Labour migration and its impact on non-capitalist social formations : a comparative study of the Tonga and Ngoni-Tumbuka in Malawi, circa 1880 to 1940
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis is a study of labour migration from Malawi, specifically an examination of the impact of immigrants on the non-capitalist social formations of the Tonga and Ngoni-Tumbuka under colonial-capitalism .until 194-0. It is an attempt to locate and analyse transformations of the major social. Relations which structured and organised the lives of the Tonga and Ngoni ... Turnbuka at the rural, ·village level during the period under review. An academic thesis of this nature has severe limits in that it cannot begin to grasp the day-to-day lived experience of those who were subjected to the. profiteering onslaught of colonial capitalism. · The separation of husbands from wives and children, this hunger and fear, the drudgery and humiliations and the brave . . ' Resistance and struggles of ordinary· people to maintain their self-dignity under conditions of increasing impoverishment do not emerge clearly from official colonial reports concerned with tax returns, law and order and economic development for Imperial expansion. Without a presentation and understanding of these experiences an analysis of this nature is necessarily incomplete. i This is not merely an ideological standpoint but one that recognises that social transformations are forged by people, day by day, reacting to conditions that confront their livelihood, their security ty and mental well-being. As such it is through these · lived experiences that historical change takes place . . The economic development of Malawi has taken place along three major lines. Under colonialism, the north of Malawi, where the Tonga and Ngoni-Tumbuka lived and still live, developed rapidly into a labour-reserve economy serving mines and farms all around the southern sub-continent. In the centre and south developed peasant cash-cropping with some labour-migration and a weak capitalist plantation economy. More recently, labour migration to neighbouring countries has been dramatically reduced and the labour redirected to peas…
abstract: This thesis is a study of labour migration from Malawi, specifically an examination of the impact of immigrants on the non-capitalist social formations of the Tonga and Ngoni-Tumbuka under colonial-capitalism .until 194-0. It is an attempt to locate and analyse transformations of the major social. Relations which structured and organised the lives of the Tonga and Ngoni ... Turnbuka at the rural, ·village level during the period under review. An academic thesis of this nature has severe limits in that it cannot begin to grasp the day-to-day lived experience of those who were subjected to the. profiteering onslaught of colonial capitalism. · The separation of husbands from wives and children, this hunger and fear, the drudgery and humiliations and the brave . . ' Resistance and struggles of ordinary· people to maintain their self-dignity under conditions of increasing impoverishment do not emerge clearly from official colonial reports concerned with tax returns, law and order and economic development for Imperial expansion. Without a presentation and understanding of these experiences an analysis of this nature is necessarily incomplete. i This is not merely an ideological standpoint but one that recognises that social transformations are forged by people, day by day, reacting to conditions that confront their livelihood, their security ty and mental well-being. As such it is through these · lived experiences that historical change takes place . . The economic development of Malawi has taken place along three major lines. Under colonialism, the north of Malawi, where the Tonga and Ngoni-Tumbuka lived and still live, developed rapidly into a labour-reserve economy serving mines and farms all around the southern sub-continent. In the centre and south developed peasant cash-cropping with some labour-migration and a weak capitalist plantation economy. More recently, labour migration to neighbouring countries has been dramatically reduced and the labour redirected to peas…
author: Reeler, Douglas Andrew
keywords: Ngoni - Social conditions
date published: 1982
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:04Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: School of Economics

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/38993