Through rich stories of African migrant women in Johannesburg, this book explores the experience of living between geographies. Author Caroline Kihato draws on fieldwork and analysis to examine the everyday lives of those inhabiting a fluid location between multiple worlds, suspended between their original home and an imagined future elsewhere.

Through rich stories of African migrant women in Johannesburg, this book explores the experience of living between geographies. Author Caroline Kihato draws on fieldwork and analysis to examine the everyday lives of those inhabiting a fluid location between multiple worlds, suspended between their original home and an imagined future elsewhere.

This book reviews the possibilities for livelihoods to emerge through the acts of 'trying'. It centres itself in the Johannesburg CBD and shares stories of Zimbabwean migrants residing within the metropolis. These stories were collated through the female Joburg runners. Additional respondents were sought through the runner network systems which included wrappers, and transporters. Literature has largely focused on male migrants. However, the trend of feminised migration continues to rise. This invites the telling of stories of the lived experiences of these women in a place where they are considered as vulnerable 'soft targets'.Hence the present study traces the nimble footedness of the female migrant in knowing when to cross, recross and crisscross borders and boundaries. The research contributes an added perspective to the conventional migration narrative, within which women are frequently portrayed as the inaudible voices and passive actors and frequently appear as accompanying social actors who moved to join their spouses or merely remain at home and await remittances. Through the prism of the Joburg runners, this study invites conversations around (im)mobility, reimagination of belonging and identity.

Exploring the dynamics of identity formation processes in diasporic spaces, this book analyses how gender, cultural and religious practices are renegotiated in a situation of displacement. The author presents the comparative case study of Somali migrant women in Nairobi and Johannesburg: two cosmopolitan urban hubs in the global South. The book is based on and includes ethnographic observations in Nairobi and Johannesburg, first-person accounts of migration journeys across the African continent and women’s reflections on what it means to be a Somali woman today.

One of the critical challenges facing Africa is how to harness the potential of internal and international migration in the interests of development. The Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) is an international network of organizations founded in 1996 to promote awareness of migration-development linkages in SADC. SAMP conducts applied research on migration and development issues, provides policy advice and expertise, offers training in migration policy and management, and conducts public education campaigns on migration-related issues. Voices from the Margins: Migrant Women's Experiences in Southern Africa, the Southern African Migration Project's policy paper 46, draws conclusions from women's descriptions of their experiences as migrants and provides a forum for the voices of women themselves to be heard.