Imagining Immigration: Inclusive Identities and Exclusive Policies in Post-1994 South Africa

Migration, Xenophobia and New Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa

“…In forging a nation out of a multicultural and multi-ethnic society South Africa could not rely on common culture or ethnicity to create its "imagined community" (Peberdy, 2001). As such it focused on citizenship as the unifying force.…”

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

“…A high rate of unemployment (officially 24.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009), especially among black South Africans, exacerbates the intensity of competition for jobs in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy. A second axis of explanation is more social, or perhaps sociopolitical, proposing that construction of a new, nonracial sense of South African national identity after the end of apartheid inevitably meant the creation of a new oppositional "other," and that this "other" is essentially defined as "non-South African" (Murray 2003;Peberdy 2001, Reitzes 2002. The clearest, most present manifestation of this "other" is those foreign Africans actually living in South Africa, described by Murray (2003:460) as "the ultimate strangers-the new helots-within the social landscape of South African cities.…”

“…Increased immigration to South Africa from other African countries has brought South Africans into direct contact with foreign Africans to a far greater extent than during the apartheid era, when black immigration to South Africa was almost entirely prohibited, but for exceptions such as the temporary migration of mine labor (Crush and Dodson 2007;Peberdy 2001). Furthermore, postapartheid African immigrants have come from a far wider, more pan-African set of source countries than perhaps at any time in South Africa's history (Morris and Bouillon 2001;Western 2001).…”

From the Past to the Present: Regulating Migration and Immigration in Post-Apartheid South Africa

“…Immigration policy, legislation and patterns 1 provide a lens through which changes in the way the state constructs national identity can be seen (Peberdy 2009(Peberdy , 2001Cohen 1994;Anthias/Yuval-Davies 1993;Gilroy 1987). Immigration policy influences the shape of new immigration legislation, but can also be used to interpret legislation in different ways to suit the needs of the state (Peberdy 2009).…”