Human Mobility And Namibian Family Transformation: An Analysis Of Socio-Economic Development And Familymigrant Connections In Contemporary Namibia

Abstract

The dissertation attempts to present migration from a holistic perspective where the decision to move is the result of an assessment of competing strategies open to potential migrants. This is a bid by globally marginalised populations for economic security; a deliberate decision taken by the family to improve their livelihood. Migrants are here seen as social actors, or agents, who confront structural socioeconomic contexts, which offer both constraints and opportunities. The migrants’ reflexive rational assessment of such limiting and enabling structures determines the decision-making process, and the subsequent behavioural outcomes. Namibia is currently experiencing a high level of unemployment and underemployment across large portions of its population, and hence levels of poverty and inequality remain high, 26 years after independence from South Africa. Migrants now seek lifestyles, work, income, welfare benefits, and the chance to aid family networks back home through the strategic axial advantage of the remittance system. This thesis critically utilised the structuration and agency theory as a contextual and conceptual means to make sense of Namibian migration, while at the same time focusing on the way in which both financial and social remittances can modify the socio-economic status of the migrants’ families, providing empirical evidence from Namibia on the role that migration can have on local development. The epistemological design used emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach, which combines economic and sociological paradigms, to investigate the impact of internal migration on transforming the socio-economic structure of the Namibian family. These considerations were instrumental in the choice of Charmaz’s (2006, 2014), constructivist grounded theory version for the study.