RuralUrban Migration

1
Rural-Urban Migration

• Urbanization and its Relationship to Development,
  
• or
• Lines vs. Bushes

2
Development as a Teleology

• Progress on social development indicators (higher
  educational levels and literacy rates, higher
  life expectancy, declining infant mortality)
• Higher standard of living (more consumption of
  goods and services)
• Increasing dependence on technology and industry
• Urbanization (what we will focus on here)

3
A teleological view of urbanization

• Initially, most people in the world did not live
  in cities, but sustained themselves through
  agriculture, pastoralism, or hunting-and-gathering
  
• 20th century experienced rapid rates of
  urbanization around the world (13 of worlds pop
  was urbanized in 1900, 49 in 2005)

4
Why did people move to cities?

• Hard to make much money through farming or
  pastoralism risky to drought, epidemics, or
  insect depradation
• People move to the city for new jobs in industry
  (mines in the case of Zambia), service (the
  informal economy, which we will discuss further
  in a future class ), or government work some
  pay better or are more stable than others

5
Rates of Urbanization, 2006
6
Lusaka, Zambia

• 1.3 million people
• (1.5 million people live within Philadelphias
  borders)

• 40 of Zambians live in urban areas

7
A Linear Development of Rural-Urban Migration
(which Ferguson argues is inaccurate)
8
This teleology raises questions about the
hierarchy of human beings.

• In colonialism, what is the place of Africans?
  Control of Africans urban residence (Ferguson,
  p. 46-47)
• Do Africans deserve to have the same rights as
  Europeans in Zambia?
• If to be more urbanized is to be more developed,
  does that mean that to become Westernized is to
  be better (more developed) as a human being and
  deserve more rights?

9
Stage 1 Migrant Laborers, Before the Depression
of the 1930s

• Men migrated alone, leaving behind their families
  in the rural areas
• They migrated for short periods of time (a few
  years) and then returned to rural areas (cyclical
  migration)
• But, says Ferguson
• Evidence that some had wives/girlfriends
• While mineworkers didnt stay in one job for long
  (mainly because the pay and conditions were
  poor), they found work elsewhere in urban
  environments, rather than going back to the
  villages

• Zambian mineworkers

10
Stage 2 Temporary Urbanization, from the
Depression to the End of World War II

• Mitchell, p. 44
• Period of urban residence with a family
• But, says Ferguson, p. 65
• Independent migration to town by unattached women
• Married urban residence punctuated by visits home
  followed by rural retirement
• Short-term cyclical migration

• Some Zambian women

11
Stage 3 Permanent Urbanization, After World War
II

• Loss of ties to rural homelands
• Children and families residing in urban areas
  permanently
• But, says Ferguson
• people retiring to and are connected with rural
  areas, p. 77
• Urban environment still more male than female
  (156 men for 100 women) and made up mainly of
  working age population

• Man, children, and Vespa in Zambia

12
Ferguson argues for a bushy rather than linear
model of development

• Not one straight path, but many things occurring
  (multitudinous coexisting variation), Goulds
  theory, p. 42
• What may be most typical for a period may not
  continue to get stronger
• Copperbelt migrants use a wide range of
  strategies to survive and get by
• Permanent urban residence may not be so permanent
  with the current downturn

• Carpenters house in Lusaka