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

@article{Dodson2010LocatingXD,
  title={Locating Xenophobia: Debate, Discourse, and Everyday Experience in Cape Town, South Africa},
  author={Belinda Dodson},
  journal={Africa Today},
  year={2010},
  volume={56},
  pages={2 - 22},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:144548951}
}
  • B. Dodson
  • Published 1 March 2010
  • Sociology, Political Science
  • Africa Today
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… 
View via Publisher
ir.lib.uwo.ca
165 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
20
Background Citations
78
Results Citations
3

165 Citations

Understanding Violence Against Foreigners in Cape Town: Conceptions of Autochthony and Xenophobia in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Examining the correlation between the history of colonialism and structures of Apartheid in South Africa and the current xenophobic violence experienced by Black African immigrants settling in Cape…

Xenophobia across the class divide: South African attitudes towards foreigners 2003–2012

ABSTRACT In May 2008 anti-immigrant riots in South Africa displaced more than a hundred thousand people. Despite the media attention that the riots attracted, there has been no study that presents…

Situating Dashed Prospects of Independence into the Xenophobic Narrative in South Africa

Xenophobia in South Africa is often depicted as anti-immigrant sentiments and stereotypes that emanate from social, political, and economic misconceptions. This paper argues that though the causes of…

Understanding Xenophobia in South Africa: The Individual, the State and the International System

The 2015 xenophobic attacks are a fresh reminder of anti-immigrant sentiments in South Africa. Since the 2008 xenophobic violence in the country, there has been a growing literature on xenophobia in…

Xenophilia in Muizenberg, South Africa: New potentials for race relations?

Since the advent of democracy in 1994 race relations in South Africa have not improved substantially. The arrival of transmigrants from other African countries has emphasized a wounded South African…

Xenophobia, Racism and the Travails of ‘Black’ Immigrants in South Africa

Xenophobia has become endemic and central to policy discourse in post-apartheid South Africa. Attacks on foreign nationals of African descent and efforts to violently ‘expunge them’ from South Africa…

“We are Gauteng People”: Challenging the Politics of Xenophobia in Khutsong, South Africa

Abstract:  This article seeks to shed light on the May 2008 violence against foreign Africans living in South Africa, and the issue of xenophobia more broadly, by examining the case of Khutsong, a…

Reflection on the Xenophobic Violence against African Migrants in South Africa

Post liberation in 1994, South Africa had large numbers of migrants coming to the countnj from different parts of the continent in order to escape the political instabilihj and poverhJ prevalent in…

Conceptualizing xenophobia as structural violence in the lives of refugee women in Gauteng, South Africa

ABSTRACT This paper highlights the embeddedness of xenophobia in institutions through a theoretical but empirically under-researched concept of structural violence. Drawing on in-depth qualitative…

Xenophobic Assaults and the South African Economy and Society Since 1994

Xenophobia is not a recent theme in historical studies. However, the attempts penned by academics to analyze the phenomenon are sparsely centered on the economic aspect of the assault. In this way,…
...

69 References

‘Fortress SA’: Xenophobic violence in South Africa

    J. Sharp
    Sociology, Political Science
  • 2008
There are many circumstances in which South Africans and foreigners from elsewhere in Africa pursue shared interests peacefully. Anthropological field research points to a range of these…

Xenophobia: A new pathology for a new South Africa?

In 1994, South Africa became a new nation. Born out of democratic elections and inaugurated as the 'Rainbow Nation' by Nelson Mandela, this 'new South Africa' represents a fundamental shift in the…

South Africa's xenophobic eruption

Between 11 and 26 May 2008, 62 people, the majority of them foreign nationals, were killed by mobs in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and elsewhere. Some 35,000 were driven from their homes. The…

The Dark Side of Democracy: Migration, Xenophobia and Human Rights in South Africa

    J. Crush
    Political Science, Sociology
  • 2001
South Africa prides itself on having one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. The Bill of Rights guarantees a host of basic political, cultural and socio-economic rights to all who are…

‘Our fellow Africans make our lives hell’: the lives of Congolese and Nigerians living in Johannesburg

Abstract Xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa has become a major issue. Much of the hostility is directed at Africans from countries north of Southern Africa who are often easily distinguishable…

The Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics: Reflections on Xenophobic Violence in South Africa

Reflecting on the causes of the recent xenophobic pogroms in South Africa, it is striking how most commentators have stressed poverty and deprivation as the underlying causes of the events. Yet it…

Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

    H. Böll
    Political Science, Sociology
  • 2008
The recent brutal attacks against foreign nationals and the subsequent displacement of thousands of others have questioned the extent to which human rights are truly understood and protected in South…

Free Movement and the Movement's Forgotten Freedoms: South African Representation of Undocumented Migrants

This paper studies the South African media’s representation of undocumented migrants from 1998 to 2005. Recent literature that deals with media discourse on migration has focused on concepts of…

Writing Xenophobia: Immigration and the Print Media in Post-apartheid South Africa

    Political Science, Sociology
  • 2001
This paper discusses the print media's coverage of cross-border migration in South Africa and how it may affect both public opinion and policymaking on the topic. The paper argues that coverage of…

From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners. Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa: Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa

Xenophobia is a political discourse. As such, its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions that structure the…
...