Acknowledgements
Working on transnational research of this nature has enabled me to incur a number of intellectual, professional, and personal debts. The research process forced me to think about my identity and belonging in the academic fraternity. It is for these reasons that I find it important to highlight my life and intellectual biographies that have shaped my thought processes and the people who have showed me great support on this journey. I was born in Blantyre, Malawi, to James and Elizabeth Phiri (née Shaba) in November 1983. In 1998, my father, James Phiri took up an advisory role in an international development organisation, focusing on rebuilding post-conflict Mozambique (1998–2012). I was only 15 years old. The 14 years that we spent as a family in this diverse and amazing country, through my parents, James and Elizabeth, endeavours’ were life-transforming. I continued to be exposed to a world of books, conversations with international development experts, missionaries and professors, ideas, and diverse people who embodied transnational experiences. It is for these reasons that this book is dedicated to James and Elizabeth Phiri. They are the co-authors of all my intellectual pursuits.
Upon completion of high school in Maputo, at the Trichardt School for Christian Education in 2001, I was accepted to enrol for my undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa in 2002. I completed my undergraduate degree, majoring in Political Science and Sociology, in 2005; and my post-graduate degrees Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) in International Relations in 2007 and an MPhil in Development Studies in 2010 all at UCT. My MPhil challenged neo-liberal hagiographies that post-conflict Mozambique’s political settlement had been a development miracle. This work was my elementary introduction to the world of academia and new ideas, which was subsequently published in the South African Journal of International Affairs and the African Journal of Conflict Resolution.
While at UCT, I also took an interest in understanding South Africa’s complex democratic settlement, especially from the perspectives of the country having been a settler colony. These interests were further developed when I joined the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) at the Cape Town office, as a junior researcher, and worked there (2011–2012). All these experiences have given me a rich repository of contacts, experiences and networks that have proven beneficial to the success of this research. I always like to say that I was born a Malawian, culturally influenced by Mozambique; and now domiciled in South Africa and thereby influenced by the country’s rich intellectual heritage.
The elementary ideas of this research were birthed when I attended the Brown University’s 2011 Summer School on Development and Inequality, in Providence, Rhode Island, in the United States. I was approached by Lorena Moscovich, an Argentine academic, who requested me to form part of a research project entitled ‘Federalism and Inequality in the Global South’, with a specific comparative emphasis on South Africa and Brazil. Through this network, I met Gabriel Cepaluni, a Brazilian academic who provided insights on Brazil’s social and political developments. I am truly thankful to have known these individuals in the elementary stage of this research. They have both made important contributions in the studying of inequality in the respective societies of the Global South.
This research was also made possible by the generous funding of several institutions at various stages of my journey. At the University of South Africa where this book began life, I was glad to have met Jimi Adésínà, who is Professor and Chair of the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) in Social Policy, in Tshwane, South Africa. I am thankful for the intellectual and financial support (2014–2020) that I received through the NRF/DSI doctoral funded scholarship. Adésínà opened up the possibility of pursuing doctoral studies in the early stages of my professional development. Through our interactions, he created the conditions in which I could pursue this research.
While at the SARChI Chair, I met friends and colleagues who challenged me to think more about my topic, among them Kafui Tsekpo (who proposed that I submit a book proposal to this Brill series). A special mention to Bongani Nyoka, who encouraged me to seriously consider the writings of black radical South African and diaspora thinkers, such as Archie Mafeje, Bernard Magubane, Cedric Robinson, and Angela Davis.
The ideas and arguments in this book benefited from the constructive comments I received when they were presented at the Rhodes’s University’s Department of Political and International Studies Weekly seminar series hosted by Bongani Nyoka. I am intellectually indebted to him. Further to this, I should like to thank Ntombi Wonci, whose perspectives on researching urban poverty in South Africa have been invaluable. She has continued to provide me with readings that further deepened my research practices, thereby sharpening my theoretical and empirical lenses to understand complexities and multi-layered realities of contemporary and historical South African urban inequalities.
