Xenophobic Violence in South Africa: Critical Reflections on Current - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Jean Pierre Misago ACMS-University of the Witwatersrand Jean.Misago@wits.ac.za

HSRC Seminar Pretoria, 30 June 2015

Xenophobic Violence in South Africa: Critical Reflections on Current explanations

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• Graduate degree programmes (Hons, MA, PhD) with students from

across Africa, North America, and Europe;

• Research in 12 African countries on issues related to migration,

urbanisation, human rights, development, governance, and social change;

• Partnerships in 4 continents;
• Provides research services and support to government, international
• rganizations, local NGOs, and rights advocates.

The African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits

An internationally engaged; Africa-oriented; and African-based research and teaching centre dedicated to shaping academic and policy debates

• n migration, development and social transformation

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Main Arguments

• Most current explanations are valuable in describing the socio-economic and

political context but they fall short as scientific explanations for the occurrence

• f the violence
• Only a multivariate explanatory model can account for all the determinants of

the violence

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Methods

• A decade of ACMS quantitative and qualitative research; on-going
• PhD work
• All together, more than 30 case studies across the country (latest Soweto)
• Focus on explaining violence and not attitudes
• ‘Most similar systems’ approach to understand why violence in some areas and not in
• thers

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Conceptual clarifications

• Xenophobia =/= Xenophobic violence: Violence is

not a quantitative degree of conflict (Blubaker et al. 1999)

• This discussion about causal explanations of xenophobic

violence and not of xenophobia.

• Xenophobia or just criminality? Not mutually

exclusive

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Current Causal Explanations: Not these….

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Current Causal Explanations: These rather….

• Can be grouped into 3 main categories:
• Economic and material: Competition for scarce resources and opportunities;

poverty, inequality, unemployment; Service Delivery Failures; Mass Influx and Inadequate Border Control (invoking The ‘threshold of tolerance’ hypothesis: the greater the numbers

• f migrants in a context of deep dislike , the more violent the reaction (Relative deprivation

theory).

• Historical, political and institutional: the legacy of apartheid (segregation,

isolation policies, etc.), the impact of post-apartheid nation-building efforts and the failure to meet socio-economic expectations.

• Psycho-social: cultural stereotyping, repressed historical trauma, culture of violence.
• Shortcomings:

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Current Causal Explanations: Shortcomings

• Common and long standing: cannot explain violence in some areas and not in
• thers with similar socio-economic conditions
• Reductionist, one-factor, mono-causal explanations: can be at best partial or

incomplete.

• Biggest problem: they do not seem to recognise their limitations. They claim to be all

encompassing i.e. to account for all the elements of the causal chain.

• What these explanations really do is to describe the conditions prevailing in affected

areas; they do not explain how these conditions exactly lead to mass violence targeting foreign nationals.

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Determinants of Xeno violence (or elements of the violence causal chain)

• Deprivation: real or relative
• Belief: that foreigners are the cause of the

deprivation

• Collective discontent towards foreigners
• Micro-politics

& political economy: instrumental motives of instigators

• Mobilization of the discontent: the trigger
• Governance and social controls: favorable
• pportunity structure for violence

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Conclusion: Towards a Multivariate Model of Xeno Violence

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Multivariate Model of Xenophobic Violence

Determinants Micro

• politics and

Governance Political economy (intervening variable) ( intervening variable) Deprivation_______ ___ Belief__________Discontent__________________________ ____ Mobilization__________________________ ____ Xenophobic violence Explanations Real or perceived socio

• economic and

political deprivation Xenophobic attitudes and belief attributing deprivation to foreign nationals Belief leads to collective discontent and strong resentment towards foreign nationals Instrumental motives

• f violence

entrepreneur s i.e. i nstigators’ political and economic incentives Trigger: violence entrepreneurs mobilize discontented members

• f the community for

violence Favourable governance factors and social controls provide a political opportunity structure for mobilizat ion to succeed in triggering violence Outbreak of violence as a result of value - added process : each determinant playing its specific and indispensable role Associated theories  Relative deprivation  Scapegoating model  Real conflict theory  Framing theory  Elite manipulation theory  Rational choice  Greed and grievance theory  Mobilization of discontent model (my innovation )  Political

• pportunity

structure model  A multivariate model (my suggestion)

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Jean Pierre Misago ACMS-University of the Witwatersrand Jean.Misago@wits.ac.za

HSRC Seminar Pretoria, 30 June 2015

Xenophobic Violence in South Africa: Critical Reflections on Current explanations