Refugee Precarity and Collective Transformation: Ongoing Struggles for a Liberatory Praxis in Urban South Africa

Abstract

South Africa is a significant destination for forced migrants fleeing conflict and seeking better futures. Although South Africa is a signatory on international refugee conventions and protocols, in practice, asylum seekers face bureaucratic delays, uncertainty, and obstacles in obtaining refugee status or residency permits, which creates challenges in accessing employment, accommodation, and other forms of social inclusion. In response, many forced migrants network with kin and neighbours, self‐organise, and connect to various migrant associations, faith‐based groups, and supportive social spaces. Within these spaces of migrant solidarity, this article focuses on the transformative potential of refugee‐led collective organisation, political action, alliance building, refugee research, and everyday forms of welcome within forced migrant communities. Through a review of literature alongside examples from our research in Cape Town, the article explores some of the opportunities and obstacles to building solidarity in refugee collective worlds. We refer to this potential for a liberatory praxis as an ongoing struggle. On the one hand, forced migrant precarity, mistrust, and trauma create obstacles to their participation in community organising or engaged academic research. However, while forced migrants experience waiting and exclusion, they also create possibilities of hope through what Gramsci (1971) referred to as “renovating and making critical already existing activities” of their lived experiences. Overall, the article concludes with reflections on how theorising and building deeper alliances with academic and community spaces may generate a more liberatory praxis <em>with</em> and <em>for</em> forced migrants in urban South Africa.