Informal social protection in post-apartheid migrant networks: Vulnerability, social networks and reciprocal exchange in the Eastern and Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

This paper considers the dynamics of informal social protection in the context of chronic poverty and vulnerability in post-apartheid migrant networks. It argues that in poor and marginalised households in South Africa, the indirect impacts of social grants cannot be adequately understood by focusing simply on either individual or household decision making. Instead, the paper concentrates on the central role of the elaborate and spatially extended network of reciprocal exchange within the informal social protection systems.