Translocal Optimisation: Assembling Rural and Urban Spaces for Later Life in Urban Namibia and Uganda

Abstract

It is often assumed that sub-Saharan African urban migrants return in later life to the villages from which they originated. This article challenges this model of circular migration by exploring the strategies of older adults who live permanently in urban areas. The empirical material comes from ethnographic case studies in two industrial towns formed by the apartheid and colonial housing policies of the 1950s and 1960s: Kuisebmond in Walvis Bay, Namibia, a former apartheid 'location'; and Walukuba in Jinja, Uganda, a former 'African' rental estate. Older adults' housing situation and its significance for their strategies and choices in later life provide the focus. The results show that even if many strategies appeared that are often associated with a return to the rural place of origin, for many the move back to the village was not a viable option. Participants in the study nurtured contacts with their places of origin, for example by making regular visits, sending remittances, contributing to housing in the village and receiving relatives in town. It is argued that these strategies, together with urban advantagesin particular a good housing situationmust be understood as translocal optimisation, in which potentialities emerge from an assemblage of various actors in different, connected locales. The optimal situation in which to agein rural or urban areasis a product of co-emergent actors and not necessarily an individual choice on the part of the older adult. The study concludes that urban living in later life seems to be an alternative choice for a group of older adults and must be acknowledged.

Family houses – building an intergenerational space in post-apartheid Namibia

“…Migration also contributes to flexible family arrangements over time. Such arrangements are invariably adapted by translocal optimisation in which intergenerational reorganisation occurs in an attempt to find the best possible spatial constellation in which the most advantageous resource pooling of people, cash and material resources can take place (Nord and Byerley 2020). It has been suggested that the noncontributory pension available in Namibia may put older people in the position of being the main source of income, pulling older and younger individuals together in the same space (Adamchak 1995).…”

“…It is known that there are reciprocal exchanges between urban-and rural-dwelling family members. However, it is less well known how extended families respond to and use the fact that an older family member is permanently living in an urban area (Nord and Byerley 2020). There is a lack of studies of African urban intergenerational space, especially studies in which the oldest family members are in focus.…”

“…However, it is argued that despite the transformations of family patterns, the traditional multigenerational system is what has "kept African families going" through times of adversity (Oduaran and Oduaran 2010, 95). Family relations have shown considerable resilience over time and space as well as a spatial, multi-scalar transformative and adaptive capacity (Greiner 2012;Nord and Byerley 2020).…”

Migrant homemaking in Sub-Saharan Africa: from self-help housing to conspicuous construction

“…Until today, this specific form of rural-urban connection continues to be a defining feature of migration in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. Alber 2018;Bank 2015;Bank et al 2020;Englund 2002;Ferguson 1999;Greiner 2011;Njwambe et al 2019;Nord and Byerley 2020;Pauli 2020;Pellow 2011;Potts 2010;Schnegg et al 2013).…”