Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers: Negotiating Meaning and Making Life in Bloemfontein, South Africa 9780796926159

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Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za First published 2021 ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2598-5 © 2021 Human Sciences Research Council The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (the Council) or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the authors. In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the authors and not to the Council. The publishers have no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this book and do not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Copy-edited by Liz Sparg Typeset by Joan Baker Proofread by Lara Jacob Cover design by Nicolaas Jooste Cover illustration by Jolanta Banowska Indexed by Jen Stern Printed by Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Tel: +27 (021) 701 4477; Fax Local: (021) 701 7302 www.blueweaver.co.za Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) Tel: +44 (0) 17 6760 4972; Fax: +44 (0) 17 6760 1640 www.eurospanbookstore.com Distributed in United States, Canada and Asia except China, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Tel: +1 303 444-6684; Fax: +001 303 444-0824; Email: [email protected] www.rienner.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the copyright owner. To copy any part of this publication, you may contact DALRO for information and copyright clearance. Tel: 086 12 DALRO (or 086 12 3256 from within South Africa); +27 (0)11 712-8000 Fax: +27 (0)11 403-9094 Postal Address: P O Box 31627, Braamfontein, 2017, South Africa www.dalro.co.za Any unauthorised copying could lead to civil liability and/or criminal sanctions. Suggested citation: Jonatan Kurzwelly and Luis Escobedo (Eds) (2021) Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers: Negotiating Meaning and Making Life in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press

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Table of contents List of figures v Abbreviations and acronyms vi Acknowledgements vii Foreword viii 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Violent categorisation, relative privilege and migrant experiences in a postapartheid city 1 Jonatan Kurzwelly and Luis Escobedo Transcending social categories: Reflections on research concerning migrant lives, lived experiences and life stories 19 Luis Escobedo, Jonatan Kurzwelly and Komlan Agbedahin From the mainland and from the colony: Essay on the life narrative of a Portuguese migrant in Bloemfontein 33 Ana Rita Amaral Becoming white: The story of being assimilated into the white habitus of Bloemfontein 64 Liezl Dick Extremism, essentialism and identity: The life story of Muhammad Elvis Ngum 88 Jonatan Kurzwelly, Hamid Fernana and Muhammad Elvis Ngum The shifting social relations and national identity practices of a Peruvian migrant in South Africa’s heartland 110 Luis Escobedo, Alba Gómez-Arias and Julio Castillo



‘Do you miss kimchi?’: A collaborative arts-based narrative of education and migration 132 Marguerite Müller, Frans Kruger and Ji-Hyeon Jeong

8.

Written writing: An account of the emergence of an(other) academic author 151 Pablo Del Monte

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Transitioning capitals in international student mobility 173 Faith Mkwananzi

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10.

Migration change processes of a migrant couple: A social morphogenetic approach 196 Adesuwa Vanessa Agbedahin

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The migrant as architect of his own comfort 217 Komlan Agbedahin and Benyam Tesfaye Akalu

About the contributors 238 Index 242

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List of figures Figure 2.1 The boeremark in Bloemfontein, 2019 36 Figure 2.2 Map of Southern Africa, indicating where Maria has lived: Namarrói, Morrumbala, Quelimane, Maputo (Lourenço Marques), Johannesburg and Bloemfontein 41 Figure 5.1 An illustration of pluralistic and reductionist understandings of the self, and their existential consequences 105 Figure 7.1 Ji-Hyeon, 2017 132 Figure 7.2 Marguerite and Frans, 2006 132 Figure 7.3 Gochujang (고추장) 136 Figure 7.4 ‘A Foreign Space’, Marguerite Müller, 2014, pen drawing 137 Figure 7.5 Cherry blossoms, Gangneung, South Korea 138 Figure 7.6 Marguerite and co-teachers, Wonju, South Korea, 2002 141 Figure 7.7 Barbeque on the rocks, Wonju, South Korea 144 Figure 7.8 A family photo, The Little Prince (Afrikaans version) and the Bible 144 Figure 7.9 Part of Ji-Hyeon’s drawing of her life story 145 Figure 7.10 Another part of Ji-Hyeon’s drawing of her life story 146 Figure 9.1 Interrelationship between academic and other capitals 185 Figure 9.2 Labour market influencers for international students 191 Figure 10.1 Basic morphogenetic/static cycle with its three phases 199

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Abbreviations and acronyms CONICET Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (National Scientific and Technical Research Council) DHET

Department of Higher Education and Training

EUR euros HDR

Human Development Report

HR

Human Resources

IEASA

International Education Association of South Africa

INEI

Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática

OIM

Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (International Organization for Migration – IOM)

PhD doctorate SADC

Southern African Development Community

SAQA

South African Qualifications Authority

SARUA

Southern African Regional Universities Association

TRC

South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

UFS

University of the Free State

UK

United Kingdom

UNHCR

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

WESSA

white English-speaking South African

ZAR

South African Rands

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Acknowledgements This book would have been impossible without the engagement and support of numerous individuals and institutions. First, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to every participant in the project. Our interlocutors not only told us their life stories; they offered our authors their time, patience, attention and support throughout the process. Some of them also took up the task of becoming co-authors, and thus also participated in the co-construction and writing of their own stories, as well as in analysing them through the various theoretical lenses employed in the book. Our authors, with whom we crossed paths at the University of the Free State (UFS), committed valuable time to this project, were open to approaching research in ways that were at times unfamiliar and experimental for some of them, and brought new insights to the literature on migration studies in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and beyond. The essence of this edited book lies in this collaboration between authors and interlocutors. We would like to thank Sheikh Hamid Fernana, who proposed the idea of working on a book that would tell the stories of international migrants living in Bloemfontein, and whose work is also showcased in this book. His unconditional support to the editors and other authors, especially at the beginning of the project is deeply appreciated. We would also like to express our gratitude to UFS as the institution that initially brought all the authors together under the same roof. This university offered most of us postdoctoral fellowships and other academic and research posts that allowed our paths to cross, engage in collaborative work, and feel part of an international community that now continues to expand beyond the South African borders. Within UFS, we are grateful to the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice (formerly the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice), for providing the physical space where most of our in-situ organisational work has taken place, and the funding for a symposium at the end of 2018, in which we discussed the initial research outcomes and ideas. The excellent copy-editing and proofreading assistance provided towards the end of the project for some of the chapters by Maria-Luiza Lucescu, Caroline Jeannerat and Liz Sparg is truly appreciated. Last, but not least, we wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments, and the HSRC Press editors and staff for assisting us throughout all the stages of the process. We hope that this final version of the book honours the valuable engagement of these individuals and institutions.

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Foreword I cannot stress enough the importance of mobility. The world has always been dynamic and always will be. Human reality is configured, negotiated and reconfigured in tune with that dynamism and the creative innovation that people bring to bear on their circumstances in the world. Without mobility, we are diminished and unfulfilled as humans. So, too, are our understanding of and actions in the world, or sections thereof, when we fail to account for or factor mobility in – or when we can only bring ourselves to do so selectively, for one contrived reason or another. It is difficult, if not impossible, to totally immobilise someone or some real or imagined collectivity, however perfected our technologies of detection and detention might be. Technologies that lend themselves to rigid control are, ironically, not necessarily activated to excel without glitches. They may well fall prey to sabotage or the stubborn determination of those who hunger for the freedom to transgress regimes of control, policing and containment. To move is to encounter and interact with mobile others. The encounters, unfortunately, often ensue in unequal ways, especially when the logic is one of exclusion and diminishing circles of inclusion. To move is also to have a very personal story to tell. Each story is important, deserving to be told from the vantage point and in the voice of whoever experienced it, and should be accommodated in the global repertoire of mobile humans and of humanity on the move. We are what we are, who we are, how we are, and why we are thanks to mobility and to our capacity to mobilise and be mobilised. We move along with the worldviews, ideals, values, ideas of being, practices, experiences and memories that we have internalised, embody and tend to reproduce almost instinctively and subliminally. To move is to unsettle and to seek to be settled, in accommodation of or conflict with the competing claims, entitlements, sensitivities and sensibilities of others – products of earlier and ongoing mobilities. Historicised and contextualised, the power to settle, unsettle and resettle – the power to be a native or a settler, an insider or an outsider, and to belong or to be a stranger – is hardly ever permanent, simple, straightforward or blunt. Rather, such powers are complex, nuanced, situational and constantly shifting. With the permanence of mobility and the myriad forms of encounters it enables, the historicised power of being and belonging in particular spaces and places is more productively understood as fluid, and as a permanent work in progress, progressively negotiated by individuals and communities over generations and across space and time. As mobile beings, humans are self-consciously incomplete in how they claim and relate to spaces and places in their life journeys. They are constantly in need of activation, potency and enhancement through relationships of conviviality with

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F OR EWOR D

incomplete others who are equally mobile, even if apparently settled. They thrive in ubuntu, even if apparently highly individualistic in demeanour. To be human, and to belong as a mobile being steeped in unending mobility, is to reconcile oneself to a reality or an identity that is far less singular and unified than it is composite and open-ended. In this connection, it is unproductive and indeed violent for anyone to approach their mobility as a zero-sum pursuit, especially in a world where no condition is permanent, and in which thinking in neat dichotomies amounts to a sterile form of power. Frozen identities beget frozen borders and invite myriad forms of violations and violence for those who dare to insist that mobility, quite literally, is a permanent attribute of being and becoming human through relationships to other beings in spaces and places familiar and unfamiliar. To dictate and confine mobility is to confound and impoverish humanity. It is with this conceptualisation of mobility that I invite you to savour in this book a sumptuous serving of life stories from migrants in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The editors, Jonatan Kurzwelly and Luis Escobedo, tap into the power of storytelling as a resource to migrants and immigrants and humans more generally – to affirm themselves and their experiences and to oppose violent and reductive categorisation. Storytelling is a journey of interpreting themselves as complex beings. Through the narratives of the migrants featured in the book, we are presented with a kaleidoscopic view of how belonging is claimed and denied. The stories that are shared are analysed through the prism of problematic violating and violent social and politically constructed collective categories such as race, ethnicity, nationality and religion. The richness of the book lies in the diversity of stories presented, in terms of migrant places of origin, destinations, direction of migration and the diversity of migrants’ backgrounds, as well as the general focus on the migration of academics. The accounts include but are not limited to the stories of: a Portuguese-born woman (identified as ‘Maria’) who spent most of her life in Mozambique before moving to South Africa; two Romanian migrant women (identified as ‘Irina and Ioana Popescu’); a Peruvian (Julio Castillo); a South Korean woman (Ji-Hyeon Jeong) who immigrated to South Africa as a child; an Argentinian academic migrant (Pablo Del Monte); a female Zimbabwean migrant (Rene Tlou); a highly skilled permanent resident Zimbabwean migrant couple (identified as ‘wife’ and ‘husband’); a male Ethiopian migrant (identified as ‘Gwadegna’; and a Cameroonian male migrant (Muhammad Elvis). The migrants’ stories (some autobiographical) are interesting in their myriad different experiences of privilege and disadvantage. They are foregrounded for discussion of a broad spectrum of issues. The editors invite us not to take for granted the privileges that come with certain identity categories. Nor should we ignore how privilege is rooted in injustice. As they put it, ‘acceptance of a privileged position...

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involves a degree of “epistemic ignorance”, which obfuscates and enables inequality and discrimination’ (Chapter 1). This argument is further substantiated in Chapter 4, through the accounts of two immigrant Romanian women ‘assimilated into the white habitus of Bloemfontein’. The book does an excellent job of critiquing the perniciousness of reductive, essentialist and violent categorisation in South Africa. It also draws attention to the fact that taken-for-granted configurations of nation-states and territorialisation of citizenship and belonging may not be as sacrosanct as we have tended to credit them, especially when treated in a less ahistorical fashion. Each chapter makes a useful addition to the overarching argument that categories and boxes simply do not – and cannot – reflect the real interconnections, entanglements and messiness that come from lived experiences of being and becoming. The book invites us to enrich our understanding of mobility and belonging by recognising and providing for the humbling complexities and nuances of incompleteness. It makes a compelling case for disabusing ourselves of ambitions of dominance. It militates in favour of conviviality, or, more appropriately in the context of South Africa, ubuntu. An important takeaway for me, and I hope other readers of this book, is that when migrants are afforded the opportunity to tell their own stories and share their migratory experiences, their perspectives comprise a humanising dimension that complicates the usually quantitative depictions of migration as a problem and that normalises flexible mobility for all. Francis B. Nyamnjoh Professor of Anthropology, University of Cape Town

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Violent categorisation, relative privilege and migrant experiences in a post-apartheid city Jonatan Kurzwelly and Luis Escobedo

I walk with my family, In my heart. Here in this place, Where I am denied my family. Here in this place, My spirit has no space. I walk with watery eyes, Where they spit on my footsteps And pelt me with insults In tongues foreign to my ears. I am now a shadow of a man, A piece of anthropology to many; Here where my spirit knows no peace. I wish to live a life, A life where I can blossom And open like a rosebud. A life where I am a being And my spirit knows peace. Oswald Kucherera, ‘Kwerekwere’ (First published on fundza.mobi) We chose to open Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers with words by Cape Town-based Zimbabwean storyteller, human rights activist and educator, Oswald Kucherera. With his poem ‘Kwerekwere’, he invites us to reconsider the meaning of what, over the past decades in South Africa, has been used as a pejorative and derogatory

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label to refer to foreigners, in particular ‘black’ African migrants, namely the term kwerekwere (pl. makwerekwere).1 In fact, kwerekwere is more than simply a term: it is an ideology, ‘constructed and deployed through public discourse to render Africans from outside the borders orderable as the nation’s bogeyman’ (Matsinhe 2011: 295). By denying immigrants from other parts of Africa a name of their choice, the term entails denying their dignity and humanity (Nyamnjoh 2006: 14). In his poem, Kucherera (2015) appropriates the term kwerekwere to convey a broader understanding, one based on his own experience of migrating to and through South Africa. His kwerekwere transcends the derogatory connotation and recognises the hardships suffered by and humanity embodied in individuals thus denigrated and reduced to reified categories; his kwerekwere does not escape categorisation but makes it visible. As a storyteller, Kucherera articulates a narrative that expresses his own migrant experiences and interpretations. His journey epitomises how, in different ways and to varying degrees, international migrants in contemporary South Africa are able to appropriate and manage the categories ascribed to them. The poem Kwerekwere speaks directly to the core of this book: the violence effected by reifying categorisation – specifically migrants’ destructive experience of how their personal internal plurality and complexity are reduced to simplistic interpretations – and the strategies used to manage and mitigate this categorisation. The immigrants whose life stories provide the frame for this book hold different forms and degrees of relative privilege, and navigate the post-apartheid city, with its racialised social geography, in which reifying categorisation is normalised and often nihilistic and violent. Reification lies at the core of reductive simplification of individuals and groups, inherent in the violence of collective identity categories. It assumes that categories of thought have their equivalent in the empirical world – for example by treating ‘racial categories as if immutable in nature and society’ (Duster 2005: 1050) or by treating social categories such as nationality, ethnicity or gender as concrete units. Whitehead calls this the ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness...[the] fallacy when an actual entity is considered merely so far as it exemplifies certain categories of thought’, ignoring (or even negating) the degree of abstraction involved in the creation of the category (Whitehead 1978: 7–8). Categorisation is an inevitable social phenomenon, a basis of language per se, and it shapes and mediates much of social interaction. As in processes of construction of a collective self (see Brubaker 2013), categorising others,2 as well as being categorised, always contains a certain risk of reification, of reducing and distorting the plurality and diversity of a person. Simmel, in his famous 1908 essay on society, pointed out that, ‘in order to know a man, we see him not in terms of his pure individuality, but carried, lifted up or lowered, by the general type under which we classify him’ (Simmel 1971/1908: 8). Our image of others and of ourselves is usually distorted through these symbolic classifications, which not only hide the particularities of the person but also give them a new form (Simmel 1971/1908: 11). The violence is performed in that the self is simplified and reduced to a concept

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VIOLENT CATEGORISATION, RELATIVE PRIVILEGE AND MIGRANT EXPERIENCES IN A POST-APARTHEID CITY

and its ascribed meanings. We can distinguish between democratic and nihilistic violence, a distinction that differentiates relatively benign or neutral cases of violating categorisation from the particularly pernicious ones (Rapport 2000; see also Rapport 2020). Democratic violence may be a universal and necessary feature of society, stemming from individual differences and creativity, often attempting an appropriation, reconstitution, rearrangement or reinvention of socio-cultural norms and order. This form of categorisation might symbolically violate people’s sense of individuality and selfhood but does not disrupt everyday social interaction to a point that it becomes physically, emotionally and cognitively impossible. Democratic violence is congruent with the ability of, and possibility that, individuals create their own meanings; it affords individuality and the chance of incompatible or contradictory life projects. This form of violating categorisation does not breach the civil contract, even if it violates others’ sense of self. Nihilistic violence, in contrast, is disorienting, negates individuality, diversity and the social contract, renders individual life projects unattainable or impossible, and debilitates social interaction in a civil relationship. This distinction is useful as it recognises the omnipresence of violence in society but also allows for the recognition of its more pernicious forms. In this book, we highlight this distinction in our engagement with the ways in which immigrants experience and respond to categorisation in contemporary South Africa. Nihilistic violence does not equate only to brutality or physicality (Rapport 2000). It can also be carried out in a variety of ‘random sounds, silences and actions’ and can have an adverse effect on social interaction, denying or hindering the possibility for others to make meaningful life projects (Rapport 2000). This means that some forms of categorisation are more pernicious than others. Thus ascriptive violence, such as ethnic riots, xenophobic attacks, or genocide, contains categorisation as its central feature. In riots based on ethnic categorisation, for example, individuals are targeted because of their ascribed group belonging, often assumed through ‘color, name, physiognomy, dress, grooming, bearing, facial hair, circumcision, scarification, earring holes and other bodily marks, linguistic fluency, and even familiarity with religious passages’ (Horowitz 2001: 125–126). Stereotypes amplify intergroup differences, obscuring or omitting human similarities, potentially making many traits imputed to out-group members threatening, even when these stereotypes contain potentially ‘favourable outcomes’ (Horowitz 2001: 53), as in academic, economic or sexual performance. The nihilistic violence of the ethnic riot thus begins with the categorisation of individuals. This form of classification of others and the ascription of assumed characteristics to them may also be considered as the first stage of genocide – an ‘early warning’, in fact – as it lays the foundation for the later stages of physical violence and ‘extermination’ (Stanton 2004, 2005). Reifying – including reductive and essentialist3 – categorisation is potentially pernicious. It is thus crucial to explore how individuals experience it, and what strategies they adapt in managing its consequences. This book includes numerous examples of violent reductive categorisation, which have caused different degrees

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of harm and led to varying responses from the individuals affected. In this chapter we explore how these individuals experienced being categorised and what strategies they developed in order to negotiate and manage these ascribed social categories and their meanings. We explore how people’s relative privilege, understood in terms of the intersection of their economic possibilities and identities,4 allows for diverse responses in the face of reductive categorisation. We begin, however, with a brief analysis of the violence of categorisation in the specific South African context.

