Paper short abstract:

This paper describes how relations of dependency and close kinship between the members of a young migrant network in Cape Town turned burdensome and dangerous. It reflects on the conditions through which the ruthless abandonment of kinsmen became an ethically thinkable course of action.

Paper long abstract:

Life in urban South Africa presents myriad challenges for African migrants who work there. Generating livelihood depends overwhelmingly on moving and acting in concert with others - on relational infrastructures (Simone 2004); on effective, timely collaborations that take place across a fluid and hostile landscape. Such challenges are particularly acute for young male migrants detached from family units and diaspora communities, those persons of suspicion excluded from relational domains imagined to best provide dislocated, vulnerable actors with care and prospects.

This paper describes how relations of dependency and kinship among the members of one network of young migrants turned burdensome and dangerous. Threatening to abandon a brother in need - to cut individuals out of the network and run away - hung among their relations as a strategy for entrepreneurial success and survival. The ethnography follows such a threat to an ultimate conclusion.

The paper aims to reflect on the conditions in the everyday in which the ruthless abandonment of one's closest kinsmen becomes an economically and ethically thinkable course of action.