of Chinese restaurants in Johannesburg, this article presents what I call the “intra-migrant economy” amid everyday racialized insecurities in urban South Africa. I use the term “intra-migrant economy” to refer to the employment of one group of migrants (Zimbabwean migrant workers) by another group of migrants (Chinese petty capitalists) as an economic strategy outside the mainstream labour market. These two groups of migrants work in the same industry, live in the same city, and have established a sort of unequal employment relation that can be hierarchical and interdependent at once. Chinese migrants are socially marginalized but not economically underprivileged, which stands in contrast to Zimbabwean migrants, who remain economically underprivileged even though they speak local languages. Their different socioeconomic positions in South Africa are profoundly influenced by their nationality and racialization. This analysis of their interdependency focuses on the economic and political structures that shaped the underlying conditions that brought Chinese and Zimbabwean migrants to work together in South Africa.