African Immigrants In South Africa Research Articles

Undocumented Migration, Xenophobia and The Struggle for Employment in South Africa

This paper highlights the issues associated with undocumented immigration and xenophobic attacks directed at African immigrantsin South Africa. The paper employs the scapegoat theory to interrogate the phenomenon under study. This paper solely relies onsecondary data. It employs a narrative literature review as a research methodological approach. The paper argues that xenophobic attacks on African immigrants are a consequence of a combination of policy failures in South Africa, and African immigrants, due totheir situation (of being undocumented), become easy scapegoats for such policy failures in the country. The paper concludes that the government needs to foster a collaborative approach to address the problem of xenophobia in South Africa. Even though issues such as poverty, inequality, and unemployment contribute to the xenophobic sentiments directed at undocumented migrants, cooperation between various stakeholders will go a long way in reducing tensions between locals and migrants. At the center of this has to be economic growth. However, growth alone will not suffice. There is a need for a concentrated advocacy campaign to help better build communication avenues between locals and foreign nationals; this is key to building a cohesive social environment.

Theorizing Afrophobia Beyond Apartheid: Conflict Cultures in Neill Blomkamp's District 9

ABSTRACT The persistent Afrophobic attacks on black African immigrants in South Africa since the 1990s alert us to a new cultural watershed. Just when the country had done away with apartheid, the black-on-black attacks reified the emergence of a new cultural crisis. This article reflects on the emergent cultural identities enabled by practices of black-black violence. It takes conflict cultures as a frame to discuss Afrophobia in the context of new identity consciousness. This is achieved through a critique of Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009), a film where racial antipathies are supplanted with a nebulous culture of aversion. Theorising this scenario as a euphemism for struggles with post-apartheid cultural reorganisation, the article suggests conflict culture as a theory that can account for incomplete identity transformation among all races of the South African nation.

Analysis of Immigrant Employment in South Africa

The aim of this report is to analyze the employment status of African immigrants in South Africa. It will look at the reasons behind a workers’ decision to emigrate, local reactions to migrant workers in South Africa, and the benefits and conflicts that result from these movements.

Problematizing Minor Transnational Identities And Patterns Of Othering In Meg Vandermerwe’s Zebra Crossing

Abstract In her debut novel, Zebra Crossing, Meg Vandermerwe privileges the voice of Chipo Nyamubaya, an albino girl from Zimbabwe, to capture the gripping and tragic experiences of African immigrants in South Africa. This article problematizes the notion of minor transnational identities by interrogating the relationships between South Africans and those they refer to as outsiders, and the relationship between the African immigrants themselves vis-à-vis culturally held beliefs about albinos and LGBTs. In the process, we demonstrate the patterns of the idea of Otherness brought about by racism, xenophobia, homophobic prejudice and insensitive discrimination. The article reveals how Othering debunks the ideology of African connectedness by bringing out the apparent contradictions in the values of Ubuntu.

Strategic language crossing as self-styling: the case of black African immigrants in South Africa

ABSTRACTThis study focuses on the ways in which black African immigrants (BAIs) in Johannesburg claim ethnic identities through strategic practices involving multiple affordances that go beyond language competence. Drawing on a qualitative study consisting of data from interviews with BAIs, this article argues that BAIs claim specific ethnic identities through self-styling, for instance, wearing clothes they perceive to be ‘ethnic’ style markers and in some cases bleaching their skin as part of their in-group identity work. Extending the idea of language crossing, the article contends that although these practices resemble elements of crossing, BAIs are not necessarily taking on out-group ethnic identity markers as would be the case in language crossing; instead, these practices are for in-group self-identification and extend beyond tokens to other affordances. These self-styling practices do not necessarily represent solidarity or identification with a particular group per se, but rather, are indicative of a strategic choice necessitated by the state of precarity which BAIs face in South Africa. The conclusion drawn from these practices is that self-styling disarticulates the close relationship between language and ethnicity, allowing BAIs to claim an ethnic identity even in instances where they have limited or no proficiency in the relevant language.

‘Please GO HOME and BUILD Africa’: Criminalising Immigrants in South Africa

In April 2015, a Whatsapp text message instructed millions of African immigrants in South Africa to go home. The message drew on xenophobia and afrophobia to criminalise African immigrants in South Africa. Broadly, immigrants are seen as breaking the law by illegally crossing a sovereign border and becoming illegal foreigners. Having entered the country without authorisation (‘papers’), these foreigners become perceived as drug dealers, traffickers of children, squatters, facilitators/exploiters of an informal economy, and thieves stealing opportunities from South Africans. This article identifies three principle techniques of criminalising immigrants: 1) immigrants being compelled to purchase immigrant documents through illicit means to stay legally in South Africa; 2) the South African Police Service conducting raids such as Operation Fiela and arresting foreigners; 3) the South African Police Service, along with the Department of Home Affairs officials, illegally detaining immigrants. Together, these techniques contribute to the criminalisation of African foreign nationals. These techniques are increasingly characteristic of governance in the global south and explain how a Whatsapp message can reverberate throughout South Africa.

