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6 ‘Going to the field’: Pitching and migrants’ economic activities Introduction Chris’s story I sell pirated DVDs made by me and it is thanks to the Internet that I can do all of this. I have Internet at home on a USB, but I use it late at night when the rates are low. I often go to the cyber because it costs R3 an hour, where I download movies and their labels onto my USB key, and nobody sees what I am doing. Back at home, (as you can see, I have two computers and printers), I format the labels so that they will fit on the DVD, and save them onto the computers and I am ready for printing the movies. I print about 300 movies at night, so that by morning retailers will pass by and buy for their pitching sites. Others place orders and I print for them. During the day I take those left over to Parow to hustle a bit. I know what I am doing is illegal but I have no option because I have come here to make money. But what I am doing is nothing compared to the big companies who make all the monies, ‘we di lick na oil for back bottle’1 (we are simply gathering the crumbs). Chris has two phones with two service providers (MTN and Vodacom). While I was there, his phones rang constantly with customers calling to find out about particular movies, to place orders for movies or to see whether he was at home so they could drop round to collect movies. Chris’s business reflects those of his generation who arrived in Cape Town at the time of ICTs and their affordability. They are in contrast with the rudimentary businesses carried out by earlier immigrants , such as Jake, CJ and Joe that entailed a lot of physical mobility and can be traced back to when they were still in Cameroon. Chris’s story heralds the role of ICTs in redefining contemporary migrants’ businesses, unlike those of their parents and earlier migrants that were characterized by long-distance mobility, trade and head porters. Chris’s business is thriving because of the networks that he can muster and he is known to produce better-quality movies than others in the business. And he is willing to accept  1 Interview, Cape Town; 08/07/2012. Chapter 6: Pitching and migrants’ economic activities 137 payment on credit, with his clients selling his products and then paying him afterwards . He has been able to circumvent the law and economic regulations on pirated DVDs. For Chris, like a host of other pitchermen, their trade activities are not in themselves marginal but the activities are carried out within the margins of the law. Accordingly, pirating movies is simply a form of business to Chris and there is nothing wrong with it. But he is aware of its illegality in the face of the law. Following the way migrants view their form of business, I will leave out these dual categories on the dominant narratives of formal/informal and legal/illegal. Chris is very cautious about who he opens the door to. One has to phone from outside or use the local greetings (if it is a fellow Pinyin) of ‘he-ëh’ before the door will be opened.2 The phone serves as a security guard and migrants have become adept at evading the law. He has invested in computers, printers and empty DVDs, and makes about 2000 movies a week. The mobile phone and the computer are providing him with economic opportunities (de Bruijn et al. 2009). Drawing from the above excerpts, this chapter focuses on migrants’ economic activities, particularly pitching and other forms of income-generating activities. It will show how, with the rapid development of information technology, migrants are now able to do business differently; and have increased opportunities and improved and reduced mobility in some cases, with the mobile phone doing the mobility aspect for them. Pitching, in other words, is hawking but this is the terminology employed by those involved in it so we will adopt it in this study. It involves buying imitation designer items (sunglasses, football jerseys and belts) and cheap Chinese goods from China Town (a mall) and Somali shops, which they then resell in busy commercial areas and in neighbourhoods far from China Town. They have an extensive network thanks to ICTs, especially the mobile phone that connects them to a...

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