Zimbabwean migrants in the United Kingdom, the new media and networks of survival during the period 2000–2007

Abstract

This article examines the nature and significance of the ways in which some Zimbabwean migrants based in the United Kingdom (UK) appropriated the new media and established social and economic networks of survival during the period 2002–2007. An absence of a significant study of the nexus between migration, the recent diasporas and the formation of diasporic media by African, specifically, Zimbabwean migrants, makes an analysis of how migrants have appropriated and are putting to use the new media especially relevant. This study aims to determine how these strategies are allowing them to articulate their experiences and aspirations and have assisted them to establish linkages between places of exile and Zimbabwe. The websites Swradioafrica.com, Newzimbabwe.com, Zimvigil.co.uk and Zimdays.com are thus analysed to determine the role they played in the establishment of social solidarity. Furthermore, the essay will examine the roles of online shopping and money transfer sites such as Zimbuyer.com, available on http://www.zimbuyer.com, and Mukuru.com, available online on http://www.mukuru.com, to determine the role that they played in ensuring the social and economic survival of the Zimbabwean diaspora in the UK and the survival of those back home. Concepts focusing on discursive practices and strategies (Hall 1996) and everyday life tactics (De Certeau 1984) that enable ‘the excluded other’, in this case migrants, to constitute dynamic identities, and other empirical studies on migration, the new media and identity formation, are therefore considered in this article studying the nature and significance of the UK-based Zimbabwean migrants' appropriation of the new media and the discursive networks that they established in their use of the new media.