Violent categorisation in South Africa In South Africa, violent categorisation, especially in racial terms, has a particularly painful history and a continuous presence, impacting how immigrants live. The sociohistorical context and identity politics practised within it constitute a difficult terrain for immigrants to navigate. The fear and resentment mediating in particular economic relations among South Africans, as a result of their long-standing racial divisions and tensions, contributes to the persistence and spread of antagonistic attitudes towards international migrants (Gordon 2017). Racial divisions from the colonial era, the basis for economic and social hierarchies that primarily subjected the native population, only intensified during apartheid, backed by legal instruments such as the Population Registration Act of 1950. The vestiges of these forms of categorisation continue to shape the social landscape of present-day South Africa. This context resonates with the argument that historical and contemporary ‘racial formations’ within a host country shape migration processes (Lundström 2014; Omi & Winant 1994; Roth 2012). In this very sense, the city of Bloemfontein – where the stories of our book are located – constitutes a ‘social geography of race’5 (Frankenberg 1993) that migrants navigate as they develop cultural capital from a position of outsiders. The stories exposed and analysed in this book describe the manifold spaces in which migrant lives unfold. Bloemfontein, the judicial capital of South Africa, inherited its racialised social landscape from apartheid and the Group Areas Act of 1950 that assigned different urban areas to racial groups. While the transition to democracy dismantled the institutional basis of this racist system, its effects on the social geography are still present in Bloemfontein. Race, intertwined with other identities and interlinked with class positionality, continues to be a common explanatory and prescriptive category in both political and quotidian situations. To a large extent race still conditions place of habitation, access to education and healthcare, circles of acquaintances, experiences of discrimination, and even possibilities of romantic love as inter-racial couples are still uncommon and often frowned upon (Jansen 2017). The violence of categorisation goes hand in hand with violent and ostentatious differences in wealth, with South Africa having become one of the most unequal countries in the world since the turn of the 21st century. The multiple, often contradictory, ways in which race (alongside nationality and ethnicity) is understood and acted upon constitute the difficult terrain which

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incoming migrants need to grasp and navigate. In response to the violence that pervades a socio-cultural order that continues to hold on to reified and essentialist notions of identity categories, different political and personal strategies to manage this reification are in use by migrants, South African citizens and institutions. There are two ways in which theory has been advanced to disrupt and replace racialised thinking. The first proposition is to think in terms of ‘multiculturalism’ (Chipkin 2007; see also Gordon 2017: 1702). The multicultural project, often seen to establish ‘the rainbow nation’ (an influential discourse from the 1990s), attempts to recognise multiple ‘cultures’ as equally valid under the umbrella of a nation. It reaffirms the understanding of races and ethnicities as representing separate cultures (i.e. ‘culturalism’), thus assuming differences between humans to be intrinsic and ubiquitous. In this approach, racial categories are recognised in order to address the wrongdoings of the former order, which is based on said categories. Racial categories from the colonial and apartheid past have thus become ‘embedded’ in the post-apartheid era (Gordon 2017: 1702): they are used in official statistics, in much of the academic literature and, as public opinion research shows, in people’s self-identification and categorisation of others (see Bornman 2010, 2011; Durrheim et al. 2011; Gibson & Claassen 2010; Vincent 2008).6 In some cases these notions of identities enact a strategic form of essentialism, using identities as a driver of political mobilisation in an effort to overcome oppressive structures, by defining and organising themselves along previously established racial categories, through symbolic, linguistic and administrative means (see Goldberg 2002: 153–154; Comaroff 1998: 345). This creates a general context in which reifying categories are normalised and appear as valid concepts through which to understand and act upon the world.7 The second suggested way to dismantle racialised thinking and manage identity politics is that of ‘non-racialism’, namely the negation of the importance of race altogether. It is similar to the ‘colour-blindness’ in the United States or the ‘racial democracy’ in Brazil (Goldberg 2002: 217). This form of non-racialism often fails to recognise ‘race’ as a socio-historical construct that has real consequences for people’s situational circumstances. It silences public analysis and discussion of racism and moves the expression of racist beliefs and practices to private spaces. This context allowed the emergence of ‘the paradox of the co-existence of a non-racial, multicultural constitutional democracy with white racial privilege, anti-black racism and inequality’ (Modiri 2012: 407). This paradox continues to shape how South African citizens, and immigrants, are being categorised and categorise others. The notorious xenophobic attacks that South Africa has experienced over the last two decades represent only the extreme, or ‘heightened’, form of a xenophobia that is, in fact, very commonplace (Crush & Ramachandran 2014: 3, 7). Xenophobic attitudes do not always escalate to extreme violence; this requires certain structural conditions (Gordon 2017: 1715; see also Horowitz 2001). Nonetheless, whether hostile and belligerent attitudes escalate to brutality or not, a long history of violent categorisation in South Africa, particularly one that insists on racial categories, has

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contributed to the development and spread of xenophobic attitudes and behaviour towards immigrants. In other words, the socio-historical context of South Africa contributes to the meanings that groups and individuals attribute to their collective relationship and that guide their actions – their ‘working models of contact’ (see Kerr et al. 2019). Essentialist social categories commonly used in South Africa have an impact on both underprivileged and privileged immigrant experiences. The former are discussed more extensively in literature than the latter. Matsinhe (2011) links the dynamics of group relations during the colonial period to contemporary relations between South Africans and African ‘foreign’ nationals. In order to understand this relation, he suggests looking at how ‘the foreigner’ is constructed, particularly the one to whom the category kwerekwere is ascribed, for example in terms of looks, performances and smells; a process bearing racist undertones. In his study on xenophobia in South Africa, Tafira (2018: vii–viii, 7–13, 15–20) claims that kwerekwere and other terms are articulated as part of a culturally based ‘black-onblack’ or ‘intra-black’ racism.8 He relates xenophobia to ‘cultural racism’ – enunciated through perceived dissimilarities in nationality, ethnicity, dress, customs, origin, languages and accents, and deepened through economic inequalities (Taguieff 1990; see also Balibar 1991; Goldberg 2002). Cultural racism articulates racial difference and hierarchy; culturalises and thereby disguises racism and racist discourse (Grillo 2003; Stolcke 1995); and biologises cultural difference while acculturating the biological, both essentialising steps (Taguieff 1990). While Tafira acknowledges that racism has a contingent and fluid meaning (Goldberg 1993, 2002), and recognises the role of race and racism in the categorisation of foreign individuals and groups in South Africa, his cultural racism and other similar explanations have the potential of falling into determinism if not critically approached (Kerr et al. 2019). However, an aspect of Tafira’s study that is relevant for our analysis is how language conveys reifying expressions that ‘make up’ people (Hacking 1992), impose on them a new form (Simmel 1971/1908), and affect their social identification while changing their social world and experience in it (Jenkins 2000: 8–9, 20–22). In his words: Even when they go to sleep, in the privacy of their quarters, where there is no one to label them, they are still amakwerekwere. In the morning, they wake up and still carry the same label. In other words, the label has become part of them, and they have become part of the label. Sensibly, they are not proud of these labels, because, firstly, there is nothing to be proud of them. Secondly, they are derogatory, insulting, dehumanising and debasing. Thirdly they remind the immigrant that they are not welcome ‘here’ and they don’t belong ‘here.’ (Tafira 2018: 76) This paragraph illustrates Tafira’s (2018: 77) emphasis on how the Other is constructed ‘through naming, labelling, nouns, verb and adjectives’. Such ‘more ordinary’ experience of xenophobia and reductive categorising is part of the everyday lives of immigrants in South Africa (Dodson 2010; Matsinhe 2011), and to some extent also of the lives of South Africans perceived as ‘foreign’. Human Rights Watch observed in 1998:

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We documented cases of persons who claimed they were arrested for being ‘too black’, having a foreign name, or in one case, walking ‘like a Mozambican’. Many of those arrested – up to twenty percent of the total in some areas by our calculation – are actually South Africa citizens or lawful residents, who often have to spend several days in detention while attempting to convince officials of their legitimate status. (HRW 1998: 2) In his poem, quoted at the start of this chapter, Kucherera (2015) exposes how a migrant’s history, individuality, affect, agency and humanity are denied and essentialised into the apparent concreteness (Whitehead 1978) of the cultural and racial ‘Other’, reified and reduced to the category kwerekwere. The migrant is shaped by the word kwerekwere not only because it is laid on him in violent, reifying and nihilistic ways, but also because he simultaneously appropriates and internalises this category ‘as a focus of denial’ (Jenkins 2000: 21), negotiating it creatively in line with ‘democratic violence’ (Rapport 2000; cf. Rapport 2020). Kucherera thus leads us back to the main questions of this book: how do immigrants living in South Africa experience categorisation, and how do they negotiate and manoeuvre these ascribed categories, negotiate meaning and build their own life projects? We draw on significant and critical literature of the last decades that has drawn attention towards the way in which immigrants in South Africa, especially those who are underprivileged, racialised as non-whites and come from other parts of Africa, experience nihilistically violent categorisation. Several of the notable contributions to this literature already issued ‘early warnings’ (Stanton 2004, 2005) and pointed to the possibility of large-scale xenophobic attacks, prior to the notorious violent outbreaks of 2008 and 2015 (SAMP 2008; Neocosmos 2006; Nyamnjoh 2006, 2010).9 Studies that have focused on documenting and analysing how immigrants in South Africa not only experience but also react and respond to violent categorisation have received more limited attention. These range from the engagement with immigrant life stories and narratives, in Johannesburg (Landau & Pampalone 2018), Cape Town (Govinda et al. 2017) or Durban (Erwin & Grest 2018), to memoirs, short stories, poems, creative nonfiction and novels, many of which were written by immigrants themselves (see Chapter 2). These works on how immigrants in South Africa make meaningful lives challenge the imposed categories or the ‘racial status quo’ (Goldberg 2002: 206–207; see also Bennett 1998). They appropriate the persisting socio-historical order, often emerge out of collaboration between immigrants and researchers or journalists and make central the immigrant perspective. Literature on privileged migration is scarcer. Here Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers offers a contribution. It juxtaposes stories of immigrants from a variety of geographical, social and economic backgrounds, who together make up Bloemfontein – a destination that scarcely features in the literature on present-day forms of migration into South Africa – as a place of various migrations.10 Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers presents a plurality of cases in which international migrants in Bloemfontein are primarily subjected to and affected by violating categorisations in both democratic

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and nihilistic ways. Immigrants are agents who reproduce, internalise and negotiate the meanings of categories ascribed to them. While the reductive violence of categorisation is almost ubiquitous, as Simmel (1971/1908) argued, it can be particularly salient in the process of transnational migration, in which a person moves between and across legal and socio-symbolic systems that each defines them differently. However, these violations are mitigated by the capacity and ability of migrants to respond to and manage the effects of this categorisation. As the cases presented in this book expose, the manner in which individual migrants react and respond is largely conditioned by their social and economic positionality within the South African context – each individual’s relative privilege, including the different types of capital they have at their disposal. Possessing privilege means having a favourable position to enact one’s individuality and construct meaningful life projects. This position is contextual because certain types of privilege might only work in specific situations. Among the comparatively limited literature on privileged migration, two are particularly useful. In a study of white Swedish-speaking first-generation migrant women, Lundström (2014: 1–4) points out that these migrations can have ‘gendered outcomes’, such as losing a job or becoming economically dependent on a spouse, despite these women being part of the transnational mobile elite and forms of migration associated with affluence (see also Arieli 2007). In turn, Bulgaristanlı migrants in Turkey, who are often at the mercy of police or migration officers, are able to articulate ‘ethnic privilege’ as a type of ‘relative privilege’ (Parla 2019).11 Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers contains a variety of stories of migrants who enjoy different types and degrees of privilege that shift as they locate and relocate themselves in relation to contextual advantages and disadvantages (Pease 2010). In other words, and more generally, Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers invites the reader to reflect upon the negotiation of meaning inherent in the making of an individual’s life. It is a social and existential process, in which meanings are negotiated with oneself and others, shaping the understanding and practical effects of different elements of social reality in this case of ascribed categories and identities. Such a process of negotiation exposes and results in contextualised positions of privilege or disadvantage. In that sense, the experiences of negotiating and contesting social categories in the stories of migrants, as this book presents, are central experiences to the human condition in general.

Experiencing and managing categorisation Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers is an experimental collaboration between researchers in the humanities and social sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) – most of whom are migrants themselves – and different immigrants living in Bloemfontein – some of whom are academics themselves. All researchers participating in this project employ a narrative life story method in a humanising attempt to recognise the value of in-depth accounts of life. We thereby purposefully disrupt the existing, often simplistic identity politics and social categorisation. Following a process of intensive

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discussions and observations of individual life stories and migratory experiences, each author developed his or her own analytical lens. Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers is thus an unusual book, turning on its head the normal approach for edited books: instead of being united by a shared theoretical approach, it is driven by method and subject, and leaves each chapter to develop its own theoretical focus. In this manner the chapters develop significant insights into the rich ethnographic material on migrant experiences of categorisation and people’s strategies to manage and mitigate their effects. Chapter 2 focuses precisely on reflecting upon the possibilities that our overarching methodological approach expands for individual migrants. Escobedo, Kurzwelly and Agbedahin show how narrative life story research, and the very practice of storytelling, constitute in themselves a collaborative response to reductive social categories. This endeavour has a humanising effect as it stresses the complexity, plurality and incompleteness of individuals. The juxtaposition of stories of migrants coming from diverse backgrounds, who have already told their stories orally or in a written format, exposes this idea in the chapter while emphasising that migrants in general, even some of those in a position of socio-economic advantage, are subject to a simplistic and depersonalising categorisation affecting their migratory experiences and lives. This latter aspect is also demonstrated through the juxtaposed stories of diverse migrants in this book. In Chapter 3, Amaral tells the life story of Maria, a Portuguese woman who first migrated to colonial Mozambique and then to apartheid South Africa. This chapter illustrates how social categories are inscribed into people and how people from a position of relative economic and identity privilege may respond to them. Born in ‘mainland’ Portugal, Maria grew up in a privileged household in the ‘colony’ and saw herself as an ‘African Portuguese’ (illustrating the different historical and contextual meanings of being ‘Portuguese’), an identity she continues to embrace. After Mozambique gained independence in 1975, her formerly privileged social position began to turn against her. Now falling into the category of former colonialist, she feared that her children could be forced to attend ‘re-education camps’. She was labelled a ‘capitalist’, due to her family’s prosperous business, and expected to be prosecuted for ‘sabotage’, as stipulated by new legislation. Maria responded to this negative categorising and socio-political positionality by mobilising her economic and social capital and ‘fleeing’ to Johannesburg. Here she easily obtained ‘refugee’ status and acquired South African passports for herself and her family. In other words, the precarity that Maria experienced after Mozambique’s independence was mitigated by her position of relative privilege, allowing her to migrate to a sociopolitical context in which she enjoyed a relatively positive categorisation and was able to secure her livelihood again. Chapter 4 describes how an immigrant’s identity changes within the context of the receiving society. Dick narrates the life story of two migrant sisters who, in the early 1990s, moved from Romania to Bloemfontein – from a society transitioning from socialism to neoliberal post-socialism to one transitioning from apartheid to post-

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apartheid. In Bloemfontein, the sisters accept the local social order and racial categories in a mostly unreflective manner, ultimately ‘becoming’ white. The sisters did not originally hold a position of economic privilege, but their phenotype, especially the colour of their skin (a ‘white capital’), afforded them certain advantages that did not feature in their home country. Where Kucherera (2015) was subjected to the denigrating category of kwerekwere, the Romanian sisters (and more tacitly some of the academic migrants contributing to this book) benefitted from an almost ubiquitous ascription of ‘whiteness’. In the face of such beneficial categorisation, one can notice a rather unreflective acceptance of, or a habituation to, the newly ascribed categories. (As Pease [2010: 9] has argued, ‘not being aware of privilege is an important aspect of privilege’.) Dick raises the important point on how ‘ignorance’ lies at the heart of occupying a privileged position in an unjust and unequal society. ‘Ignorance’, used here as a category of analysis, works as a form of denial, obscures complicity and permits arrogance. Rather than simply pointing out historical instances of this, Dick leaves the reader with the uncomfortable question whether such ignorance does not play a leading role in our world today: is it not being articulated in different forms and degrees by each one of us? In Chapter 5, Kurzwelly, Fernana and Ngum engage with the case of Cameroonian migrant Muhammad Elvis who, while on the receiving end of xenophobic discrimination and labelled as an unwanted kwerekwere, himself adopted a radical discriminatory worldview. The authors explore the issue of radicalisation as an identity process in order to answer the question of why radical ideologies are attractive to people. They compare the similarly fallacious logics of radical Islamism, Islamophobia and anti-migrant xenophobia, all of which rely on essentialism and reductionism. The authors propose that essentialist thinking and extremist ideologies based on such essentialism are alluring because they provide a sense of certainty – an assurance of dominance of a desired identity and of clarity of moral judgements – and an increased sense of agency. In such a situation recognising the plurality and fluidity of individual identities is difficult, even if it more accurately reflects reality. The chapter thus provides an example of how an individual can respond to violent categorisation and a position of vulnerability and precarity by himself adopting a different discriminatory framework. This framework affords a relative situational privilege by providing a network of support and the possibility of constructing a meaningful life project. We might also stipulate that, just as adopting a radical neo-fundamentalist ideology allowed Muhammad Elvis, an underprivileged poor migrant, to gain a sense of agency and epistemic certainty, so might the acceptance of the racist classifications that underpinned colonialism and apartheid have legitimised the favourable social positionality of the privileged migrants. Taking issue with the assumption that nationality is ubiquitous and forcefully relevant, Escobedo, Gómez-Arias and Castillo argue in Chapter 6 that national identity can be largely insignificant for a given person’s experience, unless provided with the proper incentives or context to engage with it. Describing the story of Julio, a Peruvian academic migrant who previously lived in Spain and now plans to

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settle permanently in Bloemfontein, the authors examine the continuously shifting meanings and importance of his national identity across space and time. While Julio took for granted that he and those around him were Peruvian when growing up in Peru, this certainty was disrupted first by his migration to Spain, where the term was charged with mostly negative connotations, and later by his move to South Africa, where it was overwritten by other, new categories, such as ‘white’, that were ascribed to him. His story shows how a migrant articulates academic, cultural, social and, later, also narrative capital in a struggle to construct his own individual and collective (for example, cosmopolitan) self beyond his nationality, and as such to provide new meaning to ‘Peruvian’, ‘white’ and other categories brought upon him. The chapter reflects not only upon different symbolic practices, mainly those taking place around food and that tend to reinforce national sentiments, but also on the different transnational connections and networks that contextually attribute different meanings to ‘Peruvianness’. Chapter 7 focuses on the importance of affect and sensory perception in an examination of how the three authors (Müller, Kruger and Ji-Hyeon) themselves made sense of their lives in new environments. Müller and Kruger reflect on their experiences as English teachers in South Korea and construct a collective biography, in juxtaposition with the experiences of Ji-Hyeon as a South Korean studying in Bloemfontein. By experimenting with an arts-based narrative approach, they explore the relation between education and migration, considering how the concepts of becoming, event and affect allow us to think about subjectivity. They propose that subjectivity is shaped through the unconscious act of sensing in relation to, for instance, a food product as ordinary as kimchi, a Korean dish of spicy pickled cabbage. They show that identity categories are deeply related to personal life stories, not only providing a sense of certainty and belonging (as Kurzwelly, Fernana and Ngum argue) but also relating to sensory experiences and affect, which in turn further reinforce these categories. In an auto-ethnographic exercise developed in Chapter 8, Del Monte’s story of becoming part of an international community of academic researchers investigates migration that is linked not to socio-economic or political factors but to scholastic pursuits in the increasingly global and neoliberal context of research, education and scholarship. Del Monte’s chapter is an illustration of the multiplicity of reasons, roles, motivations, identities and contingencies that may shape a person’s life project. It is an honest description of a polyphonic self who manoeuvres the precarious globalised system of higher education in order to become an author and academic. The very notion of ‘privilege’ is visibly relative in this life story. Besides the fact that he is a Spanish-speaking Argentinian-born Italian passport holder,12 the possibility of travelling the world and dedicating oneself to academic pursuits could be seen as a privilege. An academic position can certainly provide one with powerful symbolic capital. And yet, set in the contemporary global neoliberal academia, it is a position of relative economic precarity and anxiety about his future that forces him to migrate.

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The chapter thus speaks to this book’s methodological argument, illustrating how the ‘thick description’ (see Geertz 2017) of a life story aids in understanding the complexity of a person – an argument that we develop in Chapter 2 of this book. Chapter 9 examines migration through the prism of different types of capital. Mkwananzi explores the forms of capital that allowed for migration, how they changed in the process and how this affected both the individual and their environment. Her structural analysis provides insight into the struggles and conditions of success that feature in the migration for the purposes of higher education, as in the case of a student from Zimbabwe who later becomes a researcher. By examining ‘relative privilege’, it goes beyond identity categories and economic status to expose the complexity of privilege and the multiplicity of factors contributing to it. In Chapter 10, Agbedahin proposes to import the biological concept of morphogenesis into the social sciences as an analytical tool to examine the changes occurring in the lives of migrants in relation to the new system or structure that they inhabit. Drawing from the life story of a successful academic migrant couple from Zimbabwe, she employs a morphogenetic analysis to outline the different processes and stages in which transformations occurred in the lives of these individuals in relation to new structures they encountered in Bloemfontein and at UFS. In her analysis she divides the migratory process into stages, from the pre-migration history of agential and socio-structural conditioning, through the socio-cultural interactions that occurred, to agential and socio-structural elaboration and reproduction. Agbedahin’s theoretical framework, as Mkwananzi’s in the previous chapter, explains the different motivations and experiences of migration in a structured manner, which allows for potential cross-contextual comparison. Both chapters invite us to consider not only emic categorisations – how migrants experience and manage the contextually different categories ascribed to them – but also the etic problem of categorising for analytical purposes. Structural analysis allows comparison by assuming the commensurability of analytical categories. At the same time, it risks losing sense of specific qualitative differences and potentially reifies its own categories of analysis. Considering this, there is need for two seemingly contradictory approaches in social analysis – that of structure, which allows for comparison yet poses the risk of grouping qualitatively different phenomena and experiences, and that of particularity, which prioritises individual differences but risks making comparisons difficult or impossible. In their description of the life story of an Ethiopian businessman in Chapter 11, Agbedahin and Akalu give an example of such a juxtaposition by proposing to look at migration through the prism of ‘comforts and discomforts’. They point out that migration is always a relative and subjective experience, thus arguing for the necessity of subjective analytical categories over structuralist universals: or, what some consider to be comfort might be seen by others as discomfort, a qualitative difference that a sweeping structuralist analysis might miss.