This research was also made possible by the generous support of the Social Science Research Council in New York, USA, funded through the Carnegie Corporation, the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa program. I was a three-time recipient (2014–2017) of this funding, initially as a proposal development fellow, then a dissertation research fellow, and, finally, a writing completion fellow. I was able to travel across South Africa and Brazil through the dissertation research grant. Through this network, I was glad to have found inspiring teachers and dedicated mentors who pushed my thinking, gave me the space to find my questions, and offered unwavering support once I landed on this topic. This is a strong reminder that the African continent is alive with possibilities.
After completion of my doctoral tenure, I took up my first post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study (JIAS). I extend my gratitude to the JIAS for assisting me with research funds that covered the initial language edits of the manuscript. While at the UJ, I was a recipient of the BRICS Teaching and Research Mobility Grant, which was made possible through the generous support of the National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), Johannesburg, South Africa. This funding enabled me to revisit my research sites in the South African provinces of Gauteng and the Western Cape (2022), as well as the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (2023).
Towards the end of my post-doctoral fellowship at the UJ, I was thrilled to have been appointed as a Leventis Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre of African Studies (CAS) and Visiting College Research Associate at the Wolfson College, University of Cambridge (2023/24). I am grateful to members of the academic and administrative staff at CAS in Cambridge who made my stay pleasant. Victoria Jones eased my integration into the centre and the university’s ecology. Devon Curtis afforded me the opportunity to teach a class in the MPhil in African Studies programme, where ideas of this book were engaged with student interlocutors. Bronwen Everill facilitated the CAS Lent Seminar series in 2024, where again, the ideas discussed in this book were engaged. Adam Branch read through some of the chapters of the draft manuscript.
A special mention to Siyabonga Njica. I am grateful to have met such a warm, multi-facetted scholar. He is a staff member at CAS, Cambridge, and formerly a Fellow at Sidney Sussex College and currently, a Fellow at the Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. My stay was enriched through his inquisitive mind, vast networks, friendship and generosity. I am also grateful to have met Jenifer Skinner, Senior Librarian at the CAS. She was patient in acquainting me with the Cambridge University’s library ecosystem. Her generosity of time is commendable, as she facilitated tours that exposed me to complicated histories of the Cambridge University’s legacies of enslavement and empire, as well as the cultural life of the university, broadly defined.
During the tenure of my fellowship at the CAS, I was jointly appointed as a Visiting College Research Associate at the Wolfson College, Cambridge. A special thanks to the Wolfson College’s Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Heritage (REACH) Research Hub and Wolfson Humanities Society, for giving me the platform to engage these ideas at a college seminar. At Wolfson College, I resided at the Fuchs House. There, I was fortunate to meet fellow academic sojourners, Catherine Namono and Shibu Motimele and reconnected with Grace Idahosa (Assistant Professor in Faculty of Education and Fellow at Gonville and Caius College). They all brightened the dark British winter nights with a taste of wine, African cuisine and laughter.
I would also like to thank Lawrence Hamilton, who is Professor and Chair holder in the South Africa United Kingdom Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, University of the Witwatersrand and Cambridge University. He appointed me for my second post-doctoral fellowship tenure in the Chair, which coincided with my Leventis Visiting Fellowship position at the CAS, Cambridge. I am grateful for this space, which allowed me to write and engage with the South African academia and Wits University more broadly.
Second, throughout my research and instrument design phases in South Africa, several people assisted me with ensuring that translations of English to isiZulu to XiTsonga documents were accurate. For English/isiZulu translation, Nombali Nxumalo, a teacher by profession at a no-fee paying school in Tembisa, a South African township, provided insightful comments. For the English/XiTsonga translation, Katekani Hlabathi made sure that the translations corresponded to everyday life in rural Limpopo. When I embarked on my first fieldwork stint in Soweto, Dineo Rabaholo introduced me to individuals and communities that I interviewed to gain more insights on urban poverty in Soweto. I am so thankful that she was committed to even using her own resources for us to get to interview destinations. In rural Limpopo, my friend and former colleague at the HSRC, Hlamulo Makelane, introduced me to Tlangi, who opened doors for me to interview beneficiaries of social grants in the villages of Ntshuxi and Bungeni. I am so thankful for the great hospitality that was extended to me in Ntshuxi village, and a well-informed research assistant. During my second research stint, I am grateful to have met Andiswa Tshali from the JIAS at UJ, who introduced me to research interlocutors in the urban periphery of Motswaledi, Soweto. She translated the interviews from isiXhosa to English.
