The social context of migrant social capital: Explaining the rise of friends and the decline of family as the main bases of support for undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in Botswana

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the role of social capital in the migration of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants to Botswana. It is based on a questionnaire survey (n=152) and 25 in-depth interviews. A snowball sampling method was followed. A key finding was that although kinship networks were dominant in the initial stages of the migration trajectory, their influence declined once migrants reached the destination. Here migrants preferred friendship networks and reported highly conflictual relations with relatives. Major issues in their relationship with relatives were free riding, the delegitimation of seniority-based authority relationships, and competition over status in the home community resulting in fears that relatives will put them in a bad light through malicious gossip. Social networks based upon friendship, evangelical churches and an overarching bounded solidarity among undocumented Zimbabweans seem to be the replacement of social networks based upon kinship. We argue that the economic collapse and extensive downward mobility of Zimbabweans over the last two decades played an important role in causing the decline in the role of the family as a basis of support.