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Surviving Capitalism from the Margins: Informal Economic Networks among African Migrants in Durban, South Africa
Yvonne Kabongo and Kenny Kimanuka Nkus
Published: 2026/06/01
Abstract
Capitalist urban economies do not incorporate all residents on equal terms. In cities marked by deep inequality, exclusion from formal labour markets produces forms of work and exchange that operate alongside, and in relation to, the dominant economic system. This article examines how African migrants living in Durban, South Africa, navigate restricted access to formal employment within a highly unequal capitalist environment. Rather than treating informal economic life as existing outside capitalism, the study situates migrant livelihood practices within the broader dynamics of urban inequality, market competition, labour flexibilization, and regulatory exclusion. Drawing on qualitative data generated through in-depth interviews and life-history narratives with 40 African migrants in Durban, South Africa, the article explores migrants’ experiences of labour market marginalisation, precarious legal status, language barriers, and limited access to social protection. The findings indicate that many migrants engage in small-scale trading, service provision, and community-based financial arrangements as practical responses to structural constraints. These informal economic networks are embedded in the wider urban economy: They depend on formal supply chains, urban consumer markets, and regulatory frameworks, even as they operate at its margins. While these networks foster cooperation, resource-sharing, and social connection among migrants, they do not represent a romantic alternative to capitalist modernity. Solidarity emerges under conditions of necessity and uncertainty, and participation in the informal economy often entails economic instability, exposure to harassment, and limited legal recourse. Migrants’ agency is therefore exercised within tight structural constraints. By analysing informal economic networks as products of, rather than exceptions to, capitalist urban dynamics, the article contributes to debates on migration, informality, and inequality in African cities. It calls for closer scholarly and policy attention to how economic exclusion and migrant entrepreneurship are intertwined in contemporary urban contexts.
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