Governance, ‘sovereignty-state-territory triad’, human population migration and xenophobia in (South) Africa

This article seeks to examine the association of the concept of governance of international relations and, by implication, human population migration, through the rigid practices of “sovereignty-state-territory triad” with the fomentation and exacerbation of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia in Africa, in general, and South Africa, in particular. Ascriptions of the majority of population migration as “international” affirms the centrality of the operationalisation of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” in understanding the fragmentary constructions of societal attitudes and perceptions of people resident in distinct geopolitical entities ascribed as national territories. State and non-state governance entrapments with this triad perpetuate societal stereotypes that are in concurrence with bordered-territories where populations described as citizens are stimulated to protect endowments and resources of the land against the perceived destruction associated with the conduct of the out-groups. Unsurprisingly, the theorisation of human population migration has equally been intricately involved with environmental conservation and securitisation of biodiversity that enables land dispossession of the vulnerable sections of the population through the Western economic narratives of “Peace Parks”. Simultaneously in Southern Africa, the concept of African Renaissance, inescapably embedded with “cooperation and conflict” at all scales, has offered a buzzword to be realised through “Peace Parks” that have evidently failed to deliver reaffirmation of African cultures, continental emancipation and democratisation. The preeminence of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia and violent abuses of African immigrants in South Africa provides vivid illustrations of the inconsistencies and non-linearity of concepts such as African Renaissance and “Peace Parks”. This article asserts that measures for repairing the landscapes of xenophobia among Africans, especially in South Africa, will remain pipedreams if they are not embedded with adaptive governance designed to undermine the rigidities of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, prevalent in the international relations.

Radnik imigrant i zakonska zaštita. Diskusija o iskustvu Južne Afrike

Within the context of this paper, a migrant is defi ned as an asylum seeker, a refugee, a legal and or an illegal immigrant. Labour migration in South Africa has received little attention due to concerns with immigration, which a re regarded as far more immediate and pressing. This consideration and others provide the impetus for this paper, which in the opinion of the authors adds to the growing concern over the issues of xenophobia and incidences of maltreatment of African immigrants in South Africa, especially against the background of the bold posture of South Africa’s co nstitution as the most promising constitution in the world. One must note that South Africa’s independence in 1994 and the prospects of a booming economy in a democratic sett ing unleashed a floodgate for immigration into the Republic from a variety of cou ntries in Africa including Eastern Europe. This paper finds that despite narratives th at tend to argue that migrant workers are deficiently protected in South Africa, evidence sug gests that their rights within and outside of the workplace are indeed under the veil of prote ction by the legislation and the courts. Nonetheless, we are of the opinion that more interv entions need to be in place, especially

Exploring Dimensions of Post-apartheid Xenophobic Sentiments towards African Immigrants in South Africa

The concept ‘xenophobia’ originates from the Greek word ‘xenos’ which means a ‘stranger’ or a ‘foreigner’ and ‘phobo’ meaning phobia which is an irrational fear of persons or groups that are regarded as ‘outsiders’. Episodes of xenophobia have occurred everywhere and anywhere in the world. Throughout human history, there have been variations in the expression of xenophobia – ranging from the Jewish holocaust, ethnic cleansing and genocide, on the one hand, to periodic and wanton outbursts of xenophobic violence on the other. The phenomenon of xenophobia is dreadful, especially when voices fostering national, regional and global peace are becoming louder every day. The task of cultivating and promoting peaceful co-existence, stability and development among the people of the world is a global imperative that should receive urgent attention. This article, through a literature review methodology, discusses the underpinnings of xenophobia in South Africa. The article has identified the following factors that underpin the phenomenon of xenophobia: historical dimensions; culture of crime and violence; economic deprivation and inequalities and disillusionment with unfulfilled socio-economic benefits. The article recommends the following strategies to address xenophobia: massive community education; addressing crime and violence; strengthening the legal and institutional frames and mitigating the state of poverty.

Contested alien spaces and the search for national identity: a study of ethnicity in light of xenophobic violence on migrants in South Africa

Despite great strides made in transforming the State from authoritarian rule to multi-party democracy since 1994, the government of South Africa is facing the challenge of high influx of migrants especially from African countries north of the Limpopo River. The project of building a Rainbow Nation has been mainly centred on racial transformation but the high influx of migrants especially from African countries resulted in the reproduction of new forms of hatred and resentment. The new African migrants increased the competition of accessing national resources in a country with high inequalities yet with plenty of resources. It may be suggested that the increase in xenophobic violence since the early 2000s might be posited in a broader context. This study insisted on the argument that the xenophobic violence against African immigrants in South Africa is also embodied in the new ethnic constructions of nationalism in Africa in the era of globalisation where human mobility has become an important element in defining the African political landscape and access to resources. Historically, tensions and conflicts among ethnic groups in colonial and post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa, in general, also manifested the competitions resulted from the desire to control national resources and safeguarding social order. Xenophobic violence reflects discriminatory tendencies which are not only driven by the desire to legitimise entitlements to national resources but also of perceiving African non-nationals as a threat to social order and ethnic identity.

