Spatial Contestation, Victimisation and Resistance during Xenophobic Violence: The Experiences of Somali Migrants in Post‐Apartheid South Africa
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| Author | Ernest A. Pineteh |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12417 |
Spatial Contestation, Victimisation and
Resistance during Xenophobic Violence:
The Experiences of Somali Migrants in
Post-Apartheid South Africa
Ernest A. Pineteh*
ABSTRACT
This article discusses how violence between South Africans and Somali migrants plays out in
different forms of spatial contestation, victimization and resistance during xenophobic attacks.
It analyses Somalis’entrepreneurial strategies and the implications for access and appropriation
of social and economic spaces around Cape Town. The article attempts to connect Somali per-
ceptions of xenophobia and South Africans’claims of spatial entitlement to issues of spatial
control, belonging and social inclusion in South Africa. It argues that by establishing busi-
nesses in urban spaces and townships, Somali migrants have managed to establish stronger
bonds and a collective identity, which give them better control over these spaces. Although
their business tactics have propelled spatial contestations in which they have become easy tar-
gets during xenophobic incursions, the clustering of businesses has also created Somali-domi-
nated localities around Cape Town, which facilitates rapid mobilization to respond to or to
resist different forms of crime and violence.
INTRODUCTION
The xenophobic violence in post- apartheid South Africa has been characterized by spatial contests
between citizens and non-citizens, whose presence in South Africa’sfledgling democracy has been
described as the usurpation of “an exclusive vision of citizenship and related entitlements”(Landau,
2011: 23). Pro-xenophobia narratives have been framed around myths and imagings of “a subtle
invasion of South African territory”by illegal aliens (Vigneswaran, 2007: 144). In this context, pat-
terns of social mobilisation and violence characterized by maiming, looting, burning and murders
portray unethical display of disillusionment, power, victimization and resistance from both locals
and African migrants. On the one hand Amit & Kriger (2014) and Landau (2011) have argued that
xenophobia is symptomatic of local South Africans’erratic reactions to unfulfilled political pro-
mises, perhaps because in some instances the violence happens after protests about service delivery.
On the other hand, this form of violence is also an expression of locals’impassioned belief that
access to the already limited resources of South Africa is the exclusive right of autochthons. The
attacks on African migrants are therefore triggered by frustrations with the government, competition
* University of Pretoria
doi: 10.1111/imig.12417
©2017 The Author
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (2) 2018
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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