Lived experiences and local spaces: Bangladeshi migrants in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Migration literature tends to speak of temporary migration as economic migration and therefore the experience of migration is centred on the economy. In South Africa, this economic experience includes violence and crime especially after the 2008 xenophobic attacks. Yet migrants have established and forged relations in South Africa that transcend pure economic relationships. In this paper, I argue that the lived experience of Bangladeshi migrants produce a far more complex picture of migration. While the economy may have been the primary reason these men migrated, they are neither poor nor destitute. Further, this paper looks at how the spaces of the home, work and the social are negotiated in the daily lived experience of Bangladeshi migrants in South Africa. It looks at spaces like Fordsburg Johannesburg where the men socialise and find a sense of community among their countrymen, as well how marriage and social mobility.