Remembering African Labor Migration to the Second World: Socialist Mobilities between Angola, Mozambique, and East Germany (Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series)

This open access book is about Mozambicans and Angolans who migrated in state-sponsored schemes to East Germany in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. They went to work and to be trained as a vanguard labor force for the intended African industrial revolutions. While they were there, they contributed their labor power to the East German economy. This book draws on more than 260 life history interviews and uncovers complex and contradictory experiences and transnational encounters. What emerges is a series of dualities that exist side by side in the memories of the former migrants: the state and the individual, work and consumption, integration and exclusion, loss and gain, and the past in the past and the past in the present and future. By uncovering these dualities, the book explores the lives of African migrants moving between the Third and Second worlds. Devoted to the memories of worker-trainees, this transnational study comes at a time when historians are uncovering the many varied, complicated, and important connections within the global socialist world. Marcia C. Schenck is professor of Global History at the University of Potsdam, Germany. Her research interests include global and African history, oral history, labor and education history, and migration history. Her peer-reviewed articles have appeared in Africa, African Economic History and Labor History, among others. She recently co-edited a volume about the varied relationship between East Germany and the African continent called Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War (De Gruyter, 2021). She is co-founder of the H-Net Refugees in African History network and the founder of the Global History Dialogues, which constitutes part of Princeton University's Global History Lab Foreword Acknowledgments Contents About the Author Abbreviations List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Prologue: Juma Madeira—From Socialist New Man to Madjerman Activist Chapter 2: Introduction Transnational Socialist Labor Migration Schemes Structure and Contributions Socialist Mobilities Between Angola, Mozambique, and East Germany Oral History and Memory Chapter 3: Between the Hammer, Machete, and Kalashnikov: Labor Migration from Angola and Mozambique to East Germany 1979–1990 Introduction Part I: Starting Points—The Labor Migration Programs Historical Continuities: African Labor Exports Angolan and Mozambican Labor and Training Migration in the Cold War From Luanda and Maputo to Berlin: Transcontinental Labor and Training Migration Part II: The Migrants’ Motives to Move Reasons to Migrate The Political Context: “The Principles of Marxism-Leninism and of Proletarian Internationalism”69 Labor Migration: “German Businesses Asked for a Mozambican Workforce, But they Got People Instead”72 Educational Migration: “I felt Selected for the Days to Come and Everything Was a Project of the Future”83 War Migration: “The Military Was an Awful Place to Be. They Scraped your Head and Collected Baskets of Fresh Blood”94 Personal Migration: “...this Was My Chance to See Europe”109 Conclusion Chapter 4: Socialist Workers and Socialist Consumers Introduction Part I: Doing Work, Making Meaning—The Working Life of Socialism Creating Socialist Workers: Language Classes, Vocational School, and the Factory Floor Disciplining the Socialist Worker Becoming New Men and Women Part II: Consumption: The Material Life of Socialism Going East to Shop Consumption and Becoming: Seeking Personhood Abroad and Staying in Contact with Home Conclusion Chapter 5: The Social Life of Socialism: Intimacy and Racism Introduction Part I: Integration—Intimate Strangers Alternative Intimate Attachments: German Families, Mozambican Families, Angolan Families Inclusion and Exclusion: Dormitories and Discos Part II: Exclusion: Intimate Strangers Gender Exclusion: Preventing Afro-German and African Families Becoming Black in East Germany Real Racism in Real Socialism100 The Fall of the Wall, the Rise of Violent Racism Conclusion Chapter 6: Return, Fall, and Rise of the Madjerman: The Afterlives of Socialist Migration Introduction Part I: Loss The End of Socialism: Returning from East Germany Homecoming: From Big Men and Women to Lost Men and Women The Loss of Transnational Ties Part II: Gain East German Legacies: “When We Came Back, We Had Another Way of Being in the World”107 A Luta Continua! Activism for Redress and Acknowledgment128 Conclusion Chapter 7: Temporality, Memory, and Meaning: Eastalgia in Angola and Mozambique Introduction Part I: Eastalgia—The Past in the Present for the Future Longing in Mozambique and Angola: Post-Socialist Nostalgia, Ostalgie, and Eastalgia The East German Past Through Mozambican and Angolan Eyes: “A World Full of Roses”16 Back to the Future: Mozambican Post-Socialist Nostalgic Critiques of the Government Eastalgic Memoryscapes in Angola and Mozambique Part II: Closing Points—The Labor Migration Programs Modernity and Temporality Looking Back and Looking Out: The Workers’ Life Course in Global Perspective Conclusion Chapter 8: Epilogue: Transnational Sojourners, Intimate Strangers, and Workers of the World The Spaces Between Second and Third Worlds Bibliography Primary Sources Consulted Archives and Libraries Angola Germany Mozambique Portugal South Africa Cited Tin Trunk Archives/Personal Archives Cited Newspapers and Online News Sources Angola Mozambique Germany International Cited Interviews Cited Field Notes Cited Online Sources Movies/Exhibitions/Plays Published Primary Sources Published Secondary Sources Books Journal Articles Theses Index