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The collection of chapters offered here illustrates how the migratory experience is intertwined with the experience of how changing identity categories – being categorised in new and often unexpected ways – shape a person’s life. In some cases, the newly ascribed identity categories have a negative impact on a person’s life. Such a migrant can resort to various strategies to manage identity categories and to navigate the new socio-cultural and political landscape. In many instances, strategies are conditioned by one’s socio-economic positionality, which allows a degree of protection, particularly from the most pernicious forms of violence that arise from reifying categorisation. This negotiation and managing is not always directly related to economic privilege – and can range from the adoption of fundamentalist ideologies, which afford greater value to the sense of self and a feeling of agency, to more subtle forms related to cooking, watching football or maintaining transnational networks. When newly ascribed identity categories carry positive connotations, some might choose to ignore how such privilege is rooted in injustice. The acceptance of a privileged position then involves a degree of ‘epistemic ignorance’, which obfuscates and enables inequality and discrimination. This book aims for a balance between two approaches: a description of the emic perspective of experiences and responses to categorisation; and an examination of whether etic categories and methods provide possibilities for overcoming the shortcomings of an overly structuralist analysis that risks confusing categories of analysis with categories of practice. The book argues for the benefits of the life story method, combined with the interpretative and methodological approaches – often from different disciplinary positions – offered in the individual chapters. It is evident that through an in-depth, qualitative description of individual life stories even the more structuralist chapters escape the danger of imposing research categories onto their subjects. A deep engagement with people’s narratives and their life stories allows the avoidance of analytical reification. As we have mentioned above, in Chapter 2, Escobedo, Kurzwelly and Agbedahin examine the methodological and analytical benefits of this approach in greater detail. The aim of this book is to portray people in their complexity and diversity, escaping and transcending any simplistic categories (both emic and etic). Working with people’s life stories is a humanising endeavour that allows us to transcend reductionism and essentialism. In other words, life story research might be seen as what Abu-Lughod (1991) called ‘ethnographies of the particular’, a form of a ‘tactical humanism’ that opposes simplistic categorisation and fallacious and dangerous ways of ‘othering’ that social scientists have historically often been guilty of (Kurzwelly et al. 2020). At the same time, telling one’s life story is in itself a strategy that bears the potential of reclaiming one’s own interpretations and recognising the innate human plurality and ‘incompleteness’ (Nyamnjoh 2017) that go beyond reifying categories – a subject upon which we elaborate in the following chapter.

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Endnotes

1 Tafira (2018: 20–21) stresses that kwerekwere conveys ‘racial connotations’, and echoes Nyamnjoh (2006: 14) in understanding it as a derogatory label used by (many) ‘black’ South Africans to refer to ‘black’ African immigrants. Nyamnjoh (2006) indicates that Botswana nationals use this term similarly in reference to ‘black African immigrants’, and Landau and Pampalone (2018: 222) note that the label can also be applied against ‘people of particular [South African] ethnicities from South Africa’, who can also be affected by its articulation, especially in the context of heightened xenophobic violence. 2 The process of constructing a collective ‘we’ is interdependent with creating a ‘them’. By identifying others, one positions oneself, thus making assumptions and positing expectations, not only about individual and collective others, but also about oneself and members of one’s own in-group (see Brubaker 2013; Jenkins 1998). 3

‘Essentialism’ is the assumption that people or objects possess necessary characteristics, without which they would no longer be who they are. When applied to identities, it means assuming that a given identity is essential in defining a person. In contrast, following Kurzwelly, Rapport and Spiegel (2020), we see identities as accidental characteristics – as historically shaped and changeable parts of the condition of people’s contextual circumstance, rather than their essence.

4

‘Intersectionality’ can be a useful term here, as long as one does not see the intersection as a static assembly of essential characteristics of a person but as a fluid assemblage of class positionality and situationally ascribed roles and identities shaping one’s circumstance.

5 For Frankenberg (1993: 43–44), social geography of race refers to ‘the racial and ethnic mapping of environments in physical and social terms’, where geography denotes ‘the physical landscape – the home, the street, the neighbourhood, the school, parts of town visited or driven through rarely or regularly, places visited on vacation’. 6 For examples of critique of ‘multiculturalism’ from a cosmopolitan liberal and Marxian position, see Rapport (2011) and Azeri (2013), respectively. 7

The concept of ‘strategic essentialism’ has been widely attributed to Spivak (1988). She later distanced herself from advocating for strategic uses of identities (Danius et al. 1993; see also Spiegel 2020). Despite our sympathy with many of the grievances raised by ‘strategic essentialist’ movements, we follow Kurzwelly et al. (2020) in recognising all essentialism as based on an erroneous logic and as potentially dangerous.

8

Nyamnjoh (2006: 14) observes that Botswana nationals use this term similarly in reference to ‘black African immigrants’. Landau and Pampalone (2018: 222) note that the label has also been applied against ‘people of particular [South African] ethnicities’, especially in the context of heightened xenophobic violence.

9

More than a decade after the infamous events of 2008, the argument that xenophobic violence is rooted in categorisation still requires to be made (Crush J, Us and them mentality: Labelling people as ‘foreigners’ breeds xenophobia, Daily Maverick, 3 October 2019. Accessed October 2019, https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-03-us-and-them-mentality-labellingpeople-as-foreigners-breeds-xenophobia/).

10 The province of the Free State has historically enjoyed much scholarly attention in terms of migration from Lesotho (see, for example, Crush et al. 1991; Mokoena & Balkaran 2018; Moletsane et al. 2017; Sechaba Consultants 1997; Viljoen & Wentzel 2007). In this book we move beyond this focus. 11 Parla (2019) offers the useful differentiation between precariousness and vulnerability. Precariousness exists in an individual’s relation to more powerful others, and in the relation of

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the individual’s current situation to a prior state of greater security (whether experienced or imagined). Vulnerability is ‘the ever-present danger and possibility of being hurt in the act of living’ (Parla 2019). The presence of relative privilege clearly does not mean that an individual is not vulnerable to, for example, violent crime. 12 Like in some other cases presented in this book, citizenship here can be approached as a form of transnational capital (see Lundström 2014: 79–80).

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Erwin K & Grest J (2018) Trace your finger down a map and you will see how far I have come...: Strategic report on migration and the inclusive city in Durban, South Africa. Democracy Development Program (DDP), Urban Futures Centre (DUT), ASONET in collaboration with Empatheatre. Accessed September 2019, http://durbanmigration.org.za/wp-content/ uploads/2018/08/StrategicReport2018.pdf Frankenberg R (1993) White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Geertz C (2017) The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (3rd edition). New York: Basic Books Gibson JL & Claassen C (2010) Racial reconciliation in South Africa: Interracial contact and changes over time. Journal of Social Issues 66(2): 255–272 Goldberg DT (1993) Racist cultures: Philosophy and politics of meaning. Oxford: Blackwell Goldberg DT (2002) The racial state. Malden: Blackwell Gordon SL (2017) Waiting for the barbarians: A public opinion analysis of South African attitudes towards international migrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies 40(10): 1700–1719 Govinda M, Body K & Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town (2017) In my shoes: 40 original stories from refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers. Cape Town: Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town Grillo RD (2003) Cultural essentialism and cultural anxiety. Anthropological Theory 3(2): 157–173 Hacking I (1992) Making up people. In E Stein (Ed.) Forms of desire: Sexual orientation and the social constructionist controversy. New York: Routledge Horowitz DL (1985) Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press Horowitz DL (2001) The deadly ethnic riot. Berkeley: University of California Press HRW (Human Rights Watch) (1998) Prohibited persons: Abuse of undocumented migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees in South Africa. New York: HRW Jansen J (2017) Making love in a war zone: Interracial loving and learning after apartheid. Johannesburg: Bookstorm Jenkins R (1998) Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations. London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE Jenkins R (2000) Categorization: Identity, social process and epistemology. Current Sociology 48(3): 7–25 Kerr P, Durrheim K & Dixon J (2019) Xenophobic violence and struggle discourse in South Africa. Journal of Asian and African Studies 54(7): 995–1011 Kucherera O (2015) Kwerekwere (poem). FunDza Literacy Trust. Accessed October 2019, https:// live.fundza.mobi/home/fanz/poetry/kwerekwere/ Kurzwelly J, Rapport N & Spiegel A (2020) Encountering, explaining and refuting essentialism. Anthropology Southern Africa 43(2): 65–81 Landau LB & Pampalone T (Eds) (2018) I want to go home forever: Stories of becoming and belonging in South Africa’s great metropolis. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Lundström C (2014) White migrations: Gender, whiteness and privilege in transnational migration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

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Matsinhe DM (2011) Africa’s fear of itself: The ideology of makwerekwere in South Africa. Third World Quarterly 32(2): 295–313 Modiri JM (2012) The colour of law, power and knowledge: Introducing critical race theory in (post-)apartheid South Africa. South African Journal on Human Rights 28(3): 405–436 Mokoena SK & Balkaran S (2018) An exploration of constraints for free movement of people in Africa: A case of Lesotho and South Africa. African Journal of Public Affairs 10(2): 109–126 Moletsane M, Coetzee JK & Rau A (2017) Life as a stranger: Experiences of labor migrants from Lesotho. Qualitative Sociology Review 13(1): 74–91 Neocosmos M (2006) From ‘foreign natives’ to ‘native foreigners’: Explaining xenophobia in postapartheid South Africa: Citizenship and nationalism, identity and politics. Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Nyamnjoh FB (2006) Insiders and outsiders: Citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary southern Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA Nyamnjoh FB (2010) Racism, ethnicity and the media in Africa: Reflections inspired by studies of xenophobia in Cameroon and South Africa. Africa Spectrum 45(1): 57–93 Nyamnjoh FB (2017) Incompleteness: Frontier Africa and the currency of conviviality. Journal of Asian and African Studies 52(3): 253–270 Omi M & Winant H (1994) Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge Parla A (2019) Precarious hope: Migration and the limits of belonging in Turkey (Kindle edition). Stanford: Stanford University Press Pease B (2010) Undoing privilege: Unearned advantage in a divided world. London: Zed Rapport N (2000) ‘Criminals by instinct’: On the ‘tragedy’ of social structure and the ‘violence’ of individual creativity. In G Aijmer and J Abbink (Eds) Meanings of violence: A cross-cultural perspective. Oxford: Berg Rapport N (2011) The liberal treatment of difference: An untimely meditation on culture and civilization. Current Anthropology 52(5): 687–710 Rapport N (2020) Britain and Brexit: Imagining an essentialist sense of ‘Britishness’ and navigating among ‘the British’. Anthropology Southern Africa 43(2): 94–106 Roth WD (2012) Race migrations: Latinos and the cultural transformation of race. Stanford: Stanford University Press SAMP (South African Migration Project) (2008) The perfect storm: The realities of xenophobia in contemporary South Africa. Migration Policy Series No. 50, SAMP, Cape Town Sechaba Consultants (1997) Riding the tiger: Lesotho miners and permanent residence in South Africa. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project & Institute for Democracy in South Africa Simmel G (1971/1908) How is society possible? In D Levine (Ed.) On individuality and social forms: Selected writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Spiegel A (2020) Sheep, herbs and blood on the beach: Discrepant representations of ritual acts for essentialising and reinforcing difference in contemporary South Africa. Anthropology Southern Africa 43(2): 143–155

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Spivak GC (1988) Introduction. Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing historiography. In R Guha and GC Spivak (Eds) Selected subaltern studies. New York: Oxford University Press Stanton GH (2004) Could the Rwandan genocide have been prevented? Journal of Genocide Research 6(2): 211–228 Stanton G (2005) Early warning. In DL Shelton (Ed.) Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity. Detroit: Thomson-Gale Stolcke V (1995) Talking culture: New boundaries, new rhetorics of exclusion in Europe. Current Anthropology 36(1): 1–24 Tafira HK (2018) Xenophobia in South Africa: A history. Johannesburg: Palgrave Macmillan Taguieff P-A (1990) The new cultural racism in France. Telos 83: 109–122 Viljoen J & Wentzel M (2007) The impact of cross-border movement on South African towns on the Lesotho border. Acta Academica 39(2): 118–138 Vincent L (2008) The limitations of ‘inter-racial contact’: Stories form young South Africa. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(8): 1426–1451 Whitehead AN (1978) Process and reality: An essay in cosmology. New York: Free Press

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Transcending social categories: Reflections on research concerning migrant lives, lived experiences and life stories Luis Escobedo, Jonatan Kurzwelly and Komlan Agbedahin

Confronted by violent categorisation, migrants tend to look for ways to negotiate and manoeuvre the meanings of social categories ascribed to them. The migrant life stories analysed in this book point to the importance of relative privilege in this endeavour.1 The different chapters show that one way in which individuals exercise a level of privilege is in and through their narratives. Individuals can have a surplus of narrative capital – capital here denoting the resources and commodities available and useful in relations of power. Yet, if the actual opportunities for these individuals to tell stories, especially to be listened to, are not present in the first place, their capacity and ability to employ or develop such a capital are inhibited (Watts 2008). One’s lack of proficiency in a particular language, the presence of adverse sentiments towards the addresser, the unsuitability of a platform from which to tell stories, and numerous other factors may, in different ways and degrees, stand in the way of individual migrants’ articulations of their own meanings. Such a lack of opportunity to employ or develop narrative capital affects not only the vulnerable economic migrant but also the supposedly privileged foreign researcher working in precarious conditions, the member of the transnational mobile elite entirely dependent on the spouse’s financial support, or any other form of migrant. But when opportunities do exist, storytelling constitutes a resource that immigrants – regardless of background or type of migration – can employ in response to violent categorisation: it offers a means to oppose reductive categories and negotiate the interpretation of themselves as complex individuals. We consider our research process as an opportunity to develop narrative capital beyond this project. By employing narrative life story research as the guiding methodology, our aim as editors and contributors is to address, to such an extent as is possible, immigrants as individuals, in Burridge’s (1979) understanding of the word: not as ‘persons’ embodying categories of thought and behaviour provided by socio-historical conditions but as ‘individuals’ that can transform and transcend said conditions. Engaging with migrants’ life stories provides a fuller and more complex depiction of them and their social identities. In this chapter we reflect on this methodology. We argue that narrative life story research allows us to understand and represent individuals beyond reductive social categories, and in this way to transcend these categories. This is a particularly important argument to make in

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present-day South Africa, where the legacies of colonialism and apartheid continue to influence local, or emic, and analytical, or etic, perspectives, and where migrants continue to become victims of xenophobic attacks.2 Xenophobia and other hateful and discriminatory worldviews usually operate on simplistic binaries of ‘us versus them’, which are often justified by the ascribed difference, incompatibility or ‘otherness’ of those excluded. One example in contemporary South Africa is the large-scale anti-foreigner violence that broke out in 2015, following the allegation that a Somali shopkeeper in Soweto had killed a South African teenager (Landau & Pampalone 2018: 9). More recently, collective attacks in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal between August and September 2019 were carried out under a similar logic, on the basis of a nihilistically violent categorisation of non-South Africans, particularly those belonging to certain groups.3 The more recent events were said to be connected to the killing of a South African taxi driver by an individual of ‘foreign descent’,4 and to attacks reportedly perpetrated by ‘foreign nationals’ on police officers attempting to confiscate their ‘counterfeit’ or ‘illegal’ goods a few weeks before.5 The 2015 and 2019 attacks add to a long list of heightened xenophobic violence perpetrated in South Africa since 1994 (see Crush & Ramachandran 2014a: 27–41; Landau & Pampalone 2018: 194–218; Matsinhe 2011: 304–308; Misago et al. 2009: 23–24). Particularly appalling were the infamous events of 2008, when more than 60 people were killed, hundreds wounded, dozens raped and 100 000 displaced, their properties looted, vandalised and burnt down (Misago et al. 2009; SAHRC 2010). Explanations for this violence ranged from socio-economic issues (for example, Amisi et al. 2011), ‘black-on-black’ racism (for example, Tafira 2011; 2018), widespread xenophobic attitudes (for example, Crush & Ramachandran 2014a) and the perception of indifference to the local political struggles (for example, Monson 2015). However, explanations that reduce the largescale, anti-foreigner violence to a single issue, ignoring the variety of other factors that interact with it, may be deterministic (Kerr et al. 2019). Instead, it is important to understand the ‘intergroup situation’ between South Africans and migrants from other parts of Africa, one mediated by systems of beliefs and stereotypes, or meanings, about the collective self and the collective other (Kerr et al. 2019; see also Durrheim & Dixon 2005). In line with this argument and distinguishing between self- or group identification and categorisation (Jenkins 2000), this book focuses mostly on categorisation, from both underprivileged and privileged positions (see Chapter 1). Categorisation, essentialism and reductionism, operating on an ‘us versus them’ division, are, as we have suggested, potentially dangerous, and large-scale, anti-foreigner violence is but one way in which they are expressed.6 Stanton argues that ‘most genocide does not result from conflict’, even if ‘one of the most common assumptions about genocide is that it is the result of conflict, which, if resolved, would prevent [it]’ (Stanton 2005: 217, emphasis added). In his original eight-stage model of genocide, he draws attention to ‘early warnings’ such as classification, symbolisation and

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dehumanisation, practices that are often ignored in, or seen as separate from, the unfolding of a genocide (Stanton 2004). This approach can be useful in understanding apartheid, the crime against humanity associated with South Africa.7 In the aftermath of this atrocity, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) acknowledged that in its hearings it had failed to address ‘the more mundane but nonetheless traumatising dimensions of apartheid life that affected every single black South African’ (TRC 1998: 133). The role of categorisation is central to what the TRC referred to here, especially considering that apartheid was strongly backed by legal instruments that had the purpose of classifying and organising people hierarchically, in racial terms, for example, the Population Registration Act of 1950. While these legal instruments were formally repealed as South Africa transitioned towards majority rule, the forms of violent categorisation they established or emphasised continue to influence social identification in the post-apartheid era (Gordon 2017: 1702; see also Goldberg 2002). It is important to take this into consideration when looking at the present relations between South Africans and non-South Africans, the way they construct each other and themselves, and the potential danger of the categories ascribed based on particular consented meanings, values, myths and stereotypes. For example, Matsinhe (2011), Nyamnjoh (2006), Tafira (2018) and others observe that a derogatory category like makwerekwere bears racial connotations, affecting primarily ‘black’ African migrants and potentially making them the principal victims of more heightened expressions of xenophobia. However, this book shows that while only certain migrants have become the target of large-scale xenophobic violence, migrants in general are subject to reifying essentialist categorisation. It is in reply to this that narratives play a critical role. Senehi and her colleagues (2009: 91) observe that ‘one of the ways in which systems of injustice and violence operate most effectively is by disconnecting, disassociating, and dislocating people from their personal and social histories, that is, by disconnecting them from their stories’. Reducing a variety of individuals and groups to their particular nationalities or to alternative and at times even derogatory classifications can be considered an act of simplistic and depersonalising categorisation that underpins these disconnections, disassociations and dislocations of people from their own histories and stories (Senehi et al. 2009). The stories of those individuals associated with non-dominant, or non-core, groups are distorted and silenced in the face of dominant groups or public discourse (Delgado & Stefancic 2001).8 Addressing this, Landau and Pampalone (2018) created a podium for immigrants and South Africans to tell their life stories and migratory experiences around the recurring xenophobic violence in South Africa, in the edited book, I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in South Africa’s Great Metropolis. This collection of stories is based on interviews with both local and foreign Johannesburg dwellers in the aftermath of the 2015 outbreak of anti-foreigner violence. The juxtaposition of local and foreign voices exposes how

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essentialist social categories ascribed to foreign individuals and groups in South Africa are dangerous and can, though do not necessarily have to, lead to a stage where other forms and levels of violence against these foreigners become possible.9 Some of the stories in Landau and Pampalone’s volume reveal this potentiality, such as the story by Alphonse Nahimana from Rwanda whose account was collected and presented by Suzy Bernstein. The following excerpt reveals the narrator’s vulnerable situation: I heard them use the name of kwerekwere. I was thinking if they find out that I am a foreigner, I might be next. I was scared of losing my life. That’s why I pretended to be deaf. I knew if I spoke, you will know I am not South African. I don’t know formal sign language, but if I was approached by someone, I would shrug my shoulders, shake my head, looking confused, putting my hands up until the person knows that this person can’t speak. Even until now, every time I use public transport I know exactly where I’m going, and the price. I bring the right change. I don’t want to ask for change. I don’t want to talk to anyone when I’m in a taxi. (Bernstein 2018: 159) Nahimana’s story is that of a vulnerable migrant subjugated by violent categorisation, one that can potentially escalate to more brutal and physical forms of violence. Yet the violence of categorisation also affects the lives of individuals who are in a more privileged position than Nahimana and less exposed to the most heightened forms of xenophobia. One example is Lin in her 2019 account Yellow and Confused: Born in Taiwan, Raised in South Africa, and Making Sense of it All. Born in Taiwan and raised in Bloemfontein by Taiwanese ‘immigrant parents’, Lin exposes in her story an intersection of racist, xenophobic and sexist categories that persist in present-day South Africa and identification practices common to ‘East Asian’ homes and social spaces that she navigates. Confronted by violent categorisation, she engages with narratives based on her life story and migratory experiences: The problem with growing up as an immigrant in South Africa is that we were taught to tolerate the discriminative behaviour; to be submissive, understanding and avoid unnecessary confrontation. It has left deep scars. It makes us an angry and bitter generation…As an Asian South African, I realise that as a group we have, unknowingly, formed our own ‘new’ culture. We’ve shared similar negative experiences in post-apartheid South Africa, and as a group we are invisibilised in the country we call home. We have been tolerant and understanding, and have avoided confrontations wherever possible, but it’s tiring…That’s why I write. (Lin 2019: 39–40, emphasis added) Like Nahimana’s account, Lin’s story does more than merely display how categorisation affects her migratory experience and life in general. It also attests to the fact that narratives comprise a basic condition for the constitution of meaningful human life; in

