I’m Not a Fruit which Fell from a Tree: Migrants’ Discourses of Resistance in the Context of Dehumanization and Economic Exploitation in Southern Africa

Abstract

This discussion highlights how some African foreign migrants living in South Africa articulate resistance to exploitative and corrupt tendencies in what emerges as life affirming and death denying developmental discourses. This article triangulated data collected from a Module PRT112 – an Introduction to Missiology – with data which emerged from a study designed to interrogate the lived experiences of foreign migrants in Johannesburg South Africa. Framed within the postcolonial paradigm, the contribution is premised on the idea that the discourses of African migrants are a viable hermeneutical optic for a theological and developmental agenda which legitimises marginal voices of the poor. At the heart of this critical discussion is a statement; ‘I am not a fruit which fell from a tree,’ which emerged as a response to ward off and rebuke corrupt public officials who often demand bribes from foreign migrants as a way to keep them intimidated and confined to liminal working conditions in the informal South African economic sector. By interrogating the radical response ‘I am not a fruit’ alongside data which reflect hostility towards migrants, the study highlights religious resistance to economic exploitation and life denying practices. These articulations are located within the postcolonial resistance discourses which counter neoliberal and dehumanizing tendencies and the study concludes by drawing on Bosnian and Rwandan examples to caution against dehumanization of migrants as it sets parameters for catastrophic genocide and other forms of violence perpetrated in the past.