As an intuitive start to this Frontier, the "other" that I explore is the phenomenon of Foreign owned spaza shops (Informal Micro Convenience stores) found in South-African townships and Residential neighborhoods...
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| "White House Spaza" shop, up the road from home. |
What is a "Spaza"?
A Spaza shop is an informal micro-retail store, usually found in South African townships (1). This informal economy arose in townships during the apartheid era with small entrepreneurs selling every day groceries form their homes. The spatial layout of townships did not include immediate retail facilities, and the Spaza became a valuable economic solution to most township
An interest of mine in exploring Migrant Owned spaza's in particular is due to the fact that though the spaza is historically a South African occurrence (2), the prevalence of foreign owned spaza's in some neighborhoods seems to advance that of locally owned spaza's. I am curious as to why.
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| Comparing the ratio of Migrant to Locally owned Spaza shops. (Dawn Park, Boksburg) |
The following statemt from the suggested readings was an interesting provocation in terms of one's "everyday" and aparently normal interactions with this "other."
“There are a you and an I, and there is no mine and yours! For without a you and an I, there is no love, and with mine and yours there is no love but "mine" and "yours" are, of course, formed from a "you" and an "I", and, as a consequence, seem obliged to be present wherever there are a you and an I. This is, indeed, the case everywhere, but not in love, which is a revolution from the ground up. The more profound the revolution, the more completely the distinction mine and yours disappears, and the more perfect is the love.” - Kierkegaard, S.!Works of Love (1847)[36].
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| Different Spaza in same suburb (Dawn Park, Boksburg) |
I'd hope to uncover why it is that the network of foreign owned spaza's seems to me more predominant to the locally owned counterparts. What lessons can be learnt from migrant owned spaza shops around entering into "an other" (different from your own) economy (or system), and thriving in that foreign economy/system..
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