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other words, each individual is a homo narrans, or a ‘storytelling human’, as Niles (1998) has suggested. Rapport (2000: 56) rightly notes that ‘the writing of narrative is a vitally important form of doing, and a means by which individuals give an individual form or structure to the worlds around them’. Narratives unify and create meaning, allowing us to make sense of an otherwise incoherent and disunified existence. It is through narratives that we form a personal identity, the belief that we are each a continuous and persistent person across time (Dennett 1992; cf. Kurzwelly 2019a). In other words, formulating a narration of a person’s life is not just a matter of reflection but also the active creation of oneself. Lin’s and Nahimana’s stories are thus, among other things, illustrations of how storytelling helps migrants of greatly different backgrounds reconnect with their stories, shape their identities and forge their own meanings, while identifying and challenging hierarchies of power (see Delgado 1989; Watts 2008) and contributing new value and knowledge to the local community (see Cruikshank 1998; Cruikshank et al. 1990). Narratives enable migrants to highlight their individuality and so transcend the social categories ascribed to them, while allowing for the recognition of the humanity that they have in common with one another, with migrants in general, with their readers and listeners, and beyond. The humanising aspect of narratives resonates with Lyotard’s (1988) concerns around the concept of the ‘differend’, which he explains using the concept of litigation. Litigation, in its legal sense, takes place where ‘a single rule of judgment’ is applied in a dispute between at least two parties, hence making said dispute resolvable (Lyotard 1988: xi). In the case of the differend, however, a universal rule of judgment is absent between parties, so that the conflict is not equitably resolvable: ‘The differend is the unstable state and instant of language wherein something which must be able to be put into phrases cannot yet be’ (Lyotard 1988: 13). Lyotard explains it further by referring to different genres of discourse, which supply different sets of ‘phrases’ arising from particular phrase regimens and aiming at fulfilling particular goals (Lyotard 1988: xii). The differend emerges in this context of heterogeneity, provided by the gap between different subjective endeavours. Considering the presence of conflicts and the absence of a ‘universal genre of discourse to regulate them’, the problem of the differend is precisely to find something that legitimates judgment (Lyotard 1988). Relating to xenophobia in South Africa, the differend presents itself where claims against it are rendered silent, irrelevant or unsuitable in the face of denialist, minimalist, determinist and related narratives that have been normalised to such an extent that they have the ability to dominate, for example, the political and public discourses. Overcoming the differend, in Lyotard’s (1988: 8) view, lies in the ability of the ‘victim’ to demonstrate that one has been done a wrong as ‘reality is always the plaintiff ’s responsibility’: To give the differend its due is to institute new addressees, new addressors, new significations, and new referents in order for the wrong to find an expression and for the plaintiff to cease being a victim. This requires new rules for the formation and linking of phrases. No one

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doubts that language is capable of admitting these new phrase families or new genres of discourse. Every wrong ought to be able to be put into phrases. (Lyotard 1988: 13) Drawing on Lyotard, Delgado and Stefancic (2001: 43–44) state that narratives ‘provide a language to bridge the gaps in imagination and conception that give rise to the differend’. Narratives, they suggest, call attention to the evidence that has been neglected, influence our beliefs and practices and, most importantly, remind us of our common humanity. Narratives thus have the potential to challenge the alienation of marginalised groups, while offering dominant groups and discourses the opportunity ‘to meet them halfway’. The stories of Lin and Nahimana illustrate how storytelling allows migrants in South Africa to transcend simplistic categories by claiming their ‘individuality’ (Burridge 1979) in the face of dominant groups and narratives. There are a number of other perceptive narratives of vulnerable migration to and within South Africa. Steinberg’s A Man of Good Hope (2015) exposes the persisting uncertainty, vulnerability, fear and danger surrounding Asad Abdullahi’s everyday identification as Somali, or ‘foreigner’, and is a story of resilience, creativity and life-making. Christie (2016) presents a biographical and ethnographic exploration of the journey of a group of Tanzanian stowaways referred to as ‘Beachboys’, and Kucherera (2018) presents a compilation of short stories and poems. Mofokeng’s The Last Stop (2017) is the fictional story of endurance of the deeply distressed Mozambican taxi-driver named Macko who does not cease to stand for his humanity amongst dehumanising circumstances that combine normalised and widespread xenophobia, violence, corruption and police repression. Like Nahimana, one of the few resources he has available is simply remaining silent so that he cannot be identified as ‘foreigner’. This strategy mirrors Delgado and Stefancic’s (2001: 42) suggestion that ‘attacking embedded preconceptions that marginalise others or conceal their humanity is a legitimate function of all fiction’. Alongside these migrant narratives are stories that, like Lin’s (2019), portray violent categorisation, sometimes in ways that blur the distinction between xenophobia and racism, while also reflecting upon how privilege is used in dealing with this violence (see, for example, Kikamba 2005; Mtawarira 2019; Soba 2015; Taruvinga 2019). Working with the life stories of international migrants in Bloemfontein and in general requires not only sensitivity towards the reductionist categorisations with which they are often confronted in the receiving society but also demands that we contest these as analytical, as research practices can have the effect of reproducing and perpetuating them. Scholars have pointed out the benefits of working with life stories and detailed ethnographic accounts, instead of with structurally over-determined identities and simplistic categorisations (or identity politics). Rapport has argued that the individual discloses the human. ‘Humanistic narratives’ portray the efforts to make meaning that are common to the lives of Everyone.

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Through the stories of particular lives, of individuals amid the histories of their own particularities, social science can offer a global authority to the possible authenticity of individually conducted lives. (Rapport 2009: 199) Abu-Lughod (1991) called such approaches ‘ethnographies of the particular’, a form of ‘tactical humanism’ that opposes simplistic and fallacious categorisations intended to freeze and solidify differences between groups of people and resulting in forms of ‘othering’ that anthropology and other social sciences were, and often still are, guilty of (see Kurzwelly et al. 2020). Some of the life story research in South Africa on migration has certainly been wary of this, resulting in a turn towards creative and respectful ways of working with migrants’ stories. The ‘Migration and Shaping the Inclusive City’ project juxtaposes the voices of local and foreign women, the oral histories of whom were collected in their mother tongues in a participatory and inclusive endeavour (Erwin & Grest 2018). The project also combined different methods of storytelling, such as dialogue sessions, radio talk shows and community participatory theatre. Another important work is that of Kihato (2013) in which the author, herself ‘a migrant woman from Kenya’, develops an ‘engaged relationship with respondents’, partly due to her ability to communicate in Kiswahili. This relationship allows her to see ‘the complexities of urban realities among migrant women’, with a particular focus on their agency (Kihato 2013: xiii–xv, 9). Complementarily,10 Kihato turns not only to the oral method of storytelling but also the visual one: photographs that the migrant women themselves took ‘of their everyday lives’ provided more than a ‘visual confirmation of migrant women’s material conditions’. In addition, the images allowed the women to exercise their own agency and ‘talk back’ to society, challenge dominant narratives, shape their identities, construct meanings and unveil their humanity: Their images overturn iconic representations of displaced and marginalised populations, depicted in the press as victims who are vulnerable, weak, and desperate. They produce images of resistance, in which they overtly project how they want us to see them in the city – as respected members of the community with a self-consciousness about looking ‘good’ in front of the camera…By taking control of the camera, these marginalised women ‘talk back’ to society, sometimes resisting stereotypical representations and sometimes reinforcing them, but all the while choosing how to (sic) they want us to see them in the city. (Kihato 2013: 12) Melanie Govinda highlights the humanising nature of storytelling that she observed during the process of editing In My Shoes (Govinda et al. 2017), a compilation of 40 short stories written by first-generation African migrants studying English at the Scalabrini Centre in Cape Town.11 The humanity of the contributors emerged not only when they told or wrote their stories but also in their engagement in various workshops, conversations, photo shootings, public readings, question and answer sessions, interviews and other activities before, during and after the production

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of the volume. Being read, listened to and engaged with in multiple ways was as important for the authors as the actual act of telling their stories: ‘eight students were sitting there [at the book launch] and telling their stories...They were just thrilled by people asking them questions: “Why are people asking them questions and treating them like they are normal humans and not criminals?”’ The researchers in Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers have followed these contributions and other works engaging in migrants’ experiences and narratives (see, for example, Hölscher 2016; Mkwananzi 2019; Owen 2015) in two ways. First, they have been mindful of the risk of falling into simplistic and fallacious categorisations when allowing life story research to provide a space in which the participants could speak freely. Second, they have been as critical and self-reflexive as possible when faced with forms of categorisation, especially considering the peculiarities of the South African and other contexts where they have lived before. Our method of choice was thus not simply drawing on the benefits of storytelling and conducting life story research but engaging in a collaborative process in which the storytelling and dialogue between emic and etic perspectives unfolded in a space where migrants acted as interlocutors, thinkers and storytellers in their own right. In this way, the questions asked, the conversations developed and the stories told all became subject to the way storytellers and listeners identified with each other. This exchange affected knowledge, experience and identity (see Fine & Speer 1991: 10). In other words, the researcher also participated as storyteller and the participant as listener and analyst. This is evident in the adoption of, among others, co-authorship. Wahab (2005: 47) argues that this kind of co-operation ‘offers an opportunity for a space in which to contest issues, in which the researcher is not only called upon to be reflexive, but critical of his/her own positioning, politics, interests, and desires’. Thus, when Escobedo, Gómez-Arias and Castillo began working on their chapter (Chapter 6), there was a moment when the participants spontaneously started asking questions, of each other and of the researcher. This engagement led to their choice of subject and their co-authorship and turned the research process into a joint effort. Several other chapters in this book were written in a similar fashion, where collaboration shaped both the stories and their analysis. In texts about migrants, nationality and citizenship are often the main lenses through which they are portrayed. To avoid this reduction, this book refers to national categories in terms of Brubaker’s (2013) distinction between ‘categories of practice’ and ‘categories of analysis’.12 Descriptors such as Cameroonian or Romanian, African or Latin American are thus used as categories for meaning-making that can be reshaped or even transcended. For example, in situations where migrants live alongside people of other nationalities, they can define what their own nationality means or negate this category altogether. The focus on stories enables the contributors to this book to remain sensitive to these forms of reshaping and to avoid falling into ‘methodological nationalism’ by assuming national identification as fundamental and primary to the human existence (Vasilev 2019: 501–503).13

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The starting point for this book was thus not one of choosing migrants from particular countries or regions to focus on. Instead, researchers chose participants at the own discretion, and these participants explained their identities in their own terms and narrated their life stories by focusing on those aspects they deemed significant. The result is a subject-extensive and analytically polyphonous book. Storytelling in the research process took many forms. Apart from oral and written storytelling and the use of photographs (Amaral), research projects used forms such as drawing (Müller and Kruger) and food (Amaral; Escobedo, Gómez-Arias and Castillo; Müller and Kruger; Agbedahin and Akalu). Researchers and participants alike built spaces where they could share their personal stories more spontaneously, for example while cooking together or playing or watching sports. Many different languages, in additional to English, were used to tell stories, sometimes on their own, sometimes in combination: Amharic (Agbedahin and Akalu), French (Kurzwelly, Fernana and Ngum), Portuguese (Amaral), and Spanish (Del Monte; Escobedo, Gómez-Arias and Castillo). Because this book is being produced in English and in an academic genre, researchers engaged in teaching and translation processes to ensure, to the extent possible, that the participants contribute to the co-construction of knowledge freely. The research project also involved the creation and maintenance of a space of dialogue and exchange between editors and authors. At a symposium in October 2018, the different contributors to this book gave a first presentation of their projects. This was followed by a multistage peer-review and feedback process among editors and contributors, with written comments and discussions in face-to-face meetings. Contributors have maintained and developed forms and degrees of collaboration that reach far beyond the group and institution involved in this book project. Finally, the contributors as a collective made the ethical decision to publish the book with a South African press, and a very particular press at that: arguing that migrants must be seen as complex and diverse humans beyond the simplistic social categories ascribed to them, and considering the post-apartheid South African context, we have chosen HSRC Press for its practice of distributing free digital copies. This will allow this book to cross state, economic and other types of borders freely. It is our hope that the act of migrating, thinking and storytelling continues to transcend borders and make communication among human beings increasingly richer, more peaceful and freer. We hope that this edited book honours that pursuit. Endnotes 1

See Chapter 1 for the discussion of violent categorisation and relative privilege.

2

Comaroff (1998), Goldberg (2002) and others have been critical about South Africa’s postapartheid multiculturalism and non-racialism. More recently, authors such as Gordon (2017), Matsinhe (2011) and Tafira (2018) have engaged these or similar perspectives in their observations of the current relations between South Africans and non-South Africans (see Chapter 1).

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3

Not all non-citizens are equally excluded (Anderson 2010: 63). In South Africa, large-scale, anti-foreigner violence has not affected all non-South Africans, and those affected have not all been affected in the same way. Matsinhe (2011), Nyamnjoh (2006), Tafira (2018) and others have indicated that the main targets of heightened expressions of xenophobic violence have been ‘black’ African immigrants. However, migrants from certain parts of Asia have also been targeted, as well as some South African citizens (see Crush & Ramachandran 2014b; HRW 1998; Landau & Pampalone 2018).

4

Bosch E, ‘We don’t want to make him a martyr’: Slain taxi driver’s brother, Sunday Times, 29 August 2019; Mahlangu I, Tshwane taxi bosses distance themselves from ongoing violent protests and looting of shops, The Sowetan, 4 September 2019.

5

Bhengu C, Attacks on police by foreigners and the seizure of ‘counterfeit’ goods: A timeline, Sunday Times, 5 August 2019; Naidoo S, Attack on police allegedly by foreign nationals strategically planned, SABC News, 3 August 2019. See Crush’s commentary on the potential danger that the persisting categorisation of non-South Africans (some of them in particular) as ‘foreigners’ in public discourse can pose to their lives amid the continuous outbreaks of large-scale xenophobic violence (Crush J, Us and them mentality: Labelling people as ‘foreigners’ breeds xenophobia, Daily Maverick, 3 October 2019). https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-03-us-andthem-mentality labelling-people-as-foreigners-breeds-xenophobia/. Heleta similarly discusses the role that political discourse has played in categorising non-South Africans as ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’, making the latter vulnerable to xenophobic attitudes and behaviours (Heleta S, Xenophobia and party politics in South Africa, Mail & Guardian, 3 September 2019).

6

See Chapter 5 in this book, where Kurzwelly, Fernana and Ngum discuss xenophobia as a form of radicalism.

7

We refer to apartheid as a crime against humanity following the definition provided by the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (n.d.). This allows us to differentiate it from genocide and other mass atrocities.

8

Considering that we are speaking about migrants, we prefer Mylonas’s (2013) differentiation between core and non-core groups over the majority/minority binary. Non-core group members, while conscious of their difference, are not necessarily mobilised around it and do not enjoy legal status or official recognition as minorities usually are; some may even belong to the demographic core group yet be subjected to stereotypes (Mylonas 2013: 27).

9

Prior to or coinciding with the xenophobic violence of 2008, Crush (2008), Neocosmos (2006) and Nyamnjoh (2006), among others, offered some reflections upon the potential danger of violent categorisation.

10 For a discussion of complementarity, see Rapport (1997); on the complementarity of the storytelling method with participatory photography, see Kurzwelly (2019b). 11 M Govinda, personal communication, 2 February 2019. 12 Brubaker (2013: 6) emphasises that the use of a term as a category of practice does not disqualify it from being used as a category of analysis. His concern is not what categories should be used but how they are used. 13 The chapter by Escobedo, Gómez-Arias and Castillo shows how, even when the main focus is on national identity itself, storytelling allows participants to bring into play other aspects of their lives, such as the education they enjoyed in their country of origin, friendships they developed abroad or the way their identities have changed through the years.

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References Abu-Lughod L (1991) Writing against culture. In R Fox (Ed.), Recapturing anthropology. Working in the present. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press Amisi B, Bond P, Cele N & Ngwane T (2011) Xenophobia and civil society: Durban’s structured social divisions. Politikon 38(1): 59–83 Anderson B (2010) Mobilizing migrants, making citizens: Migrant domestic workers as political agents. Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(1): 60–74 Bernstein S (2018) One day is one day. In LB Landau & T Pampalone (Eds) I want to go home forever: Stories of becoming and belonging in South Africa’s great metropolis. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Brubaker R (2013) Categories of analysis and categories of practice: A note on the study of Muslims in European countries of immigration. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(1): 1–8 Burridge K (1979) Someone, no one: An essay on individuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press Christie S (2016) Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard: Life among the stowaways. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Comaroff JL (1998) Reflections on the colonial state, in South Africa and elsewhere: Factions, fragments, facts and fictions. Social Identities 4(3): 321–361 Cruikshank J (1998) The social life of stories: Narrative and knowledge in the Yukon territory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press Cruikshank J, Sidney A, Smith K & Ned A (1990) Life lived like a story: Life stories of three Yukon elders. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press Crush J (Ed.) (2008) The perfect storm: The realities of xenophobia in contemporary South Africa. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project Crush J & Ramachandran S (2014a) Xenophobic violence in South Africa: Denialism, minimalism, realism. SAMP & IMRC Migration Policy Series No. 66, Southern African Migration Programme & International Migration Research Centre, Cape Town and Waterloo Crush J & Ramachandran S (2014b) Migrant entrepreneurship, collective violence and xenophobia in South Africa. SAMP & IMRC Migration Policy Series No. 67, South African Migration Programme & International Migration Research Centre, Cape Town and Waterloo Delgado R (1989) Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review 87(8): 2411–2441 Delgado R & Stefancic J (2001) Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press Dennett D (1992) The self as a center of narrative gravity. In F Kessel, P Cole & D Johnson (Eds) Self and consciousness: Multiple perspectives. Hillsdale: Erlbaum Durrheim K & Dixon J (2005) Studying talk and embodied practices: Toward a psychology of materiality of ‘race relations’. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 15(6): 446–460 Erwin K & Grest J (2018) Trace your finger down a map and you will see how far I have come...: Strategic report on migration and the inclusive city in Durban, South Africa. Democracy Development Program (DDP), Urban Futures Centre (DUT), ASONET in collaboration with Empatheatre. Accessed September 2019, http://durbanmigration.org.za/wp-content/ uploads/2018/08/StrategicReport2018.pdf

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Fine E & Speer JH (1991) Performance, culture, and identity. Westport: Praeger Goldberg DT (2002) The racial state. Malden: Blackwell Gordon SL (2017) Waiting for the barbarians: A public opinion analysis of South African attitudes towards international migrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies 40(10): 1700–1719 Govinda M, Body K & Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town (2017) In my shoes: 40 original stories from refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers. Cape Town: Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town Hölscher D (2016) Subjectivities of survival: Conceptualising just responses to displacement, cross-border migration and structural violence in South Africa. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk 52(1): 54–72 HRW (Human Rights Watch) (1998) Prohibited persons: Abuse of undocumented migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees in South Africa. New York: HRW Jenkins R (2000) Categorization: Identity, social process and epistemology. Current Sociology 48(3): 7–25 Kerr P, Durrheim K & Dixon J (2019) Xenophobic violence and struggle discourse in South Africa. Journal of Asian and African Studies 54(7): 995–1011 Kihato CW (2013) Migrant women of Johannesburg: Life in an in-between city. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Kikamba S (2005) Going home. Cape Town: Kwela Kucherera O (2018) Washing dishes and other stories. Cape Town: Oswald Kucherera Kurzwelly J (2019a) Being German, Paraguayan and Germanino: Exploring the relation between social and personal identity. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research 19(2): 144–156 Kurzwelly J (2019b) Photographic complementarity, and the story of Abel Pavon. Visual Anthropology 32(5): 460–475 Kurzwelly J, Rapport N & Spiegel A (2020) Encountering, explaining and refuting essentialism. Anthropology Southern Africa 43(2) Landau LB & Pampalone T (Eds) (2018) I want to go home forever: Stories of becoming and belonging in South Africa’s great metropolis. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Lin MC (2019) Yellow and confused: Born in Taiwan, raised in South Africa, and making sense of it all. Cape Town: Kwela Lyotard F (1988) The differend: Phrases in dispute. Translated by G van den Abbeele. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Matsinhe DM (2011) Africa’s fear of itself: The ideology of makwerekwere in South Africa. Third World Quarterly 32(2): 295–313 Misago JP, Landau LB & Monson T (2009) Towards tolerance, law, and dignity: Addressing violence against foreign nationals in South Africa. Pretoria: International Organization for Migration Mkwananzi F (2019) Higher education, youth and migration in contexts of disadvantage: Understanding aspirations and capabilities. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan

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Mofokeng T (2017) The last stop. Johannesburg: Jacana Monson T (2015) Everyday politics and collective mobilization against foreigners in a South African shack settlement. Africa 85(1): 131–153 Mtawarira T with A Capostagno (2019) Beast. Johannesburg: Macmillan Mylonas H (2013) The politics of nation-building: Making co-nationals, refugees, and minorities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Neocosmos M (2006) From ‘foreign natives’ to ‘native foreigners’: Explaining xenophobia in postapartheid South Africa: Citizenship and nationalism, identity and politics. Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Niles J (1998) Homo narrans: The poetics and anthropology of oral literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Nyamnjoh FB (2006) Insiders and outsiders: Citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary Southern Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA Owen J (2015) Congolese social networks: Living on the margins in Muizenberg, Cape Town. Lanham: Lexington Books Rapport N (1997) Edifying anthropology, culture as conversation: Representation as conversation. In A James, J Hockey & A Dawson (Eds) After writing culture, epistemology and praxis in contemporary anthropology. London: Routledge Rapport N (2000) Writing on the body: The poetic life-story of Philip Larkin. Anthropology & Medicine 7(1): 39–62 Rapport N (2009) Power and identity. In S Clegg & M Haugaard (Eds) The handbook of power. London: Sage SAHRC (South African Human Rights Commission) (2010) Report on the SAHRC investigation into issues of rule of law, justice and impunity arising out of the 2008 public violence against non-nationals. Johannesburg: SAHRC Senehi J, Flaherty M, Kirupakaran CS, Kornelsen L, Matenge M & Skarlato O (2009) Dreams of our grandmothers: Discovering the call for social justice through storytelling. Storytelling, Self, Society 5(2): 90–106 Soba G (2015) Black Norwegian. Bloomington: AuthorHouse Stanton GH (2004) Could the Rwandan genocide have been prevented? Journal of Genocide Research 6(2): 211–228 Stanton GH (2005) Early warning. In DL Shelton (Ed.) Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity. Detroit: Thomson-Gale Steinberg J (2015) A man of good hope. New York: Knopf Tafira K (2011) Is xenophobia racism? Anthropology Southern Africa 34(3–4): 114–121 Tafira HK (2018) Xenophobia in South Africa: A history. Johannesburg: Palgrave Macmillan Taruvinga TZ (2019) The educated waiter: Memoir of an African immigrant. Johannesburg: MF Books Joburg TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) (1998) Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, vol 1. Cape Town: TRC

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United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (n.d.) Crimes against humanity. Accessed May 2020, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimesagainst-humanity.shtml Vasilev G (2019) Methodological nationalism and the politics of history-writing: How imaginary scholarship perpetuates the nation. Nations and Nationalism 25(2): 499–522 Wahab A (2005) Consuming narratives: Questioning authority and the politics of representation in social science research. In GJ Sefa Dei & GS Johal (Eds) Critical issues in anti-racist research methodologies. New York: Peter Lang Watts M (2008) Narrative research, narrative capital, narrative capability. In J Satterthwaite, M Watts & H Piper (Eds) Talking truth, confronting power. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books

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From the mainland and from the colony: Essay on the life narrative of a Portuguese migrant in Bloemfontein Ana Rita Amaral

This chapter aims to be an empirical contribution to the debates on the diversity of migrant experiences in Bloemfontein and South Africa, particularly in relation to Portuguese late colonialism in Southern Africa and the population movements associated with its demise and the subsequent independence of Mozambique and Angola in 1975. It follows a narrative and processual approach to the life trajectory of a woman who migrated to Mozambique as a child in 1949, lived there for 40 years, and then migrated to Bloemfontein, where she has lived for the past 31 years. Considering the Portuguese case, an engagement with the colonial question from memories and biographical trajectories has been increasing, not only in intellectual debates and academic works but also in literary fiction, film and television. Throughout the text, I will refer to the relevant scholarship, so here I will briefly mention some examples of recent artistic and public instances of this topic. In literary fiction, two novels based on the stories of people who left Angola and Mozambique following decolonisation – Dulce Maria Cardoso’s O Retorno (2011) and Isabela Figueiredo’s Caderno de Memórias Coloniais (2009) – are today successfully published in Portuguese and English.1 In 2013, the Portuguese public channel RTP broadcasted a television series named Depois do Adeus (‘After the Farewell’), focused on the story of a group of retornados (returnees) leaving Luanda and arriving in Lisbon between 1974 and 1975.2 Finally, the municipality of Lisbon organised an exhibition, curated by anthropologist Elsa Peralta, entitled Retornar: Traços de Memória (‘To Return: Traces of Memory’), as the result of a larger research project on the topic (2015–2016).3 This type of life trajectory calls for an introductory reflection on categorisation and migration; on the relational, enmeshed and contextual nature of categories as well as their social and political implications. The chapter’s title – ‘From the mainland and from the colony’ – aims to highlight the interplay of categories present. This interplay will become evident as the narrative unfolds, and the long diachronic perspective is precisely one of its main strengths. It can be synthesised as follows. In a colonial context, such as Mozambique before 1975, ‘mainland’ and ‘colony’ were perceived and constituted in opposition, differentiating those who had migrated from the ‘mainland’ or the metropole from those who were ‘native’ to the colony.4 Despite the unity of meaning that these categories found in the empire as a political entity, and

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despite their internal aggregating effect, neither category was homogeneous. On the one hand, there were several types of migration from the metropole to the colonies: there were qualified people who migrated to occupy places in the administration or other services, but there were also rural and poor migrants whose displacement to the colony was framed by white settlement schemes promoted by the state (Castelo 2007).5 On the other hand, there were also different types of ‘native’, despite the common colonial perception of the indistinct and homogenous nature of the ‘native’ masses that had to be civilised (Jerónimo et al. 2010: 155). From the end of the 1920s, throughout the New State,6 several legal documents defined and regulated the category of ‘natives’, which was equated with the ‘non-civilised’ and opposed to the ‘civilised’.7 Assimilation, that is, the possibility of becoming ‘civilised’, was acknowledged and became central in the post-1945 political rhetoric (Castelo 2007: 107; Silva 2016). However, the process was complicated, implying the acquisition and demonstration of knowledge of Portuguese culture and language. In contrast, the metropolitan population, despite prevailing illiteracy, was by default considered ‘civilised’ (Jerónimo et al. 2010: 157; Silva 2016: 324). Parallel to this notion of ‘native’ was another group of people born in the colony, who formed the second and third generations of settler families that had arrived from the metropole in previous periods. However, politically and socially they were not like the other ‘natives’; they were considered ‘civilised’, and in some cases, like in Angola, developed separate nativist feelings (Pimenta 2008). In turn, decolonisation brought a complete disruption of these categories, at least at two levels. First, the emphasis was now placed on defining who were ‘nationals’ of the newly independent country and who were ‘foreigners’. This had immediate consequences for the decision about who could stay and who had to leave. Figueiredo (2015: 105) notes this polarising effect when she writes about leaving Lourenço Marques: ‘Now, quickly, to the airport. Life in the colony was impossible. You were either a colonist or you were colonized. You couldn’t be something transitional, in between the two, without paying for it with madness looming on the horizon’. On a second level, those who fell in the category of ‘foreigners’ and had to leave faced another significant process of categorisation, according to their migratory destination. Those who went to South Africa, for example, were considered ‘refugees’ and were to a certain degree welcomed in the country, while those who went to Portugal were considered retornados, and faced several integration problems in the post-revolutionary Portuguese society.8 This split occurred even within some families, such as in the case discussed here. Interestingly enough, those who became ‘refugees’ and stayed in South Africa, would then become ‘immigrants’ – to be more specific, ‘Portuguese immigrants’. They had to reinvent a connection with a country (Portugal) that they did not want to go to, and in relation to which they had feelings of detachment or even rejection. That reinvented connection resulted, in part, from the need people coming from Angola and Mozambique felt to position themselves in relation to people of

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Portuguese descent already established in South Africa.9 Therefore, considering the demographics of the Portuguese presence in South Africa, ‘being from the mainland’ re-emerges in opposition to those who are from Madeira, which constitute the dominant group. Therefore, not being from Madeira is how someone who was from the colony and identified as African, having thus entered South Africa as a refugee, now becomes ‘from the mainland’. This re-categorisation, however, does not mean that the colonial reminiscence fades away – it ensures the possibility of simultaneously being ‘from the mainland and from the colony’. This chapter starts with the story about how this project emerged and how I met Maria, followed by methodological considerations. The next three sections are dedicated to Maria’s life trajectory and narrative, while pursuing these changing categories and how they have shaped her life. The first of these sections reflects on her experience in late colonial Mozambique, on how she grew up to become, to some extent and in the light of the colonial context, ‘Mozambican’ or ‘Mozambican Portuguese’. The second concentrates on the short but decisive period covering decolonisation in Mozambique, and the corresponding process of estrangement, which led to her escape to South Africa as a refugee. The third section reflects on her life in Bloemfontein over the past decades, highlighting how she came to recreate her identification with Portugal. I conclude with some brief remarks and ideas for future research.

A visit to the market I went for the first time to the boeremark (farmers’ market) in Bloemfontein on 15 September 2018. I had arrived from Lisbon about three weeks before to start a postdoctoral fellowship at the International Studies Group, a research unit of the University of the Free State (UFS). I had been in Bloemfontein in the previous year to work on a project about 19th-century Angola; at the same time I was finishing my doctoral dissertation, in which I examined Catholic missionary ethnography during the late colonial period in Angola. Coming back to South Africa was an excellent opportunity to expand my research and to get to know the country and the region. A group of colleagues had invited me to join them on their regular visit to the boeremark, which takes place in Langenhoven Park every Saturday morning. They usually go to buy food and fresh vegetables, as well as to enjoy some coffee and the beloved South African melktert (an open tart with a custard filling). As we were walking around, one of my friends called my attention to a food stall covered with Portuguese flags. Such a blatant marketing strategy puzzled me, although we had passed other food stalls signalled with more discrete national emblems, namely Greek and South Korean. Despite the diverse and mixed organisation of the market, with food sold next to clothes, local handicrafts and agricultural implements, it became apparent that the food landscape at the market offered a glance into the existence of several migrant groups in the city. (Notwithstanding this diversity, I should add that Maria’s and the rest of the food stalls do not stand out from the

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general composition of the boeremark, where the majority of stallholders and customers could be identified as ‘white’.) As we approached the ‘Portuguese’ stall, which was branded ‘Portuguese Delights’, we saw a young man at the front, interacting with the customers, and a woman at the back cooking with an electric deep fryer. They were selling rissóis – a deep-fried breaded snack popular in Portugal, half-moon shaped and most often filled with minced meat or shrimps – as well as other fried foods, including corn dogs and stuffed jalapeños.10 I said Olá! in a greeting to the young man and started to speak to him in Portuguese, but he politely replied that his Portuguese was not very good since he had grown up in Bloemfontein. He led me to his mother, the woman frying the rissóis. Figure 2.1 The boeremark in Bloemfontein, 2019

Source: The author

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I introduced myself, saying that I had just arrived and was working at the University. She replied that she was from ‘mainland Portugal’, but she had lived most of her life in Mozambique before coming to Bloemfontein, where she had been living ever since. We chatted for some minutes in Portuguese, while one of my friends bought some ‘delights’ to taste. Out of curiosity, I asked her about other Portuguese people in the city; she replied there were mainly people from Madeira and that she did not have much contact with them because she was from the mainland. This is how I first met Maria. At about the same time as my chance encounter with Maria, I learned about a research project on the life stories of international migrants in Bloemfontein, which was being developed by several colleagues at UFS. I was intrigued by the experimental nature of the project and by the possibility of working with life history approaches. As I reflected on participating, I thought of Maria, the only Portuguese or Portuguese- speaking person I knew in Bloemfontein. Although my participation did not have to be with a Portuguese speaker, I thought linguistic familiarity would be an advantage. From our brief encounter, her case presented three points of potential inquiry. The first was her life in late colonial Mozambique, including her migration to South Africa after independence (and contrary to thousands of others who went to Portugal between 1974 and 1976). Having worked mainly on Angola, this was an opportunity for me to learn more about a different context. The second point had to do with how and why, during our brief chat, she distinguished herself from another group of Portuguese living in Bloemfontein. Since I knew little about the Portuguese presence in South Africa, the deeper meaning of that statement – beyond its more superficial differentiating effect – was not clear to me. For that reason, I thought it might carry the potential to discuss the idea of ‘community’ in relation to migration and nationality, and to account for diverse, sometimes conflicting, trajectories and experiences of migrants. Finally, a third point of interest was how long Maria had been living in Bloemfontein, a promising aspect in terms of possible reflections and comparisons between colonial Mozambique and South Africa, during and after apartheid, as well as in terms of providing a personal view on the recent history of the city. I decided to move forward, and on the following Saturday, I went back to the boeremark to find Maria. She was not there, but I managed to leave my number with someone who knew her, and a few days later she called, and we arranged to meet for coffee at the Waterfront Shopping Mall.

Narration and narrative: A processual approach The body of literature about life history and biographical methodologies in social sciences and humanities is massive.11 When thinking about this research, two texts came to mind: Pierre Bourdieu’s The Biographical Illusion (1986), and a review on the life story approach by Daniel Bertaux and Martin Kohl (1984). Both are classic references, and I use them as guiding tools to discuss my own approach. Bourdieu’s

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critical insights on what he called ‘biographical illusions’ remain of immense value. On the one hand, there is the need to question the assumption that life can be taken uncritically and teleologically as a stable and coherent series of events, conceived and told as a single story. On the other hand, reading Bourdieu leads to a necessary analytical awareness of the retrospective and prospective mechanisms involved in the production of meaning. These insights force our attention towards the ambiguities, ironies, incoherencies, indecisions or even unawareness of life in practice, life as lived and life as told. My orientation towards narrative and narration emerged after I came across the reference to the work of Fritz Schütz and his ‘narrative interview’ in Bertaux and Kohli (1984: 222–224). According to the German sociologist, a ‘narrative interview’ should be as extensive as possible; in the first moment with minimal interventions by the researcher, limited to a few utterances to keep the narration flowing; and in the second moment, the researcher should elaborate questions and explore the narrative details (Bertaux & Kohli 1984: 224). The main goal of this method is to enable a narration that is as spontaneous and uninterrupted as possible. Encouraging this flow helps the participant to get involved with ‘biographical work’. Thus, researcher and participant have very specific roles. I will elaborate on the challenges of this method below, but first I would like to add another consideration about my approach. Bertaux and Kholi identify two main trends in the use of life stories: one focused on the subjective narrative (symbolic dimensions and social meanings), in which they include Schütz’s work, and another deemed more ethnographic, in which the participant is seen as an informant of a determined social context (Bertaux & Kohli 1984: 215). We could include in this second trend (which is sometimes referred to as more realistic) the works of Bourdieu and of Daniel Bertaux himself. The approach I develop here is between these two trends, combining an attention to the narrative dimensions (personal experience, repertoires) with an ethnographic and historical interest. My approach seeks to take seriously the potential of life narratives to challenge and contribute to existing historiographies, while also admitting the use of anthropological and historiographical readings to gain a perspective on the subjective narrative. This raises the questions of verification and how to deal with ambiguity and inconsistency. It became difficult at times to control expectations and face frustrations derived from my inclination towards a more realistic approach, and after my first attempts at verification failed. Most of my online searches did not show relevant results; neither did my short visits to a couple of archives in Lisbon. Then, attention to narration becomes more productive, redirecting our focus away from verisimilitude and towards plausibility and persuasiveness. Both allude to the narrative’s contextual and repertorial dimensions, to the heuristic and hermeneutical strategies employed by the subject in relation to different social and historical contexts, including the narration context. That is, the subject can use different and sometimes contradictory repertoires in different moments of the narration, depending on the context of the narration itself and on the context of what is being narrated.

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A last point about this approach concerns conventions that shape narration, that determine what can and cannot be narrated, considering expectations about the nature and future publication of the narrative. This aspect points to the articulation of emotions, to discourses on somatisation and mental health. Having shaped Maria’s life and the narration process, the issue sometimes gave a confessional tone to the conversation. Addressing it is as challenging as it is relevant because it calls attention to less discussed dimensions in life stories and the literature on colonialism, decolonisation and migration. In the present case, ideas on somatisation and mental health had an internalisation effect on how life was lived, and on how it is remembered and narrated. That is, they turned experience inwards, towards the body and the conjugal family, shaping social dynamics as well as perspectives on historical events and the explanations available to narrate these. The chapter is based on two in-depth, recorded interviews. The first occurred on 26 September 2018, after the first meeting mentioned above. The second happened almost one month later, on 25 October 2018, outside a residence at the UFS campus. Inspired by the ‘narrative interview’ method, I tried to minimise my interventions, in order to keep the narration flowing, especially during the first interview. For the second, I prepared some questions about aspects that were less clear or that I wanted to grasp in more detail. However, reading and analysing the two transcriptions forced me to acknowledge that I had intervened much more than I had wanted to. I made numerous small comments and asked questions that I felt would help to show my interest and keep the narration flowing. In the end, they brought the narrative much closer to a dialogue, even a fragmented dialogue. This posed several challenges to the method that had inspired me. A close reading of my notes and transcriptions made me reflect about two possible and interrelated reasons for this fragmentation: one being related to my efforts to create an empathic relationship, and the other being positionality and the practical limitations that shape that effort. Among these limitations are language, narrative competence and lived experience. A few of Maria’s comments during the interviews reveal the question of positionality and the expectations associated with each other’s roles. After I had told Maria a few things about myself, Maria commented that studying was one of the things she would have liked to have done in her life, since she grew up in a rural village in Mozambique and had to be home schooled. This entailed a definition of our roles that became apparent in other remarks, such as, ‘Now, you must ask me, and I’ll answer you’. Expectations were that I, as a researcher, was responsible for asking specific questions and for ensuring narrative production; in turn, she was there to answer my questions and tell her life story, which she was very keen on doing. However, my efforts to follow her narrative rhythm were shaped by my short experience of living in Bloemfontein and modest familiarity with the topic. Nevertheless, language was a practical limitation whose effects were perhaps more unexpected. Despite my initial thoughts about working with a Portuguese speaker, and even though we had spoken in Portuguese when we first met, both the

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interviews were in English (a second language for both of us). Maria did not express a clear preference, and I did not want to insist on speaking in Portuguese, because I had seen her speak in English with her son (whom I had met at the boeremark and who drove her to both interviews), and because I knew she had been living in South Africa for such a long time. Perhaps this implicit preference for English expressed Maria’s consideration for the appropriate language for the context – South Africa – which would have emerged in the education of her children; her younger son, at least, did not speak Portuguese well. Thus, we spoke in English, except for a few words like sim and não (yes/no), and a moment during the first interview when Maria started speaking in Portuguese when she was narrating her earliest childhood memories before moving to Mozambique.