My first research stint in Brazil was between October and December 2015, which coincided with some of my family members’ residency there. In November 2013, my father had taken up an advisory position in an international development organisation, in the north-eastern city of Recife, Pernambuco in Brazil. This was not a coincidence, but rather the weaving together of vocation and God’s timing. I am so thankful that my parents paved a way for me, even before this research was crystallised, making my research stint more pleasant. My father, James, introduced me to Theo, a resident of Recife. It was through this contact that I was able to interview beneficiaries of the Bolsa Familia in a favela, Casa Forte, Recife. Again, in my second stint of my research, he introduced me to Sueli Catarina, who offered me her generous time and took me to interview beneficiaries of the Bolsa Familia in a favela called, Avora Seca, Rio de Janeiro.
During my first stint in Brazil both my parents provided me with a cultural and historical tour of Brazil, which birthed new questions on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. I am so thankful for my mother’s great hospitality and cooking. She made sure that I understood Brazilian social dynamics by introducing me to Brazilian cuisine and the complex social relations through various business and church networks. This gave me a better perspective on my research. My young sister, Teresa Phiri, had also taken up a position with a health consortium in São Paulo, Brazil upon completion of her Master’s degree in Public Policy at the University of Oxford. Her mastery of Brazilian Portuguese is impeccable. She made sure that she listened to all the interviews that I had conducted with beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia across all research cities in Brazil. She has been a great encouragement on this journey. Some of the chapters of this manuscript were written in her apartment in London during my visiting fellowship in Cambridge. My younger brother, James Phiri Jnr, also stayed in Brazil with my parents during my first research stint. He helped me to understand Brazil’s cultural nuances. Siphiwe, and her husband, Eric Frimpong, were a great source of support when I moved to Cambridge University for my visiting fellowship. Linda Phiri, my youngest sister, fellow sojourner in the academic vocation, has provided a great source of encouragement through wise counsel, resources, and prayer as we both navigate a hierarchical racialised gendered global academia.
I am grateful to have grown up with my siblings, a lineage of grace, who transcend narrow ethno-nationalisms, embrace linguistic pluralism, and are transcultural in outlook and perspective. Through God’s grace and providence, they have been strategically scattered and positioned to truly embark on a worldmaking project as advocates of justice for those racialised as black, in policy and academia—leaders and fierce critics of the lingering legacies of empire, slavery and colonial modernity.
When I first moved to the south-eastern part of Brazil, São Paulo, I was hosted at University of São Paulo’s Centre for Metropolitan Studies (CEM). I am grateful for Renata Bichir, who offered me office space to be based at the centre. She offered invaluable insights on how best I could improve my research instrument to help me understand Brazil’s complex social relations. She also recommended policy pundits in both academia and government institutions whom I could interview. Further, Renata introduced me to Maria Clara Oliveira, who was instrumental in the transcribing and translation of policy interviews that were conducted in Portuguese. I am so grateful for the time she took to ensure that interviews were transcribed properly and timely. During my second stint the ideas and arguments in this book were engaged at the CEM’s International Seminar. I also met Eduardo Marquez, whose warmth and hospitality, and scholarly pursuits epitomise the generosity of Brazilians, saudade.
Lastly, a sincere word of gratitude to my wife, Phumeza Phiri (née Matshoba), for her patience and understanding during the many years I worked on this project. As soon as I got to Brazil for fieldwork in my first stint, we found out that she was pregnant with our first-born son, Mayamiko Licebo Phiri, who has been a joy to us since he was born. Phumeza has been a rock of our family throughout the upheavals of navigating the life of the mind in the South African academe. We were also blessed with our second child, our daughter Lithalethemba Ungweru Alunamida Phiri. Both our children deserve a special mention because in them, we see creativity and ingenuity that will carry on the work of fighting for a more just and humane world to lessen the effects of anti-black racism.
I am grateful to have a community of friends in South Africa and across the world who at various stages of my research offered spiritual, financial, intellectual and emotional support and thereby encouraged me to persevere and finish strong: Tigedi Kabi, Singumbe Muyeba, Sizwe Zondo, and Mawethu Ncaca.