Capitalising on privilege: home-based businesses and informal settlements as a post-apartheid phenomenon in Indian dominated residential areas in Durban, South Africa

Abstract

This paper is an ethnographic account of fieldwork that began in 1999 when African squatter camps in the Greater Durban metropolitan area accommodated people almost equal in number to the settled tax-paying Indian residents in the vicinity. While their numbers were seen as an almost destabilising factor in the region, and prompted many to label them as ‘land invaders’, others saw a window of opportunity opening up for them by virtue of their position as homeowners. The response was to provide a service along the lines of mainly grocery retailing. The closure of many licensed shops that were vulnerable to holdups and theft created space for a nascent shopkeeper class that capitalised on the opportunities that the squatters provided as a captive market. The paper demonstrates, through case studies of Indian informal traders, how the emergence of these home-based businesses, on the one hand, actually served as a catalyst for racial friction, and on the other hand, as a test case for racial integration in post-apartheid South Africa. It also intensively examines the time that the service providers put into their work, the inputs of labour from family members and the relationships they built with their African clientele. The contradictions brought about by the social tensions and the cordial relationships that emerged between Indians and Africans demonstrate the organic development of a new multi-racial environment.