Local Attitudes towards Citizenship and Foreigners in Botswana: An Appraisal of Recent Press Stories

Abstract

A major characteristic of Africa's second liberation struggles since the 1980s has been a growing obsession with belonging and the questioning of conventional assumptions about nationality and citizenship almost everywhere. In Botswana, identity politics are increasingly important, alongside more exclusionary ideas of nationality and citizenship, as minority claims for greater cultural recognition and plurality are countered by majoritarian efforts to maintain the status quo of an inherited colonial hierarchy of ethnic groupings. In other words, minority clamour for recognition and representation is countered by greater and sometimes aggressive reaffirmation of age-old exclusions informed by colonial registers of inequalities amongst the subjected. This development is paralleled by increased awareness and distinction between 'locals' and 'foreigners', with an emphasis on opportunities and economic entitlements. Apart from official measures to restrict further access to citizenship by foreigners, public attitudes towards foreigners are hardening generally. The customary Tswana policy of inclusion - opening the society up to minorities and foreigners - is under pressure from the politics of entitlement to the benefits of economic growth in an era of accelerated flows of capital and migrants. This article examines local attitudes towards foreigners as represented in newspapers. It documents ongoing tensions over entitlements among majority and minority ethnic groups in Botswana as the background for understanding changing and hardening attitudes towards foreigners in general, and certain categories of foreigners in particular.