Hidden Spaces and Urban Health: Exploring the Tactics of Rural Migrants Navigating the City of Gold

Vearey, Jo

doi:10.1007/s12132-010-9079-4

Cited by 39 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Known as a “city of migrants” (Crush, 2006), Johannesburg continues to attract migrants from elsewhere in South Africa and beyond who continue to search for today’s gold: improved livelihood opportunities. However, many migrants, both South African and non-national, and asylum seekers find limited access to resources and opportunities in the city (Landau, 2006; Landau, 2007; Vearey, 2010). In his essay ‘Migrants welcome,’ Nigerian-American writer, art historian, and photographer Teju Cole, says:

Some of the refugees become migrants, once the immediate danger is past.

…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Son of the Soil … Daughters of the Land”: poetry writing as a strategy of citizen-making for lesbian, gay, and bisexual migrants and asylum seekers in Johannesburg

Dill¹,

Vearey

Oliveira

et al. 2016

Agenda

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

South Africa’s Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Freedom Charter are globally ground-breaking for providing provisions of non-discrimination, and, of particular note, on the basis of sexual orientation. Since the introduction of these protective frameworks, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) communities, allies, and advocates in the country have won major legal battles on these issues; however, in spite of these successes, LGBTIQ communities continue to face hostility and violence. As a result, South African LGBTIQ individuals often travel to urban centres, such as Johannesburg, in the hope that these spaces will be more tolerant of their sexual orientation and gender identity; the reality, however, suggests otherwise. Moreover, despite South Africa’s designation as a safe haven for LGBTIQ communities, migrants from other African countries — where same-sex relationships are criminalised — are overwhelmingly met with xenophobic verbal, emotional, physical, and political violence. This article describes the authors’ engagement with nine lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) migrants and asylum seekers from Zimbabwe, Malawi, and elsewhere in South Africa during a weeklong poetry workshop exploring their lived experiences in Johannesburg. This workshop followed a body mapping and narrative writing workshop held previously with the same participants. This article investigates the themes identified from the body mapping process that guided the poems produced: migration, violence, citizenship, and freedom. The poetry created during the workshop illuminates how lesbian, gay, and bisexual migrants in Johannesburg work on a daily basis to build social trust as they demand to be seen and recognised, to enact their rights, to make and remake homes, to show up in public as Black people, as LGB individuals, and as human beings. We explore these strategies of citizen-making as informed by the LGB poets with whom we had the opportunity to work.

show abstract

Some of the refugees become migrants, once the immediate danger is past.

…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Son of the Soil … Daughters of the Land”: poetry writing as a strategy of citizen-making for lesbian, gay, and bisexual migrants and asylum seekers in Johannesburg

Dill¹,

Vearey

Oliveira

et al. 2016

Agenda

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Before establishing MoVE, each of us had previously used arts-based approaches in our work with migrant persons in South Africa. In 2006, Jo used participatory photography and filmmaking (alongside other methods) to explore the interlinked urban challenges of migration, HIV, and informal housing in Johannesburg (Vearey, 2010). This included partnering with 20 people living in migrant worker hostels, informal settlements, and subdivided flats in the inner city, and the Market Photo Workshop 7 (MPW), a Johannesburg-based photography school with extensive experience conducting community-based projects.…”

Section: The Seduction Of Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, see:Ripero-Muñiz & Fayad, 2016;Oliveira, 2018aOliveira, , 2018bOliveira & Vearey, 2017b Oliveira & Walker, 2019;Schuler et al, 2016;Walker & Clacherty, 2014;Vearey, 2010;Vearey et al, 2011. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Seductive Nature of Participatory Research: Reflecting on More than a Decade of Work with Marginalized Migrants in South Africa

Oliveira¹,

Vearey

2020

Migrat. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we explore the seductive nature of a participatory approach to research with marginalized migrant populations in South Africa. We outline the opportunities offered by such an approach while at the same time emphasizing the need for caution by showing how the ambitions of participatory research can sometimes be (mis)applied as a panacea for all of the tensions inherent in knowledge-production processes, including those associated with the extractive nature of research. We do this by drawing on our experiences in the development, implementation, and utilization of arts-based research undertaken in collaboration with international and domestic migrants in South Africa as part of the MoVE (method.visual.explore) project based at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), Wits University. Established in 2013, MoVE explores the idea of ‘participatory’ migration research. We reflect on how we were initially seduced by the idea of participation and show how we are working to strengthen our research praxis through continuously interrogating and reconfiguring our understanding of the opportunities—and limitations—associated with a participatory approach to research.

show abstract

“…In 2008, anti‐immigrant violence spread through Johannesburg and the country and led to over 60 deaths and the displacement of 100 000 people (Landau, ). The reshaping of the city through patterns of migration, both within South Africa and from across its borders, has led to multiple lines of collaboration, affiliation and alliance, and strategies of inhabitation and evasion from state and police actors (Mbembe & Nuttall, ; Simone, ; Landau, ; Landau & Freemantle, ; Vearey, ; Hornberger, ; Wanjiku‐Kihato, ).…”

Section: Repetition and Difference In Doornfonteinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decoding dispossession: Eviction and urban regeneration in Johannesburg's dark buildings

Wilhelm-Solomon

2016

Singap J Trop Geogr

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In January 2012 the residents of an inner‐city tenement building in Doornfontein, Johannesburg, were evicted on a court order. The building was situated in a post‐industrial neighbourhood in which thousands of South Africans and foreign nationals, many blind or disabled, live in unlawfully occupied buildings without access to water, basic sanitation, electricity and waste management services. Such buildings are known in policy discourse as ‘bad buildings’, and informally as ‘dark buildings’, invoking both a sense of developmental failure and spiritual insecurity. In this paper I analyse how urban renewal policies created social divisions and alliances not only among the residents of Chambers, which were channelled along nationalist lines, but also between the able‐bodied and disabled, and produced new social alliances. In particular, I document how a group of blind Zimbabweans experienced threats of violence and accusations of betrayal, as they were offered alternate accommodation by the evicting company because of their disability. I argue here that the pressures of private‐sector housing developments intersected with the insecurities and divisions of inner‐city social spaces and also fostered new alliances. Following the work of Deleuze and Guattari, I invoke the concept of ‘decoding dispossession’, proposing that ongoing evictions and dispossessions are characterized by simultaneous movements of ‘decoding and deterritorialization’ and ‘overcoding‐reterritorialization’.

show abstract

Hidden Spaces and Urban Health: Exploring the Tactics of Rural Migrants Navigating the City of Gold

Cited by 39 publications

References 13 publications

“Son of the Soil … Daughters of the Land”: poetry writing as a strategy of citizen-making for lesbian, gay, and bisexual migrants and asylum seekers in Johannesburg

“Son of the Soil … Daughters of the Land”: poetry writing as a strategy of citizen-making for lesbian, gay, and bisexual migrants and asylum seekers in Johannesburg

The Seductive Nature of Participatory Research: Reflecting on More than a Decade of Work with Marginalized Migrants in South Africa

Decoding dispossession: Eviction and urban regeneration in Johannesburg's dark buildings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About