Disarming the xenophobic everyday: Muslim migrants and the horizons of urban mutuality in Durban

Abstract

This article explores the everyday lives that African migrants in Durban, South Africa share with other residents of the city. In conversation with Obvious Katsaura's work on ‘ethno-mutualism’, we use the example of ordinary greeting practices to show how Durban's urban everyday has been hijacked by xenophobic sensibilities. By demonstrating how the act of excluding migrants from these practices threatens to render the quotidian city uninhabitable for them, we shed light on the importance of mundane forms of social interaction for building a sense of identity and belonging. We then consider several ways in which African migrants develop and participate in Muslim forms of sociality that assist them in ‘disarming’ the urban everyday: from providing a platform for building solidarity with fellow migrants to mediating a ‘sense of welcome’ from the established Indian South African community. Elaborating on this, we delineate how forms of reciprocity emerge through the interactions between migrant and Indian Muslims that reproduce the ambient life of the city as a shared habitat, opening up new possibilities for entanglement. As such, our analysis contributes to emerging conversations about urban mutuality and migrant religious practices in the everyday lives of African cities.

Material Religion, Conflict, and Violence

“…Episodes of tension, conflict, or violence (in past, presence, or potential future) may inscribe themselves into geographical landscapes and cities and affect the physical organization of religious practice and communal life (Stockmans and Büscher 2017;Bou Akar 2018;Wilks, this volume). The presence of (potential) violence or conflict may also affect the ways in which different religious groups live together in plural configurations (Buckley-Zistel 2006;Larkin 2014;Kirby, Sibanda and Charway 2021), for example through the physical separation of Muslim and Christian communities in different neighborhoods (Van Klinken 2001;Ostien 2009;Bou Akar 2018). At the same time, religious infrastructures may (be forced to) adapt to the presence of tension, conflict, or violence.…”