Growing up in late colonial Mozambique At the time of our conversations, Maria was 77 years old. She was born in 1941 in a town north of Lisbon. Curiously, it was by chance that Maria was a ‘mainland Portuguese’ since her siblings were born in the Azores Islands where her father served in the Portuguese navy for some time. Following a tradition of five generations of men in the navy, Maria’s father enlisted in the maritime force at the age of 19 and remained there for about a decade. During that time, he married Maria’s mother, had three children and did healthcare training.12 In 1945, he left the navy and four years later was appointed to work in the health department in Mozambique, taking his family with him, much to the consternation of Maria’s mother, who did not want to live in the colony because she was a ‘city girl’.13 Maria was eight years old, and her brother and sister were eleven and ten. The family first settled in a rural village named Namarrói, in the interior north of the district of Zambézia (later district of Quelimane). Some years later they moved to another rural village to the southwest called Morrumbala, and finally to the port town and district capital Quelimane. The family lived in the district for about eleven years, from 1949 to 1960, covering Maria’s late childhood and teenage years. Her father’s appointment to work in the colonial health department and subsequent family migration happened in a historical context marked by the emergence of a series of state-promoted development and modernisation policies in the colonies.14 Along with other reforms, these policies were, in part, Portugal’s response to the post-war international scene and the increasing questioning and contestation of European colonialism. The policies operated both a ‘second colonial occupation’ and a ‘semantic decolonisation’ of the empire.15 These developments were concomitant with the start of the decolonisation processes in British and French Africa, and in the 1960s with the start of the liberation wars in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, in 1961, 1963 and 1964 respectively. Portuguese late colonialism was thus characterised by the fall of other empires, the threat of its own end and the political responses aimed to face it (Castelo et al. 2012: 22). In 1947, two years before the family’s arrival in Mozambique, a state investment that had been interrupted was resumed; and throughout the 1950s and 1960s there were

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three major colonial development plans (planos de fomento) aimed at infrastructure and economic rationalisation, but also including – albeit to a limited degree – some social policies directed at health, education and the promotion of white settlement (Newitt 1995: 461–462). This was also a period of unprecedented migration to the colonies, as Castelo’s (2007) work shows. In 1943, the balance between the numbers of people entering and exiting Mozambique by sea was 98, but in 1949, when Maria’s family arrived, this number had reached 2 990 (Castelo 2007: 175–179).16 The white population in Mozambique increased from less than 30 000 in 1940 to almost 100 000 in 1960, reaching more than 162 000 in 1970 (Castelo 2007: 143).17 However, as I noted in the introduction to this chapter, it was not a uniform flow. Only part of it corresponded to the expansion of the administrative and services network that led to the settlement of qualified workers and their respective families in several parts of the country – such as Maria’s family.18 Figure 2.2 Map of Southern Africa, indicating where Maria has lived: Namarrói, Morrumbala, Quelimane, Maputo (Lourenço Marques), Johannesburg and Bloemfontein

Source: The authors

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Succinctly, these were the conditions that made Maria’s family migration to Mozambique possible. Although limited, there was an investment in the health sector, with the hiring of doctors and nurses, as well as the creation of several posts and stations for the treatment of leprosy and sleeping sickness (Newitt 1995: 474–475). In 1950, the health services in Mozambique were organised in four large areas (círculos de saúde) – one of which was Zambézia – which were divided into health stations and posts (delegacias de saúde and postos sanitários). Namarrói and Morrumbala, where her father worked for several years, were health stations in the Zambézia area. The headquarters were in Quelimane, and there was also a regional hospital, where he worked for a shorter period.19 According to Maria’s memories, Namarrói had a hospital that served the whole region, and her father used to travel frequently by machila (litter) to attend to several villages. There were only five white families living there, namely those of the colonial administrators and the mayor. There was also one shop owned by a South African. The rest of the population was ‘black’.20 She remembers the house where the family lived, which was provided by the government. It was located on the top of a hill, and had a quadrangular shape, with a balcony all around, except in the back, where there was a window. Maria often saw wild animals through that window at night, including lions and leopards. Living in Namarrói and Morrumala in the 1950s is narrated in relation to ideas of open spaces and contact with wild animals, including elephants and zebras in Morrumbala. Another aspect of life in rural colonial Mozambique was the number of domestic workers. Maria’s family had twelve, all men, as it was uncommon for women to be domestic workers. They had workers to cook, get water, clean the house, wash their clothes, arrange the garden, and grow vegetables and fruit. These workers lived close by with their families. There were no schools, so she and her sister had to learn how to read and write at home, with their parents. There was not much to do, but she entertained herself playing with animals, drawing and going through her father’s books. They had, in her words, ‘a very luxurious life up there’: ‘I grow up in a place where if I want a banana, I go fetch it from the tree, if I want an apple, I go fetch it from the tree’. The apple made me think about possible crossings between colonial tropes about land fertility and abundance, and tropes about rurality that she also expressed when talking about her early childhood memories of visiting her grandmother in rural Portugal. In Mozambique, where she lived from the age of eight or nine until she was 35, she had a ‘wonderful life’ that shaped how she sees herself today: ‘that’s why I’m so open, why I’m so free. It’s because I grew up in that atmosphere, absolutely free. I was who I was, that’s all. If you stay with me long you will see’. There is a nostalgic but resigned tone to the narration of this period in her life. It has a foundational role in how she describes herself in relation to that (colonised) land, shaping how she grew up ‘African’, or a particular type of ‘African’, that is, an ‘African

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Portuguese’. It also has a fundamental role in how she later articulates key moments, such as the decision to move to South Africa instead of Portugal in 1976, or certain aspects of living in Bloemfontein, as I will show below. The family also expanded during this period. Around 1958, when Maria was 17, her parents had another child, her younger brother, and shortly after that they adopted a black girl from the area of Quelimane. Her father was working at the city hospital when a baby was brought in, whose mother had died during birth. After several incidents with nutrition and hygiene, the baby’s family was judged incapable of taking care of her, so Maria’s parents, who had developed an affection for the girl, decided to adopt her legally. The family did not stay long in Quelimane and moved to the capital in 1961. Moving to Lourenço Marques was motivated by the difficulties of living in the rural and less developed northern region, where they had to travel over 1 000 kilometres, sometimes on dirt roads and over rickety bridges, to buy groceries and other things. They lived in Lourenço Marques throughout the 1960s until 1976, one year after independence. However, Maria’s narration of this period does not include much detail about the city itself, except that the family lived in a double-storey house close to the beach, and that sometimes she went dancing at a club with her parents.21 On the contrary, the narration focuses on the family and, to a smaller extent, the start of her clothing business. In 1966, when she was about 24, she married a friend of her older brother, who was five years older than her and had also moved from Portugal to Mozambique as a child. They met on Easter Sunday; Maria had to cook lunch because her mother had gone to South Africa for medical treatment. Her brother, who had moved to Johannesburg, had brought that friend and two South African girls over for lunch. It was the first time they met, and she laughed about some flirting going on with the girls, but she liked him immediately. He worked for a South African import-export company. They got married and had three sons; the first was born in 1967, the second in 1969 and the youngest in 1971. For Maria, being a wife and a mother plays a central role in her constitution as a subject, as a woman, and is at the basis of her biographical and family project, with all its constraints and vicissitudes. Hence, her professional life came afterwards, with the development of a clothing business in the city. Following her passion for drawing, she started a clothing factory that became quite successful, employing up to 25 female workers and selling all her products to a famous department store in Lourenço Marques called ‘Man Kay Centre’. A final aspect about Maria’s narration of this period, relevant due to its absence, is the liberation war, which started in 1964, three years after the family moved to the capital, and lasted until 1975. However, this absence is not a particularity of Maria’s narrative, and we can read in Isabela Figueiredo’s memoir: I’m not unaware there was a war going on in the land I’m describing. There was a war, but it wasn’t visible in the south. We didn’t know how it

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had started or what it was for, exactly. Before the Revolution of April 25, at least, the subject wasn’t talked about in front of me. Nor was it avoided. (Figueiredo 2015: 69) Three brief notes are worth making regarding this absence. Firstly, it needs to be contextualised in terms of the liberation war’s temporal discontinuity, and its concentration in the northern and central regions of Mozambique (Oliveira 2017: 7–8). Secondly, the authoritarian regime that governed Portugal at the time limited political consciousness and participation, both in the metropole and in the colonies, which helps to explain settlers’ alienation from what was happening (Pires 1999: 184).22 Parallel to this limitation was also how political discretion might have been a necessary tool in the frantic period before and after the independence of Mozambique. Thirdly, its relevance seems to meet present expectations about the past, about the moral and political implications of the awareness of certain events, which I tried to avoid in my approach.

The ‘fall’ of Mozambique and the escape to South Africa On 25 April 1974, after more than a decade of war fought on several fronts, a military coup in Lisbon overthrew the regime and pushed for negotiations aiming at decolonisation and the transfer of power in the five Portuguese African territories.23 Portuguese decolonisation is viewed by most authors as an abrupt and disorganised process, due to several aspects, including the political atmosphere in Lisbon, the internal divisions in the African nationalist movements, the attitudes of settler groups, and the influence of foreign powers (Oliveira 2017). This idea of chaos and the events that followed the coup in Lisbon are essential to an understanding of the production of meaning and the apparent ambiguities central to Maria’s narration of this period in Mozambique. In a pioneering article on the post-1974 exodus of the European and Asian populations from Mozambique, Rita-Ferreira (1988) breaks down this period into three phases. The first phase is from 25 April to 20 September 1974, when a transitional government was appointed; the second covers the actions of this government, and the third follows independence on 25 June 1975. The first phase was characterised by the paralysation of the Portuguese armed forces and by confrontations in the capital and major cities during the days leading up to and after the Lusaka Accord, signed on 7 September 1974 between the Portuguese postrevolutionary representatives and FRELIMO, the Mozambican Liberation Front. It was also marked by the emergence of several political movements, including among the white settlers, that aimed to be an alternative to FRELIMO and wanted to secure a place at the negotiations table (Meneses & Mcnamara 2018: 190–194; Pinto 1999: 93). However, the revolutionary forces in Lisbon considered only FRELIMO as the legitimate representative of the Mozambican people.24 In Lusaka, the right to independence and the transfer of power were established; and a transition government was formed to act until the proclamation of independence.25 Besides

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being excluded from the independence negotiations, which were perceived as a sort of rendition of the Portuguese government, settlers’ rights were not considered in the Lusaka Accord and their situation during this whole period became vague, particularly in terms of property, professional status and citizenship, leading to widespread feelings of dissatisfaction and uncertainty about the future (Newitt 1995: 133; Pimenta 2017: 111). Already under the transition government, the climate of tension and anxiety grew after a series of violent revolts in October 1974, with deaths among both black and white populations (Rita-Ferreira 1988: 136–137; Thomaz & Nascimento 2012: 337). These events led to the first large population exodus, namely to Rhodesia and South Africa (Pimenta 2017: 112–113; Pinto 1999: 94).26 In November 1974, the transition government passed a series of laws concerning ‘crimes against decolonisation’, which included restrictions on the press and the suspension of habeas corpus for all actions considered obstructive of the Lusaka Accord, resulting in many arrests (Marques 2017: 178–179; Rita-Ferreira 1988: 138). In the subsequent months, other laws were passed regarding state intervention in the private sector, whenever businesses were seen as not contributing sufficiently to economic development and the collective good (Rita-Ferreira 1988: 140; Souto 2015: 150). At the same time, so-called grupos dinamizadores (dynamising groups) were created to apply FRELIMO’s ideology and monitor any ‘sabotage’ attempts, interfering in the management of many businesses until their dismantling in 1976 (Rita-Ferreira 1988: 136, 139). In May 1975, Samora Machel started his famous ‘triumphant journey from Rovuma to Maputo’, making several speeches along the way that were perceived with strong apprehension by some of the white population (Souto 2015: 150).27 On 25 June 1975, Machel became the first president of the proclaimed independent Mozambique. While state intervention in the private sector continued, other political decisions had a significant impact on the settler population that had not yet left the country. Among these were policies directed at the nationalisation of health services, like the prohibition of any form of private healthcare (Rita-Ferreira 1988: 146); as well as policies directed at reforming education and schools, causing resentment among those who did not want their children to be indoctrinated with Marxist and FRELIMO ideologies (Pimenta 2017: 113). Along these lines, ‘re-education camps’ were created for the ‘undesired’, that is, delinquents, unemployed, prostitutes, Jehovah’s Witnesses and all those considered suspicious across the colour spectrum, who were taken to the camps to become ‘new’ through manual labour and indoctrination (Meneses & Mcnamara 2018: 198). By the end of 1976, only 10 per cent of the 200 000 people considered ‘Europeans’ in 1970 remained in Mozambique (Oliveira 2017: 14). While there has been an increasing scholarship on the mass exoduses to Portugal following decolonisation, the same cannot be said about the people who went to other destinations, like Brazil or South Africa, and about those who stayed.28 However, this does not imply that these population movements should be treated separately or that the literature on retornados is not relevant for the reflection on

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those who, for example, went to South Africa as refugees.29 On the other hand, occasional references to the latter emerge in the scholarship on the Portuguese presence in South Africa (see next section). The work of Pamila Gupta stands out as the most significant, as her recent research has focused on several minority groups who decided not to go to Portugal in the aftermath of the empire. A few years ago, Gupta (2007) outlined a research agenda aimed at developing a historical ethnography of decolonisation, focused on the Portuguese case and from a broad perspective connecting southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. According to Gupta (2007: 93, 96), treating decolonisation ethnographically means searching for the political dimensions at the personal and everyday levels, observing those details that are less documented, and accounting for multiple and sometimes contradictory experiences. This agenda, which included interviews and life histories of Goan Mozambicans, Portuguese Mozambicans and Angolans who moved to South Africa, as well as participant observation in Mozambique, culminated in her recently published book Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography (Gupta 2018). Gupta’s detailed and comparative analysis of the materiality of decolonisation, especially her attention to stories of departure from Angola and Mozambique towards South Africa, is relevant to putting this phase of Maria’s trajectory into perspective. Novelist Isabela Figueiredo writes about the difficulties faced by those who did not leave Mozambique right away: For whites who opted to stay in the former colonies after independence because they sympathised with the liberation movements or because they didn’t have any other choice, or didn’t want to have one, life wasn’t easy. The retornados, most of whom returned to Portugal under a cloud and empty-handed, got away much more easily. Whites who stayed in Africa became an easy target for numerous retributions. They were suspect. Their movements and words were watched by the authorities, local-resident committees, neighbours. One had to be careful with what one said and did. Any slip would be regarded as colonialist behaviour, and there was no compassion, the price to pay was high. Constant denunciation. (Figueiredo 2015: 126) These words resonate with Maria’s narrative, as she and her family remained in Lourenço Marques until 1976, one year after the ‘fall’ of Mozambique; in her words, possibly being among the last people to leave.30 An episode with her father is illustrative of the context. Before the family’s departure to Portugal, he was arrested for visiting one of his patients at home. Narrated with few details, the only explanation she could provide for the arrest was that it was forbidden because everybody had to get treatment at the hospital. I was puzzled by her assumption of the plausibility of such a prosaic explanation and struggled with being persuaded by it. To my mind, the episode opened a wide range of possible intentions, motivations and effects. Could the arrest say something about her father’s political views? Had

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the home visit been used as a subterfuge, either by the government or by Maria’s father himself who perhaps did not want to disclose his political engagements to his family? Although it was not possible to dispel these doubts in the present research, the literature review showed that arrests perceived as arbitrary did become a reality in Lourenço Marques after the laws on ‘crimes against decolonisation’ were passed and that the practice of private medicine was indeed forbidden. There were two other main causes of unrest in Maria’s narration of the independence period: her children and her business. Regarding her children – who were about four, six and eight – her concerns reflected both the events and the rumours that spread in the atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety of Lourenço Marques at the time. Maria did not agree with how Machel’s government was interfering in the schools, namely the fight against Catholicism. To illustrate this, she told an almost anecdotal story about how, after independence, schoolteachers used to ask kids to pray to God to bring them sweets; and when their prayers were not heard, they asked them to pray to Machel and then gave them sweets, instilling in them an analogy between God and Machel.31 Another instance of her concern with the children had to do with the ‘re-education camps’. She did not want to risk having them taken to the camps, where they could die from malaria, as she believes happened to several children. (Although ‘re-education camps’ were the cause of many fears and rumours, and the literature mentions some cases of whites taken to the camps, there is no indication about children also being taken to camps.) The second cause of unrest was her clothing business, as she had to face conflictual situations with its management. She narrates the story of the last cheque she had to sign, to pay for a large order of buttons that cost her four times the value of her apartment. She complained about having to ask for permission to pay for the buttons or any other operation she had to conduct, to the point that she felt ‘they were running’ her business. Indeed, Rita-Ferreira remarks how the interference of the grupos dinamizadores led many business people to despair and to leave the country, especially when they thought they were on the verge of being accused of ‘sabotage’ (Rita-Ferreira 1988: 139). A related problem put a full stop to Maria’s permanence in Mozambique and ensured her move to South Africa. She received three anonymous threatening letters, in which she was called a capitalista (a capitalist; she used the Portuguese word) but at the same time was intimidated not to abandon the business and the country. She never knew who sent the letters but suspects it might have been the relatives of her employees. The episode with the letters is quite intriguing since, on the one hand, it makes sense in the context of general suspicion and ‘sabotage’ accusations, but on the other hand, it seems contradictory with nationalisations and takeovers, as well as with the general hostility against white people.32 At the same time, the letters can be seen as part of a narrative about the relevance of her business and, more importantly, they were key to her ‘escape’ to South Africa. This idea of an ‘escape’, although contrary to the experience of hundreds of whites who were eager and pushed to leave the country, is further suggested by the degree

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of planning and detail in her narration of leaving Mozambique. The situation did not seem to be very clear to her either, as she tried to explain better why she was not allowed to leave. Her name was on a list of airport authorities, and she would be arrested if she were caught trying to get out. Consequently, she masterminded a plan to go to South Africa by train. She would go ahead with her two younger sons, while her husband stayed behind with the older. If questioned at the border, she would say she was going to get medical treatment for one of the kids who had asthma, but she was returning soon since her husband was back in Maputo. The same would work if her husband were questioned the next day, he would say he was visiting relatives but would be back soon since his wife and children were in Maputo. She bought the tickets and went to say goodbye to her parents and siblings.33 In the meantime, her father had been released, and her parents went to Portugal since they still had family living in Lisbon and were entitled to state pensions. Entering South Africa according to plan, Maria went to Home Affairs, where she showed the letters attesting the urgency to escape for the safety of her family. As a result, they were considered refugees and, within six months, they were able to obtain South African passports.34 The plan also included an arrangement to have some of her furniture packed and shipped to Durban by her husband’s importexport company. Thus, to this day, she keeps her Mozambican furniture at her home in Bloemfontein. Besides the more circumstantial reasons that led her to move to South Africa, there were also more personal and existential ones. There was a familiarity with the country, which had developed since her brother had moved to Johannesburg and the family had moved to Lourenço Marques at the beginning of the 1960s. This familiarity increased the chances of their successful integration. At the same time, having lived most of her life in Mozambique, she felt ‘more African than European’. Being ‘open’ and ‘free’ were the qualities that she identified with being ‘African’, and with which she still identifies herself today, as seen above. In her words: ‘You see, I grew up in open spaces, I was very young at the time. I grew up in Africa with very open spaces, you go where you want to go without problems, you understand?’ These ideas of openness (of spaces, of personality) and freedom are common tropes of an African-ness specific to certain colonial life experiences such as hers, that is, she is highlighting inadvertently how settler colonialism structured her childhood experience, since not all the inhabitants of the colony had or perceived to have had the same freedom of movement. As Pires (1999: 184) hypothesised in his study on retornados, the decision to move to another country may have resulted both from the refusal of repatriation among those who felt they would hardly integrate in Portugal, and the search for societies like South Africa that presented points of contact with the colonial society hitherto known. Former settlers expected to find in these societies political and social systems similar to those they were used to, not only in terms of identity but also regarding the possibility of resuming paths of upward social mobility (Pires 1999: 184). Maintaining an identification as ‘African’

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and the desire to stay in southern Africa are also mentioned by other authors as strong motivations for choosing to go to apartheid South Africa instead of Portugal (Glaser 2012b: 223; Gupta 2011: 135). Even though leaving Mozambique meant leaving behind an established everyday life, a home and a successful business, Maria does not narrate today through the language of nostalgia, trauma or resentment.35 Instead, other responses emerge, some perhaps distilled by time, some less so. Among the former is an acceptance of the course of events, present in sentences like: ‘I understood I had to go out. I had to start life again somewhere else, and I went for it’. This acceptance was facilitated by familiarity, and other pull factors of South Africa discussed above. It also relates to how she sees herself as someone who learned not to miss what she does not or cannot have, as she tried to explain to me: ‘I only love what I have, I only need what I have. What I can’t have I don’t miss it’. If such existential parsimony can be associated with an itinerant trajectory that has meant at least four significant migratory experiences, it can also be related to a discourse on somatisation, as I mentioned in the beginning, evident in her reply when I insisted on the question of colonial loss and if it was painful to leave. She answered, between laughs: ‘No, it wasn’t, but I had lots of spastic colon’.36 At the same time, other similar issues surfaced, since, shortly after leaving Mozambique, she had to deal with a second episode related to her husband’s mental health. He had been diagnosed with ‘manic depression’ around 1966, successfully receiving electroshock treatment in Lourenço Marques.37 A decade later, already in South Africa, this second episode was triggered by the historical events and by a fixation on Samora Machel. It was severe enough to lead her to commit him to a psychiatric hospital near Johannesburg, where he again received treatment, this time with medication. Addressing these issues here is relevant because they are constitutive of both lived experience and narrative. Even if they sometimes emerged as unrelated matters, they are important because trauma and colonial loss were not articulated during the narration in the way I was expecting, that is, in relation to the political and historical context, or in terms of identity. The family lived in Johannesburg for about three years, until 1979. Having a relative in the city helped with their integration, as they became part of her brother’s social and professional networks. She managed to find a job in the clothing sector, working in sales for a company owned by a Portuguese. She moved to Bloemfontein to follow her boss. She was about 38, and her children were already of school age.

