Structures and networks of accessing and securing land among peri-urban squatters: the case of Malawian migrants at Lydiate informal settlement in Zimbabwe

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ABSTRACT The scholarly discourse on migrants and land access in peri-urban spaces is advancing theoretically and empirically. This paper contributes to this important discourse by examining the structures and networks used by migrants of international descent in accessing and securing the much coveted land in peri-urban spaces of destination countries. The study is qualitative, based on an ethnographic inquiry among Malawian migrants in Lydiate, an informal peri-urban squatter settlement in Zimbabwe’s Norton town. The finding of the paper is that migrants resort to alternative institutions including kinship, political networks and investors in accessing and securing land in peri-urban spaces. Migrants also establish themselves through the occult, a religious and ritual-based form of authority that is associated with deathly symbols. Because it is feared by adherence and indigenes alike, the occult is able to yield and guarantee land to migrants seeking it in its name. Migrant squatter settlements, therefore, emerge as dynamic spaces with novel forms of authority that regulate access to resources. Beneath the semblance of chaos that characterizes squatter settlements, there is another different ‘world’; ordered and shared by those who constitute it. The paper further argues that, the reason why migrants turn to alternative forms of authority in accessing and securing land is not because they prefer it; very often, there are no formal institutions that they can turn to. What this means for academia and policy makers is that, there is a broad scope of players that need to be engaged in the planning and governance of peri-urban spaces in the age of transnational mobility. These players include political patrons, investors, and other primordial forms of authority which include kinship and the feared occult. These players not only need to be understood but also require to be engaged in the ongoing construction and governance of peri-urban spaces.