Class-Switching: Migrants’ Multiple Class Identities in Rural and Urban Namibia

To better understand migrants’ adjustments to varying class structures at multiple places, the linguistic concept of code-switching is translated into the novel concept of class-switching. I suggest that class positions, like language repertoires, can be switched. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Namibia, this article examines middle-class urbanites’ class-switching. Since independence, a new black middle class has emerged in Namibia, one that is still strongly connected to its rural homelands. Members of this middle class switch into rural elite structures when visiting their home villages; however, most of the time, they live urban middle-class lives. Focusing on this emerging middle class, I trace the flexibility of class identities through migrants’ switching of class and place.