Impilo

Rooted in the landscapes of Ekhayeni-embodied lives of rural-urban migrants in South Africa

Abstract

This article builds on my master’s study, which examined the attachments of Xhosa-speaking migrants to their rural home, ekhayeni. While the master’s study focused on place attachment and belonging, this paper shifts the lens to explore how ekhayeni shapes migrants’ impilo – their holistic well-being – by examining how the rural home and its surrounding landscapes anchor embodied experiences of impilo/ukuphila, which are central to living well and meaningfully. Based on interviews and participant observation with 36 migrants originating from Centane and residing in Cape Town’s informal settlements for work, the study shows that ukuphila is understood not only in terms of material gain and consumption but as a holistic state of being – one in which individuals feel a sense of belonging, connectedness to self, community, nature, and ancestors. This perspective challenges capitalist notions of well-being that equate life satisfaction only with economic success. It foregrounds the reproduction of more meaningful ways of living – ones that emphasise the immaterial forms of value, such as social ties, collective care, and spiritual and ecological connections. Although they cannot be quantified in economic terms, these forms of value remain central to sustaining the time, space, and conditions necessary for social reproduction and for fuller expressions of human life.