Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network – African Studies Channel
Host: Eliza Prosperedi
Guest: Marcia C. Schenck
Book Discussed: Remembering African Labor Migration to the Second World: Socialist Mobilities between Angola, Mozambique, and East Germany (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
Air Date: October 5, 2025

Overview

This episode dives into Marcia C. Schenck’s Remembering African Labor Migration to the Second World, exploring the under-researched history of labor migration from Angola and Mozambique to East Germany during the late Cold War. Schenck, a global historian, draws on over 260 interviews and rich archival work to uncover how state-organized socialist mobility programs shaped the lives and memories of thousands of African workers. The conversation examines personal narratives, the dualities of migration experiences, and the contemporary afterlives of these transnational histories.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of the Project and Schenck’s Approach

(Timestamp: 02:22–05:14)

• Schenck narrates how a chance encounter with a former labor migrant in Maputo steered her PhD research from forced labor historiography to post-independence socialist migration.

  • “I literally ran into a former labor migrant...who introduced me to the park of the Germans...where former returned labor migrants from Mozambique to East Germany come and unite and also have still weekly demonstrations.” (B, 03:55)

• Schenck underscores her background in West Germany, her lack of education on these histories, and her commitment to life history as an approach to global history.
• She highlights using oral histories to transcend the limitations of European-centric archives.

2. Setting the Scene: Juma’s Life Story

(Timestamp: 05:40–13:14)

• The book opens with the detailed life history of Juma Madera, a Mozambican who spent years working in East Germany:
  • Born in 1963, experienced the independence and civil wars, benefited from education, recruited as a worker trainee to the GDR, lived as both a producer and participant in vibrant youth culture, returned home disillusioned after reunification and the rise of racism, and later became an activist.

  • “He gets the grade of good in all of his different certificates. But he's not excelling the production quota. And that's because he's also actually very interested in life outside of work...going to discos, enjoying his life.” (B, 08:57)

• The story sets up the dual personal/historical axes that define Schenck’s analysis: individual ambitions and global socialist politics.
• Notably, the program’s structure was designed for “return migration,” with the expectation that workers would bring newly acquired skills back to Africa.

3. Scope: Comparing Angola and Mozambique

(Timestamp: 13:14–20:35)

• The migration programs affected both countries but with different scales (approx. 20,000 Mozambicans vs 2,500 Angolans).
• Challenges in quantifying migrants due to inconsistent archival practices and contract renewals.
• Schenck does not present these as merely comparative national stories—instead, she situates them within the broader phenomenon of socialist state-sponsored migration, with a focus on structural dualities and shared life-cycle experiences.

  • “My book is...structured along the life histories of these workers...according to dualities...state organized migration, but individual decisions...exclusion and inclusion.” (B, 17:54)

• Notably, Mozambican returnees built strong associations that continue to advocate for their rights, while Angolan returnees’ stories are less publicly active.

4. Methodology & Intervention: Life Histories Against Archival Myopia

(Timestamp: 20:35–22:03)

• The life history approach intentionally addresses the bias of European archival perspectives, richly contextualizing African voices.

  • “Your approach...goes a long way towards neutralizing this tendency to just see African subjects from these limited colonial or archival vantage points.” (C, 20:35)

5. Recasting the Late Cold War: Period of Possibility

(Timestamp: 22:03–26:30)

• The episode reframes the late 1970s–80s not as stagnation in the East, but as a period of vivid alternative globalization.
  • Schenck references scholarship on “socialist globalization” and argues African and East German governments actively cultivated transnational possibilities.

  • “...this was very much a period of possibilities rather than stagnations...these movements...were possible because socialist governments actually decided to enable this mobility.” (B, 23:19)

• The experiences of African workers exemplify these alternative mobilities, unsettling dominant narratives about the era’s isolation.

6. From Producers to Consumers: Material Culture and Identity

(Timestamp: 26:30–31:11)

• While state archives cast migrants only as laborers, oral history reveals their lives as consumers—expressing youth, modernity, and aspiration through fashion, western goods, and photo rituals.

  • “...when you look at tin trunk archives and workers share photo albums...you see how they decorated their rooms...consumption was actually a major part of the experience and also a major factor in wanting to sign up.” (B, 28:26)

• Remittances often took the form of goods, not cash, creating transnational links and fueling further aspiration.