Living in Bloemfontein and becoming a ‘Portuguese from the mainland’ The Portuguese presence in South Africa has attracted little but constant academic attention since the mid-1980s, including both published and non-published scholarship. Clive Glaser’s (2010; 2012b) work helps to map this literature, in particular his review of the historiography on Portuguese immigration in

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20th-century South Africa, first published in 2010 and updated two years later. Glaser further developed his research into two case studies, both on Madeiran migratory flows to South Africa, one focused on Madeiran women and gender, and the other on undocumented immigration (Glaser 2012a; 2013). Apart from Gupta’s work, most studies have focused on Madeiran experiences, as well as in the areas of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, hence the relevance of the empirical contribution of the present chapter.38 Madeiran immigration is one of three broader, late modern Portuguese migratory waves to South Africa identified by Glaser and other authors (Bessa 2009; Glaser 2012b; Newitt 2015: 231–234). It is also the oldest, going back to the end of the 19th century, and being usually characterised by low levels of literacy and skills. A second wave of Portuguese immigration occurred between the 1940s and the 1980s, but concentrated in the 1960s, and was composed of people from mainland Portugal, considered better skilled than the Madeirans and welcomed by the South African government due to a shortage of labour in specific sectors.39 Finally, the third wave corresponded to old settlers from Angola and Mozambique, who may have occasionally migrated to South Africa to work during the late colonial period, as was the case of Maria’s older brother, but whose numbers skyrocketed between 1974 and 1976. In general, this last wave is described as being extracted from the privileged colonial elites, who lost many material possessions as well as socio-economic status when they left Angola and Mozambique, and who were much better skilled and educated than the other two Portuguese immigrant groups already living in South Africa (Glaser 2012b: 222). In theory, Maria’s case would be included in the third wave, but, as I have been arguing, it challenges these schematisations. Throughout her trajectory, Maria has transited between different forms of categorisation, and this section will further show how, living in Bloemfontein over the past 40 years, she became a Portuguese from the mainland after having entered South Africa as a Portuguese Mozambican refugee. Maria moved to Bloemfontein with her husband and three sons in 1979. The main driving force of this decision was a work opportunity. In Johannesburg, she was selling clothes in a business owned by a Portuguese man, who had found an Italian partner in the capital city of the Free State. She had a complicated relationship with her boss, and it was the Italian entrepreneur who liked her work and insisted that she came along. Narrating 40 years later and with some hard-to-follow details about the business deal, this frugal story sums up why she came to Bloemfontein. One of my main interests in researching this case had to do with Maria’s views and life in Bloemfontein over time. When I asked her how the city was when she first came, her answer was – ‘It was very interesting because it was a very South African place’. Trying to explain to me better what she meant, she added the following: Today [Bloemfontein] is cosmopolitan, so it’s not anymore [as it was before]. You see, Bloemfontein was a smaller town, a city already, where

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on Sundays there was nobody in the streets. Very Afrikaans. The kids couldn’t go to the garden and play. They had to be indoors. Everybody was indoors on Sunday. For Maria, Bloemfontein in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a closed, provincial, perhaps even unsophisticated, town, adjectives we can find in opposition to ‘cosmopolitan’, how she finds the city today. If the initial use of the negative brings along a comparison with the present, her comment on the use of public spaces implies a comparison with the past. It reveals something about what she was used to and her worldview at the time. Noting that the streets were empty on Sundays and that children did not play outside in the ‘very Afrikaans’ town of Bloemfontein – due to the influence of the Dutch Reformed Church, she added – suggests that she was used to the lively public spaces of late colonial Catholic Lourenço Marques. Yet, if Bloemfontein had changed and was now a cosmopolitan city, the preference for socialisation in private, domestic spaces remained, in her mind, a characteristic until today, with people continuing to invite each other to their homes and for braais, always indoors and between families. Integration was not easy at first, as she did not have any family or friends in the city. Her connection to the Italian entrepreneur and his family developed into a friendship, and she also befriended a South African couple, who were the parents of one of her son’s school-mates. The two boys became friends after the South African defended Maria’s son from some bullies at school. Some authors (Glaser 2012b: 226; Gupta 2011: 143) mention stories of discrimination suffered by Portuguese children in South African schools, associated with negative stereotypes around the less educated, working-class Madeiran immigrants. However, in this case, Maria did not dwell on the motives, but on the effects of her son’s experience. He gained a friend, and so did she. It is not entirely surprising to realise that, from the start, Maria developed relationships with Italians and South Africans, since one of the first things she mentioned when we met was that she did not have a strong connection to other Portuguese people: ‘I know more Italians than Portuguese. And because I came from continente [mainland] and Bloemfontein had very little people from continente, most are from Madeira’. A little further on, after narrating how her brother had facilitated integration in Johannesburg, she added: ‘Here I fall completely again. You see, as a Portuguese from the mainland, nobody invited me for parties or anything’. As it becomes clear, moving to Bloemfontein implied a process of re-categorisation, in which mechanisms of social division among the Portuguese people became more relevant than potential ‘national’ connections. The ‘imperial nation’ did not exist for the Portuguese immigrants in South Africa. Being from mainland Portugal was now a more relevant category or form of social identification, in opposition to those who had Madeiran origins and in detriment to the identification with Mozambique. Additionally, conjugal and gender dynamics contributed to limiting the family’s

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socialisation, as became apparent in the narration. Besides the issues discussed above, Maria’s husband was not a very sociable person, but he was the head of the family, so all invitations for braais (barbeques) and social gatherings were addressed to him. He declined most of them and Maria firmly stated that she would not go anywhere without him, except the Catholic Church on Sundays. She used to go with her children, but as they finished catequese (Sunday school) and grew older, they stopped going and she herself also abandoned Catholicism. This break did not affect her socialisation since her acquaintances through the church never expanded into friendships, which again offers a different perspective to the existing literature about the role of the Catholic religion as a mechanism of social cohesion among the Portuguese in South Africa (Bessa 2009; Glaser 2012b). However, despite the irrelevance of the church and despite her husband’s refusals, which led them to fall, in her words, ‘out of the stream, the community’, the divide was not clear-cut, as he ended up working for a branch of the South African restaurant franchise Spur, managed by a Madeiran. In turn, Maria did not work long for the Italian entrepreneur. In the early 1980s, she opened a boutique with a young local South African theatre producer. The boutique was downtown, close to a movie theatre and also to Spur.40 It specialised in knitwear that Maria designed and made herself. She and her partner were responsible for the first fashion shows in Bloemfontein. However, the business did not last long, and the young man’s father, who had made the investment, closed the store. They never managed to have enough customers because of the type of clothes Maria was making, which were very provocative, ‘very sexy’, in her words. They had a small group of clients, including some Afrikaans women, but the majority, she thinks, ‘were not very modern at that time, you see. The women in Bloemfontein were not modern enough for my type of clothes. Imagine putting knitwear on top of the body of models with just pantyhose, nothing else’. As I was trying to imagine, she went on to show me a photograph on her phone of a girl whose matric farewell dress she had helped to design, commenting how she could never ‘dress a woman in common clothes’. Again, this part of the narration also implies something about the past. It adds to the idea of how conservative Bloemfontein was before, which has an implicit comparison to Lourenço Marques, where she had a successful high-end clothing business and managed to sell all her stock. However, I must stress that Maria did not articulate any of these comparisons with Lourenço Marques. In fact, when I asked her to compare life in Mozambique and in South Africa, she stressed the similarities and highlighted two aspects: the first was that both were countries with left-hand traffic, showing the significance of everyday life practicalities, and the second was about the historical connections. In her words, ‘Mozambique was the holiday resort for South African people. I met lots of South African people when I was in Lourenço Marques. My father worked for a company that was from South Africa’, aspects I explored in the section above. The short period during which she had the boutique seems to have tested the possibility of maintaining an identification with her previous life, that is, with

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being ‘from the colony’, in Bloemfontein. However, it failed both professionally and socially. Not only were her designs ‘too modern’, for Afrikaans women in particular, having a boutique also differentiated her from the common occupation of Madeirans in the city, who typically owned fruit shops. After the boutique, she had several jobs. She worked for more than ten years at a hospital, first being in charge of laundry, then of quality control, and finally helping to reform the designs of the uniforms, narrating with great joy how she changed their colours and patterns. This was during the 1990s, when the country was going through a major political shift, but also when a new episode related to her husband’s mental health surfaced. Working at the hospital was of significant help, as she had a close relationship with doctors who facilitated access to the necessary medication. The changes introduced in the healthcare system after 1994 were one of the aspects that most affected her life, as it became more difficult for her to access her husband’s medication. She made no other reflections on the political situation, which is in keeping with what some authors have referred to as the silent or even favourable relationship of the Portuguese and the Portuguese elites in South Africa with apartheid (Cravinho 1995; Schutte 1990).41 When the hospital changed management, in the early 2000s, an opportunity arrived to housesit for two friends from the hospital who were moving to New Zealand. Given the size of the house, Maria turned it into a student hostel, which she maintained for six or seven years, even renting another house when her friends sold theirs. As she approached 70 years of age, she got tired of managing the hostel and closed it. Yet, age would not stop her from embarking on a new business. About six years ago, her middle son, who was (and still is) living in Cape Town, visited her in Bloemfontein and she made rissóis for the occasion. Realising how many were left, she decided to sell them at the market, and this is how Portuguese Delights was created. As I mentioned at the start, rissóis are very popular in Portugal. They can be served as a starter, a side dish, snacks or even the main course, being sold in most tascas (taverns) and restaurants, but also cooked at home, nowadays bought frozen at the supermarket. Rissóis are in the family of croquetes (a similar bread-crumbed, mincedmeat fried snack) and more importantly of bolinhos de bacalhau, which are made with one of the most appreciated foods in Portugal – bacalhau or salted cod. Although they are related as snacks, rissóis do not have the same iconic and culinary status as bolinhos de bacalhau, given the centrality of salted cod in Portuguese cuisine.42 If salted cod has been constructed as a symbol of national identity, it is much more challenging to understand the history and capture what kind of imagined world or community the rissóis help to build. This is reflected in Maria’s most recent life experience. Both she and her younger son work in the business, but as it grew, she hired a young woman from Lesotho to help her in the preparation process. Maria cooks everything herself, including the dough and the nine different rissóis fillings, while her helper does the moulding. Sometimes they make as many as two to three hundred rissóis,

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corndogs, ‘jawbreakers’ and ‘jalapeño poppers’, per day. They sell them at several markets in the city and to a South African supermarket chain. At the markets, they fry them on the spot, because people can see the food being cooked and buy more, she said. When I asked her if she ever thought of selling them in a Portuguese shop, she laughed and said, ‘They’re [the Portuguese are] not my fans’. When Maria started selling ‘Portuguese’ food at the markets, she acquired a degree of visibility as a ‘Portuguese immigrant’, which also puts her in the spotlight for other Portuguese people who come across her stall and feel tempted to judge the degree of representativeness of her food. Indeed, once she overheard a Portuguese woman close to her food stall saying, ‘This is not Portuguese food’. When she confronted the woman, the latter replied, ‘There are no corndogs in Portugal’. And Maria closed the conversation saying, ‘You know something? Doesn’t matter if they’re not Portuguese, but they’re made by a Portuguese woman’. It seems that the rissóis and the food Maria is selling in Bloemfontein do not confer the ‘ontological security’ that bacalhau confers to Portuguese transnational and diasporic contexts, as argued by Sobral (2013: 642). Maria’s prompt answer destabilises the question of authenticity, which lies at the heart of issues of identity construction, whether through food, heritage or any other cultural element. At the same time, it confirms her distancing from other Portuguese people, who seem more interested than she is in keeping a close watch over the authenticity of the object that is sold as ‘Portuguese’, perhaps expecting and demanding more salted cod and less biltong in her rissóis. Her ‘Portuguese’ food does not contribute to building any sort of collective or community ties among the Portuguese in Bloemfontein, but it nevertheless shows Maria’s own connection with an idea of Portugal, which operates in relation to her life trajectory and her past.43 Being ‘Portuguese’ for her is malleable to the subject that produces and not fixed in the object that is produced. The commercial dimension should not be undervalued either and Portuguese Delights has proved to be a successful business, contrary to her first clothing business in Bloemfontein. It is also relevant in relation to her son’s need to make a living; having been born in Lourenço Marques, he has to develop his own unconventional connection to Portugal, at least while he is working at the markets. Today, Maria lives with this younger son in Bloemfontein, with no intentions to move or go to Portugal. Her husband passed away recently, and her other two sons continue living and working in South Africa, the oldest in Durban where he manages three branches of a South African coffee chain, and the middle son in Cape Town, having remarried a Madeiran woman. Neither seems to have any intentions to live and work outside South Africa.

Conclusions and future research As I come to the end of this chapter, I would like to go back to the introductory discussion on the different social categories, how they change with time and have

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an impact on people’s lives and possibilities. Throughout the text, I have unfolded these different categories in relation to their historical and social contexts, having as a guiding thread Maria’s narration and migration trajectory: being from the ‘mainland’ as metropole in late colonial Mozambique, growing up and becoming from the ‘colony’, feeling ‘African’, and then being recognised as a ‘refugee’ in South Africa, to finally becoming again from the ‘mainland’ but in the context of being one among other Portuguese immigrants in this country. Adopting a long diachronic perspective, instead of focusing on just one period of her life, enabled the constitution and interplay of these changing categories to appear. It enabled me to place on the same plane of analysis historical and social experiences usually taken separately by the literature, therefore allowing for an exploration of continuities and discontinuities, of tensions and ambiguities between narration and events. Indeed, my main methodological challenge was to find the right balance between narrative versus ethnographic and historiographical approaches. Additionally, my perspective implied another challenge, which was the need to have a broader understanding of a much larger body of literature on late colonialism, decolonisation and migration. I would also like to go back to my three initial points of interest in this case study and in writing this chapter, which also aimed to point to future lines of research. One was about Maria’s life in late colonial Mozambique and her decision to move to South Africa, corresponding to the first two main sections of the text. Maria’s narration lead me to consider a series of aspects about late colonial migration to Mozambique and what still needs further research, such as the expansion of the colonial healthcare system to rural areas, the history of mental health and psychiatric practices, or the lived experiences of settlers in both rural and urban contexts. At the same time, research into the exodus of white populations from Angola and Mozambique, being the second most significant in absolute numbers after the French pieds-noirs left Algeria in 1962 (Pimenta 2017: 101–102) should also be further developed, seeing that 5 per cent of the people fleeing Angola, and 15 per cent of those fleeing Mozambique went to other countries besides Portugal (Pires 1999: 184). My second and third points of interest were related to how Maria distinguished herself from another group of Portuguese living in Bloemfontein, as well as her life and views on the recent history of the city, which led me to the last section of the text. I mentioned that this case not only attested to the diversity of migrant experiences in South Africa but also challenged the notion of ‘community’. Some of the literature on diaspora and migration pays special attention to the construction of communities and mechanisms of social cohesion, namely through religious, associative or food practices. Regarding the Portuguese presence in South Africa, while some authors have identified three main migratory waves since the end of the 19th century, an idea of ‘community’ seems to prevail, and most works have focused on cases within one of those waves, especially on the Madeirans, and on certain regions of the country. Given that different groups of people arrived at different times, Glaser (2012b) has argued that Portuguese immigrants in South Africa never formed a homogenous

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‘community’, and Gupta (2018) has also underlined the differentiation dynamics between and within the different groups, stressing the diversity of experiences among those coming from Angola and Mozambique, who are at the centre of her ‘ethnography of decolonisation’. This chapter provides a relevant case study that challenges the academic schematisations regarding the Portuguese presence in South Africa while attesting to the resilience and the affective side of a long itinerant life. Acknowledgements

I want to acknowledge T Bel, Lazlo Passemiers, Duncan Money and Ilundi Cabral, who read and commented on former versions of this text. Endnotes 1

Isabela Figueiredo’s book, focused on Mozambique, is in its seventh imprint and has been translated into English (Notebook of colonial memories, University of Dartmouth, 2015). Dulce Maria Cardoso has also been translated into English (The Return, MacLehose Press, 2017). Both books are part of a recent literary trend that openly addresses colonial violence and the problematic experience of those who left the colonies after independence and went to Portugal.

2

The series has 26 episodes and includes very captivating archival footage of both cities.

3

The exhibition highlighted 40 years of migration from the colonies, peaking in 1975. There was also a catalogue, as well as a parallel programme, which included theatre, performances and debates. Information on the project Narratives of Loss, War and Trauma: Cultural Memory and the End of the Portuguese Empire is available at http://tracosdememoria.letras.ulisboa.pt.

4

For a critical discussion on the processes of differentiation between metropole and colony, coloniser and colonised, see Cooper and Stoler’s introduction to Tensions of Empire (1997). For an essay on the categorisation of Portuguese imperial populations, see Jerónimo et al. (2010) and about the Mozambican case, see the introduction to Castelo et al. (2012).

5

‘Included in this privileged category were the big investment capitalists, English, Portuguese, South-Africans, railway workers, chefes-de-posto, military personnel of several ranks, poor and deprived settlers, farmers, high colonial administrators, adventurers, street vendors, small merchants’ (Jerónimo et al. 2010: 158). Castelo et al. (2012: 20) note that, in Mozambique, the classification of ‘white’ used by the colonial statistics was unclear in terms of factors such as nationality, socio-economic status or religious convictions. Several chapters of this book address subgroups of the ‘white’ population in Mozambique.

6

New State (Estado Novo) is the name by which became known the authoritarian political regime in imperial Portugal from 1933 to 1974.

7

The most important document was the Estatuto Político, Civil e Criminal dos Indígenas de Angola e Moçambique, Decreto-Lei no. 12 533, 23 October 1926, which was extended to Guiné-Bissau and changed in the following years, only to be reformed in 1954 and abolished in 1961.

8

See below for historiographical and anthropological references about retornados.

9

See last section for references about the Portuguese presence in South Africa.

10 I will return to rissóis and the issue of food and migration in the last section of the text. 11 For a good compilation of classic and new works, see the volume Life Story Research (Harrison 2008).

