ABSTRACT
For a state such as Mozambique, with twenty ethnicities often straddling political frontiers and bordering five countries, there exists a multiplicity of informal corridors linking the interior to the exterior. One of the most vivid corridors in Mozambique, centred around Maputo, was "created" in the beginning of the 19th century when one of Shaka Zulu's generals, Shoshangane, crossed the border from South Africa during the M'fecane. The now formalised Maputo Development Corridor (MDC) indicates a novel concept: a corridor that aims to be a factor of modernist development. On the Mozambican side the MDC represents at present a daily crossing to South Africa for family shopping as well as for formal and informal trade and services. All social groups in the Mozambique complain that crossing the formal border constitutes a constant headache, because there are no fixed rules and everything is up for negotiation.