7. Memory, Loss, and Ongoing Activism: Nostalgia and Demonstration

(Timestamp: 31:11–35:43)

• Schenck discusses her term “nostalgia” to capture workers’ ambivalent, often positive, recollections amidst current economic and social marginalization.

  • “...these nostalgic memories also serve to bind them as a group together. And to maintain this activism, this activism that comes from the group in order to fuel these demonstrations all these decades after a return in the 1990s.” (B, 35:12)

• Remembering the socialist period becomes a critical commentary on post-socialist disillusionment and economic precarity, especially given unpaid wages and diminished social protections.

8. Remembering: Historiography and Multiperspectival History

(Timestamp: 35:43–40:18)

• Schenck explains her choice of “remembering” as an active, ongoing mode of history-making, bridging disparate personal and national experiences:

  • “Remembering is also like re-hyphen-membering. So in that sense, it's like bringing different parts together that otherwise would be seen as distant.” (B, 36:35)

• Across Angola, Mozambique, and Germany, these memories complicate official government narratives—raising the visibility of black presence in the GDR and post-reunification trauma, and challenging both southern African governments’ stories of the socialist past.

9. Multilingual Editions and Public Outreach

(Timestamp: 40:18–42:58)

• Schenck discusses the imperative of publishing the book in Portuguese and German, broadening the accessibility and impact beyond academia.

  • “...if I am practicing global history, to be able to have products...in different languages...facilitate different conversations outside of our university Ivory tower connections.” (B, 42:17)

• She mentions public events and presentations targeting local and diasporic communities, and anticipates new dialogues fostered by these editions.

10. Future Research: African Refugee Regimes

(Timestamp: 42:58–44:11)

• Schenck previews her upcoming book on African contributions to the global refugee regime during decolonization, focusing on the Organization of African Unity’s policies in the 1960s.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the surprise of oral histories:
  • “I was quite surprised to find a lot of positive reminiscences in this nostalgic vein...when Mozambican laborers share with me quite nostalgic memories...that is implicitly also a strong criticism of the present.” (B, 31:51)
• On dualities:
  • “A lot of these life histories actually reveal dualities...state-organized migration, but individual decisions...coming to East Germany and then working on the factory floor, but also producing the very products you're, sorry, conceiving the very products you're producing...” (B, 17:54)
• On the afterlife of migration memories:
  • “...these weekly demonstrations that hold the government accountable very much show that there's an ongoing afterlife of these migrations, that it's not something simply of the past, but that...become sort of an ongoing political voice...” (B, 38:00)
• On global history and “remembering”:
  • “Remembering is also like re-hyphen-membering…bringing different parts together that otherwise would be seen as distant.” (B, 36:35)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction, Schenck’s background: 01:37–03:19
• Project genesis and Maputo encounter: 03:44–05:14
• Juma’s Life (full story): 05:40–13:14
• Comparing Angola and Mozambique: 13:14–20:35
• Life history methodology & contributions: 20:35–22:03
• Alternative globalization in the late Cold War: 22:03–26:30
• Workers as consumers and producers: 26:30–31:11
• Nostalgia, memory, and activism: 31:11–35:43
• Meaning of “remembering”, historiography: 35:43–40:18
• Multilingual editions and public events: 40:18–42:58
• Future book on refugee regimes: 42:58–44:11
• Conclusion: 44:11–44:27

Tone and Language

• Conversational but deeply analytic; both host and guest engage thoughtfully and reflexively with theory, archival practices, and lived experience.
• Schenck is careful to situate her findings in both personal stories and larger historiographical debates, with clear, vivid examples from her interviews.

Summary for Listeners

This episode uncovers a crucial chapter in Cold War, African, and migration history: the journey of thousands of Mozambican and Angolan labor migrants to East Germany. Through personal stories, Schenck shifts the focus from top-down state policies and European archives to the human experiences of African workers navigating youth, ambition, consumption, nostalgia, and activism amid the global currents of socialism. The interview also highlights the impact of multilingual scholarship and the enduring power of collective memory to shape present-day politics.

Whether you study African history, migration, or global history more generally, this conversation is rich in methodological insight and committed to amplifying the voices too often left off-center in European archives.