“Nimble Sociality and Belonging”: An Ethnography of Migrants’ Responses to Bans on Associational Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Within the past few years, pandemics like HIV/AIDS, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 have become common worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out recently, profoundly impacted the world. As part of containing this pandemic, lockdowns which put a moratorium on human mobility and associational life became a dominant measure. Yet these mobilities and associational life are the lifeblood of migrants and diaspora belonging. This paper examines the impacts of bans on associational life on migrants and, further, what migrants did to continue living in the absence of these associations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is based on a case study of Lydiate informal settlement in Zimbabwe, where Malawian migrants have established an ethnic enclave to shield themselves from the precarity and injustices of foreign lands. Through convivial and digital ethnographic fieldwork, the paper revealed that, bans on associational life disrupted community engagements and binding religious associational life, increased targeted violence and ‘othering’, and perpetuated stigma and discrimination and loss of ties with family and fictive kin. However, migrants restructured their associational life by adopting agile and new forms of belonging to get by, including relocating religious shrines to more secretive places or conducting religious ceremonies in the dark, drinking beer within the perimeter of the settlement, use of WhatsApp and instant messaging and WhatsApp groups for important community updates, and collective resistance. I termed these strategies ‘nimble forms of sociality and belonging’, meaning there are lithe mechanisms that migrants, employ to further their sociality even when they are restricted. A distinctive feature of ‘nimble sociality and belonging’ from traditional migrant coping strategies (problem focused, emotion focused, avoidance focused) is its convivial and collective nature in fostering resilience and solidarity to navigate challenges within the community.