Satisfying the indigenous food needs of sub-Saharan African immigrants in South Africa: A food consumption behaviour model for South Africa’s leading supermarket chains

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technology in Marketing Management in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

African immigrants in South Africa: Job takers or job creators?

During the last decade African immigrants have been met with and exposed to severe forms of hostility towards their presence in this country. A significant number of these migrants have successfully applied their entrepreneurial flair in establishing small enterprises and employing workers, often to the envy of their local counterparts. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study conducted in 2007 on job creation by African immigrant entrepreneurs for South Africans with face-to-face interviews with 120 African immigrant entrepreneurs. These findings were triangulated 7 non-governmental organisations that interact with immigrants in Cape Town. A review of the literature on migration, entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurs formed the basis for the study The findings indicate that more than 80% of African immigrant entrepreneurs interviewed employ South Africans in their businesses. Despite a generally negative national perception towards immigrants, this study has also revealed that entrepreneurial skills are transferred from immigrant entrepreneurs to their South African employees. Whilst the study was only conducted in the suburban areas of Cape Town, the researcher believes that the results represent the general trend for South Africa. Furthermore, the study only involved those migrants who come from African continent. The overall result is the acknowledgement of the contribution that non-citizens are making to the country’s growth and development. The findings suggest recommendations geared towards policy changes regarding South African immigration law, an inclusive research about the role of immigrants on job creation in South Africa, as well as the consideration of immigrant entrepreneurs when allocating financial support.

Locating Xenophobia: Debate, Discourse, and Everyday Experience in Cape Town, South Africa

In May 2008, South Africa experienced an outbreak of violence against foreign Africans living in the country. Political leaders expressed shock and surprise, but there has in reality been long-standing and well-documented hostility toward African immigrants in South Africa. Several competing explanations have been put forward, with debate gaining urgency and polarization since the xenophobic attacks of 2008. After a selective review of the relevant literature to sketch the contours of that debate, this paper presents findings from research conducted with African immigrants living in Cape Town. Their experiences provide further evidence that anti-immigrant attitudes and behaviors on the part of “ordinary South Africans” toward foreign Africans are entrenched and systemic. The paper concludes by calling for further academic engagement and greater political commitment.

World Cup 2010: Africa’s turn or the turn on Africa?

The awarding of World Cup 2010 to South Africa was hailed as a great ‘victory’ for the African continent and the cause of much celebration. It heightened expectations not only about the spectacle itself but about the benefits that would accrue to South Africa and the rest of Africa. This essay examines the notion of the successful bid as an ‘African victory’ in the context of global power relations in football, South Africa’s alleged function as a sub‐imperialist power on the continent, and xenophobic attacks on African immigrants in South Africa. After tracing the politics around South Africa’s involvement in FIFA, this essay critically interrogates the benefits touted for South Africa and Africa: development for the SADC region, economic opportunities for ordinary South Africans, increased tourism in South Africa, and football development and peace and nation‐building across the continent. Will the World Cup, as Thabo Mbeki would like, be the moment ‘when Africa stood tall and resolutely turned the tide on centuries of poverty and conflict?’

Xenophobic Attacks: Towards an Understanding of Violence against African Immigrants in South Africa

This article considers the causes of xenophobia in South Africa. It mentions three prevailing perspectives but argues that the causes are not simplistic and that simplistic solutions should not be sought. It suggests that a broader perspective needs to be considered that includes addressing national identity and grounding it in what citizens of a country may expect from the state and what the state expects in return. It argues that public violence and how it manifests, has more to do with lingering issues of nationbuilding, in particular issues around the meaning of citizenship and identity in the current socio-economy of South Africa. Africa Insight Vol. 38 (2) 2008: pp. 26-35

Forgiving and forgetting: a post-holocaust dialogue on the possibility of healing.

At the end of this century there are so many occasions, so many residues of the most violent of times, that challenge the very idea of forgiveness—residues personal, political, social, and cultural. The harms are vast and yet close to home: alcoholism takes its toll on relationships, divorce undermines love, parental harshness and abuse create generations of problems for offspring, addictions of every sort turn humans into caged spirits. Additional and even greater challenges include infidelity, breaking public promises, political power plays, torture, genocidal slaughtering of races and tribes, civil and cultural wars, ancient enmities—Northern Ireland, Bosnia, the Tutsis and Hutus, the Shiite and Suni Moslems, the settlers and African immigrants in South Africa, indigenous populations against the dominant culture. The open violence and rapaciousness of human enmity can be viewed now in the displacement of masses of people in Kosovo. Said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, about the Kosovo crisis: “It is frightening … that this century, as in its darkest hours, should end with the mass deportation of innocent people.”