From Reservoir to Corridor: Changing Patterns of Migration in Mozambique

This contribution discusses the significance of Mozambique in the historical evolution of labour migration patterns in Southern Africa. The preponderance of this place in the development of labour migration has been assured by its geographical location, historical chance as well as political and institutional features. From our perspective, the inclusion of Mozambique in this collection should consider at least four structural aspects, of which three have received scant attention in the regional migration debates. The first is the usual historical migration patterns of people, predominantly men. Here, we remind the reader that to call these migrants ‘Mozambicans’ and their hosts ‘South Africans’ is anachronistic. In so doing, we take the reader through a line of flight from the careless use of colonial identifications to describe both the migrants and their hosts. The second is the significance of Mozambique’s geographical location in Southern Africa as the proverbial path to the Promised Land, that is, South Africa, for migrants from all across this continent and Asia. The third is the problematic economic development within Mozambique as a contributor to the broader lines of flight within the story of labour migration in the Southern African region.