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12 My visit to the Naval Archives in Lisbon was a little frustrating, as his file is incomplete. He enlisted in 1933 and left the force in 1945 as a cabo enfermeiro (corporal nurse). However, there is no information for the period between 1935 and 1945, except a marriage certificate dated 1937. The archivist suggested he might have received nursing training in the army academy, but I could not confirm this. It is also worth considering the possibility that he did further training in the period between leaving the navy and going to Mozambique (1945–1949) – such as a civil accreditation for his military degree, or even a ‘tropical hygiene’ course that became mandatory for settlers after 1947 (Castelo 2007: 254). 13 Maria did not mention other motivations for the family’s migration to Mozambique, but Castelo (2007: 202–203) mentions that during this period main reasons to migrate included the search for better socio-economic conditions and the expectation of upward social mobility. 14 For a recent synthetic overview of this period, see Jerónimo’s entry on ‘Portuguese colonialism in Africa’ in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of African History (Jerónimo 2018b). 15 On the ideas of ‘second colonial occupation’ and ‘semantic decolonisation’, see Jerónimo (2018a), and Jerónimo and Pinto (2015). For an overview of this period, see chapters 4 and 5 of Pimenta (2010), and for a series of essays on late colonialism in Mozambique see Os outros da colonização (Castelo et al. 2012). 16 These numbers follow the general increase in Portuguese emigration during the 1950s and 1960s, which were now turning away from Brazil and moving towards Europe, particularly France (Castelo 2007: 170-171, 181). In fact, at its peak, colonial migration never represented the main flow of Portuguese migration. 17 These numbers included people classified as ‘white’ from other origin, such as British people. In 1950, of the 48 213 ‘whites’ in Mozambique, 45 599 were Portuguese and from these 44 240 were from the metropole (Castelo 2007: 417; see also Pimenta 2010: 95). 18 Another part of the colonial migratory flow resulted from state-directed rural settlement schemes (colonatos), which, despite their political centrality, was more limited in numbers than spontaneous migration (Castelo 2007: 209–214; Newitt 1995: 466). 19 The Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino in Lisbon holds documentation of the colonial health services, including annual reports that could provide a stimulating source to analyse how these services worked in the colony, especially in the rural areas. I went through reports and lists of doctors and nurses for this period, paying particular attention to the area of Zambézia, but could not find Maria’s father’s name. About health policies and services in the Portuguese colonial context, see the work of Philip Havik (2018). 20 According to official statistics, in 1951, Namarrói was the third smallest municipality in the district and had a population of 47 741 inhabitants, of which only 29 were counted as ‘civilised’. Morrumbala, the third biggest municipality, had a population of 110 503 inhabitants, of which 256 were ‘civilised’. The district of Quelimane was the second most populous in Mozambique, with a population of 1  164 396. In turn, the total population of the colony was 5  732 317, of which 91 954 were ‘civilized’. See Anuário Estatístico – Ano XXIV – 1951 (Província de Moçambique 1953). 21 Some scholarly attention has been paid to cities and the urban history of the Portuguese empire, particularly during late colonialism. Most authors call attention to the spatialisation of race and class divisions, expressed in the so-called ‘dual city’, formed by the centre or ‘cement city’, where the colonial administration and society lived, and the suburbs, the musseques in the case of Luanda, or the cidade do caniço in the case of Lourenço Marques, where the rest of the population lived. As the latter worked in the centre, their awareness of the whole city, and therefore of the spatialised inequalities, was higher than that of those living in the centre,

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who were often ignorant about the suburbs. See, for example, the volume Cidade e Império edited by Domingos and Peralta (2013), or Calafate Ribeiro’s (2018) work on colonial and postcolonial literary portrayals of Luanda and Lourenço Marques. Penvenne (2005: 91) writes about how Lourenço Marques in the 1960s and 1970s became a ‘white man’s town’ and a tourist destination for South Africans and Rhodesians. Finally, see Mozambican writer Luís Bernardo Honwana’s most recent book, A velha casa de madeira e zinco (2017). 22 Other authors also highlight the regime’s efforts to ensure publicly that there was no war, only limited actions by isolated terrorist groups in the north (Thomaz & Nascimento 2012: 324). 23 That is Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, S. Tomé e Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique. There is a vast literature on decolonisation in Portuguese Africa, but see the work of MacQueen (1997), Pinto (1999; 2001) and the more recent volume edited by Rosas et al. (2015). For another recent but synthetic perspective, see Oliveira’s article in the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of African History (Oliveira 2017). On the impact of the events on 25 April 1974 and Portuguese decolonisation in Southern Africa, see The White Redoubt (Meneses & Mcnamara 2018). 24 About the lack of consensus in Lisbon regarding decolonisation, see Pimenta (2017: 105). 25 Joaquim Chissano led the transition government, which was formed by six ministers nominated by FRELIMO and three nominated by Portugal (Pimenta 2017: 110–111). 26 Rita-Ferreira (1988: 134) mentions hundreds of cars taking the road to Ressano Garcia, at the border with South Africa, as well as more than 5 000 people taking the train. Meneses and Mcnamara (2018: 194) likewise talk about a first exodus of 6 000 people to South Africa, which initially seems not to have been so well received by Pretoria. 27 Gupta (2011: 140) also notes the impact of Agostinho Neto’s speeches, which pushed settlers out of Angola, in the memories of some of those who came to South Africa after independence. Some people did not believe that a black majority government would be able to move the country forward, and that the country would collapse (I thank my colleague and friend Ilundi Cabral for pointing out this clarification). 28 The literature on the retornados has expanded considerably in the past 15 years, as part of increased attention to the impact of postcolonial migration in Europe. See, for example, Smith (2003), Morier-Genoud and Cahen (2012), Rosenhaft and Aitken (2013) or Buettner (2016), all of which include chapters on the Portuguese case. 29 Besides the references cited in the previous footnote, I would also highlight the pioneering work of Pires (1984; 1999) and the more recent works of Rosales (2015) and Peralta et al. (2017). 30 Rosales, who worked with families of both Portuguese and Goan descent who went to Portugal after Mozambican decolonisation, encountered a plurality of explanations provided by those who stayed longer: some said they stayed to protect their property, others because their social networks also stayed, while others identified themselves with the new political project (Rosales 2015: 217). 31 One of Rosales’ interviewees also spoke about the problems she faced for being Catholic in post-1975 Mozambique, with her children accused of being ‘alienated’ by schoolteachers and colleagues (Rosales 2015: 217). 32 In fact, Gupta (2018) mentions stories and rumours about infrastructural sabotage in Lourenço Marques around 1975, namely Portuguese families who poured concrete down their toilets before leaving or sabotaged work machinery. In Maria’s case, nothing similar emerged when I asked what happened to her business when she left. She responded that she left all the machines and does not know what happened to them.

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33 Gupta mentions one case that presents a similar escape story, based on the need to seek medical care in South Africa as a plausible excuse. The case is based on the life history of Carlos Garção, collected and published by South African historian Suzanne Gordon in 1988. Garção was almost the same age as Maria and had moved to northern Mozambique as a child. The beginning of the war led him to move to Lourenço Marques, and in January 1975, he decided to leave with his family and go to South Africa. According to Gupta, they ‘arrived with little, telling the South African authorities upon entry that Carlos was sick, “in need of a doctor”. Instead, he immediately started looking for a job’ (Gupta 2018: 97). Despite the similarity of rhetoric, Garção’s narrative suggests that, while his excuse was relevant to the South African authorities, Maria’s excuse was relevant to the Mozambican authorities. 34 The readiness with which Home Affairs supposedly accepted the letters and granted the ability to stay in the country seems to demonstrate a certain receptivity of South Africa to these migrants, but further research is needed to explore this issue. The case of Garção, mentioned above, presents a very different experience from Maria. It was not easy for him to get a work permit in South Africa, and he was only able to get a permit to stay after the intervention of the Portuguese vice-consul in Pretoria (Gupta 2018: 185, note no. 52). Nevertheless, Glaser (2012b: 222) notes that, in general, the South African government did not make it difficult for Portuguese Angolans and Mozambicans to obtain residence rights. 35 Nevertheless, as argued by Gupta (2018: 18), trauma may take on a variety of forms; Gupta noticed that it was sometimes best articulated through a discourse on material objects. 36 There is also a gender dimension to this idea of somatisation, as Maria herself commented that her condition was more common in women than in men, because ‘We keep quiet, you see. If you are upset, you keep quiet, and it goes immediately to the colon’. 37 ‘Manic depression’ was the term used at the time for what is known today as ‘bipolar disorder’. The history of mental health and psychiatric practices in colonial Mozambique is understudied. A potential line of research would explore how these practices addressed and constituted different categories of people, and how psychiatric practices developed not only within the Portuguese imperial networks but also in a comparative regional perspective. Trauma, often articulated with the idea of ‘colonial loss’, has been an important topic in some of the studies on the experience of decolonisation and the following population exoduses (see, for example, Gupta 2018; Marques 2017). 38 There seems to be only one academic reference about the Portuguese presence in Bloemfontein, a master’s thesis in Afrikaans completed in 1968, see Glaser (2012b). 39 Glaser (2012b) gives a good summary of South African immigration policies post-1910 and during apartheid years. Glaser shows how the South African government was not uniformly favourable to white immigration, adding the Portuguese case to the work of Sally Peberdy (2002). 40 It is worth noting that this was during the apartheid period when the city centre was a ‘white’ area. For a long time, the family lived in Bayswater, a northern suburb of Bloemfontein, a 5–10-minute drive from downtown. It would be worthwhile to study further the living and working areas of people with similar trajectories to Maria, in the context of the social and urban history of Bloemfontein. 41 Gupta (2018: 184, note no. 43) also notes, in the case of Garção, the absence of references to the racism that he might have witnessed in Johannesburg during apartheid. 42 About the status of bacalhau in Portuguese cuisine and identity, see the fascinating anthropological work of Sobral (2013). This author mentions the ‘Academias do Bacalhau’, which can be found in Europe, Africa, North and South America and Australia, as a

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relevant network of associations in the Portuguese diaspora. Funny enough, the first ‘Academia do Bacalhau’ was created in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1968 (Bessa 2009: 126–129; Glaser 2012b: 228). 43 I could not find any reference to the history of rissóis, but it is intriguing that a search in Google Books shows occurrences in cookbooks from Portugal, Goa, Mozambique and Brazil.

References Bertaux D & Kohli M (1984) The life story approach: A continental view. Annual Review of Sociology 10: 215–237 Bessa P (2009) A comunidade Lusíada em Joanesburgo. Porto: CEPESE Bourdieu P (1986) L’illusion biographique. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 62–63: 69–72 Buettner E (2016) Europe after empire: Decolonization, society, and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Castelo C (2007) Passagens para África: O povoamento de Angola e Moçambique com naturais da metrópole (1920–1974). Porto: Afrontamento Castelo C, Ribeiro Thomaz O, Nascimento S & Cruz e Silva T (Eds) (2012) Os outros da colonização: Ensaios sobre o colonialismo tardio em Moçambique. Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais Cooper F & Stoler A (Eds) (1997) Tensions of empire: Colonial cultures in a bourgeois world. Berkeley: University of California Press Cravinho JG (1995) La communauté Portugaise dans la nouvelle Afrique du Sud. Lusotopie 2: 323–358 Domingos N & Peralta E (Eds) (2013) Cidade e império: Dinâmicas coloniais e reconfigurações pós-coloniais. Lisbon: Edições 70 Figueiredo I (2015) Notebook of colonial memories. UMass Dartmouth: LAABST Glaser C (2010) Portuguese immigrant history in twentieth century South Africa: A preliminary overview. African Historical Review 42(2): 61–83 Glaser C (2012a) Home, farm and shop: The migration of Madeiran women to South Africa, 1900–1980. Journal of Southern African Studies 38(4): 885–897 Glaser C (2012b) The making of a Portuguese community in South Africa, 1900–1994. In E Morier-Genoud & M Cahen (Eds) Imperial migrations: Colonial communities and diaspora in the Portuguese world. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 213–238 Glaser C (2013) White but illegal: Undocumented Madeiran immigration to South Africa, 1920s–1970s. Immigrants and Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora 31(1): 74–98 Gupta P (2007) Mapping Portuguese decolonisation in the Indian Ocean: A research agenda. South African Historical Journal 57(1): 93–112 Gupta P (2011) ‘Going for a Sunday drive’: Angolan decolonization, learning whiteness and the Portuguese diaspora of South Africa. In FC Fagundes, IM Blayer & T Alves (Eds) Narrating the Portuguese diaspora: Piecing things together. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 135–152

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Gupta P (2018) Portuguese decolonization in the Indian Ocean world: History and ethnography. London: Bloomsbury Havik P (2018) Public health and disease control in former Portuguese Africa: Negotiating health system management and knowledge production (1945–1965). In B Poornam (Ed.) Learning from empire: Medicine, knowledge and transfers under Portuguese rule. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 141–173 Harrison B (Ed.) (2008) Life story research. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage Honwana LB (2017) A velha casa de madeira e zinco. Maputo: Alcance Editores. Jerónimo MB (2018a) Managing inequalities: Welfare colonialism in the Portuguese empire since the 1940s. In F Bethencourt (Ed.) Inequality in the Portuguese-speaking world: Global and historical perspectives. Brighton, Portland and Toronto: Sussex Academic Press, pp. 249–260 Jerónimo MB (2018b) Portuguese colonialism in Africa. In Oxford research encyclopedia of African history. Oxford University Press. Accessed September 2020, http://oxfordre. com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore9780190277734-e-183 Jerónimo MB & Pinto AC (2015) A modernizing empire? Politics, culture and economy in Portuguese late colonialism. In MB Jerónimo & AC Pinto (Eds) The ends of European colonial empires: Cases and comparisons. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51–80 Jerónimo MB, Domingos N & Dias N (2010) Indígenas, imigrantes e outros povos. In J Neves (Ed.) Como se faz um povo: Ensaios em história de Portugal contemporâneo. Lisbon: Tinta da China, pp. 153–165 MacQueen N (1997) The decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan revolution and the dissolution of empire. Harlow: Longman Marques A (2017) Deixar África: Experiência e trauma dos Portugueses de Angola e Moçambique. PhD thesis, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon Meneses F & Mcnamara R (2018) The white redoubt, the great powers and the struggle for Southern Africa, 1960–1980. London: Palgrave Macmillan Morier-Genoud E & Cahen M (Eds) (2012) Imperial migrations: Colonial communities and diaspora in the Portuguese world. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan Newitt M (1995) A history of Mozambique. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press Newitt M (2015) Emigration and the sea: An alternative history of Portugal and the Portuguese. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press Oliveira PA (2017) Decolonization in Portuguese Africa. Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of African History. Oxford University Press. Accessed September 2020, http://oxfordre.com/ africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e41%3E Peberdy S (2002) Selecting immigrants: National identity and South Africa’s immigration policies, 1910–2008. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Penvenne JM (2005) Settling against the tide: The layered contradictions of twentieth-century Portuguese settlement in Mozambique. In C Elkins & S Pedersen (Eds) Settler colonialism in the twentieth century: Projects, practices, legacies. New York: Routledge, pp. 79–94

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Peralta E, Góis B & Oliveira J (Eds) (2017) Retornar, traços de memória do fim do império. Lisbon: Edições 70 Pimenta FT (2008) Angola, os brancos e a independência. Porto: Edições Afrontamento Pimenta FT (2010) Portugal e o século XX: Estado-império e descolonização (1890–1975). Porto: Afrontamento Pimenta FT (2017) Causas do êxodo das minorias brancas da África Portuguesa: Angola e Moçambique 1974/75. Revista Portuguesa de História 48: 99–124 Pinto AC (1999) A guerra colonial e o fim do império português. In F Bethencourt & K Chaudhury (Eds) História da expansão Portuguesa (Volume 5). Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, pp. 65–98 Pinto AC (2001) O fim do império Português: A cena internacional, a guerra colonial e a descolonização, 1961–1975. Lisbon: Livros Horizonte Pires RP (1984) Os retornados: Um estudo sociográfico. Lisbon: Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento Pires RP (1999) O regresso das colónias. In F Bethencourt & K Chaudhuri (Eds) História da expansão Portuguesa (Volume 5). Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, pp. 182–196 Província de Moçambique, Repartição Técnica de Estatística (1953) Anuário estatístico – Ano XXIV–1951. Lourenço Marques: Imprensa Nacional de Moçambique Ribeiro MC (2018) Inequalities, in other words: Literary portrayals of the cities of Luanda and Maputo. In F Bethencourt (Ed.) Inequality in the Portuguese-speaking world: Global and historical perspectives. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, pp. 153–178 Rita-Ferreira A (1988) Moçambique post-25 de Abril: Causas do êxodo da população de origem europeia e asiática. In Moçambique, Cultura e História de Um País: Actas da V Semana de Cultura Africana. Coimbra: Instituto de Antropologia da Universidade de Coimbra Rosales M (2015) Retornos e recomeços: experiências construídas entre Moçambique e Portugal. In F Rosas, M Machaqueiro & PA Oliveira (Eds) O adeus ao império: 40 anos de descolonização Portuguesa. Lisbon: Nova Vega Rosas F, Machaqueiro M & Oliveira PA (Eds) (2015) O adeus ao império: 40 anos de descolonização Portuguesa. Lisbon: Nova Vega Rosenhaft E & Aitken R (Eds) (2013) Africa in Europe: Studies in transnational practice in the long twentieth century. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press Schutte CD (1990) Some attitudes of Portuguese immigrants to South Africa regarding re-migration. South African Journal of Sociology 21(3): 157–166 Silva CN (2016) Assimilacionismo e ‘assimilados’ no império Português do século XX: Uma relação equivocada. In ÂB Xavier & CN Silva (Eds) O governo dos outros: Poder e diferença no império Português. Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, pp. 323–364 Smith AL. (Ed.) (2003) Europe’s invisible migrants. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press Sobral JM (2013) O ‘fiel amigo’: O bacalhau e a identidade Portuguesa. Etnográfica 17(3): 619–649 Souto AN de (2015) Moçambique, descolonização e transição para a independência: Herança e memória. In F Rosas, M Machaqueiro & PA Oliveira (Eds) O Adeus ao império: 40 anos de descolonização Portuguesa. Lisbon: Nova Vega, pp. 141–156

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Thomaz OR & Nascimento S (2012) Nem Rodésia, nem Congo: Moçambique e os Dias do Fim das comunidades de origem Europeia e Asiática. In C Castelo, O Ribeiro Thomaz, S Nascimento & T Cruz e Silva (Eds) Os outros da colonização: Ensaios sobre o colonialismo tardio em Moçambique. Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, pp. 315–339

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4

Becoming white: The story of being assimilated into the white habitus of Bloemfontein Liezl Dick

The history of South Africa and its people is inextricably linked to racialised laws and policies, which is why one cannot discuss the present-day situation in South Africa without understanding its problematic past. Racialised laws regulated living arrangements, marriages, intimate relationships, movement and the educational opportunities of society and were based on physical characteristics like hair texture, eye colour, skin colour and accent (Posel 2001). The political became personal and embodied. Rigid race categories were employed, and depended on how closely the person resembled the white norm, or how far they deviated from this standard of what it means to be human. Being classified as white depended on the existence of a non-white category. Identities, arguably, were constructed through a racialised hierarchy, containing superordinates and subordinates (Horowitz 1985: 22–28). Implied in this hierarchical racialised order is the construction of identity as relational, spatial and embodied (Massey 2004). And if we take the relational, processual and dynamic construction of identity seriously (Brubaker et al. 2006: 10), as we will in this chapter, we have to acknowledge that relational identity is embedded in an element of responsibility – who became white and how was directly dependent on the becoming (or lack thereof) of the other (Erasmus 2017) where ‘becomings’ were determined by the regulation of resources, opportunities and material and structural privilege. The lives of South Africans are still determined by racialised, often morally problematic ‘becomings’. Consequently, South Africans classified as white pre-1994 (and post-1994, some might argue) were the superordinates in a ranked ethnic system. A power-imbalance existed between whites and non-whites, and social class was strongly linked to racial/ethnic origins (Horowitz 1985). Over the last 26 years, the postcolonial South African political, social and economic landscape has experienced several challenges and some changes. The racial polarisation and racialised poverty, however, still seems to have a strong hold on South African society, due to the legacy of apartheid and the mismanagement of government funds (SAIRR 2019: 3). The aim of this chapter is to focus on the micro-social elements of the legacy of apartheid, and how racialised inequality is perpetuated. Through the life story of of an immigrant in South Africa who is classified as white, this chapter examines the everyday performativity of whiteness – cognitive schemes, common-sense knowledge, organisational resources and discursive frames, situated actions and cultural idioms (Brubaker 2004: 27). My aim is not to perpetuate or solidify racialised categories

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(Essed 2001: 497) but exactly the opposite. By interrogating the micro-social performativity of whiteness, I want to expose the mechanisms of racialisation – how it works, and how racialised categories are perpetuated (Brubaker et al 2006: xiv). To work towards social inclusion and social justice, the mechanisms of race and racism in South Africa should be explored. In demonstrating whiteness as performative and relational, rather than as a fixed and formal racial category, I want to unsettle the pervasiveness of whiteness and racialisation. My aim is to open ways for whiteness to be performed differently, and for racial categories to become hybrid, multiple and mixed (Saldanha 2006). For the purposes of this chapter, a critical whiteness studies lens will be employed, with a specific focus on an epistemology of ignorance or whiteness, to understand how racialisation manifests and is performed and perpetuated in the everyday lives of people (Brubaker 2004). I will focus on the life story of a Romanian woman and, to a lesser extent, a relative of hers, who both immigrated to Bloemfontein, South Africa, in the early 1990s. By applying a whiteness studies lens and drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus, I interrogate the lives and trajectory of Irina and Ioana Popescu1 and their assimilation into and adaptation to a racialised society in (mostly) post-apartheid South Africa. By reading Irina’s life story through a whiteness study lens with specific focus on an epistemology of whiteness, I also scrutinise the ‘internal construction of the politics of place’ (Massey 2004: 6). Whiteness studies claim that the majority of white people are blind to whiteness and its privileges because whiteness is perceived as normative, standard and ‘without race’, while racialised identities are perceived as ‘the other’ (Burke 2011: 651; Dwyer & Jones 2000: 210; Green et al. 2007: 396; Steyn 2004: 144). As such, whiteness is seen as a position, attitude, or space of structural privilege, characterised by an ignorance of privilege. For the purposes of this chapter, specific attention will be given to an epistemology of ignorance ‘as both a function of and functional in racialised societies’ (McEwen & Steyn 2013: 3), in order to understand how Irina, as a lightskinned Romanian immigrant, was assimilated into whiteness in Bloemfontein during the early 1990s. An epistemology of ignorance and whiteness, read through the lens of Bourdieu’s (1984) notion of habitus, helps us to understand Irina’s adaptation and assimilation into white South African culture. Habitus can be defined as the ‘structuring structure’ through which subjectivity becomes socialised and conditioned (Edgerton & Roberts 2014: 198) on both macro and micro levels (Twine & Steinbugler 2006: 343). The notion of white habitus explains the formation of whiteness through cultural and economic practices, where ideological white supremacy and colonial epistemology play crucial roles in the socialisation of white South African subjectivities. An epistemology of ignorance functions as an integral part of the white habitus, forming and shaping white subjectivities through overt and subtle mechanisms. Irina’s white subjectivity will be interrogated because it was ‘shaped within, through and into’ (Steyn 2012: 22) Bloemfontein’s white habitus, which is characterised by epistemological ignorance.

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The aim of this analysis is not to depict (the) Romanian immigrants as treacherous, morally corrupt individuals who benefitted from white privilege, but rather to understand how an epistemology of ignorance operates through two immigrants classified as white and how they were incorporated into a system of whiteness and a white habitus. Although these immigrants were not classified as white in Romania, they showed awareness of a ranked ethnic system operative in their country of origin (Horowitz 1985). Reading their life stories against the backdrop of Romanian habitus aids in making sense of their trajectory of ‘becoming white’ in Bloemfontein. To analyse how whiteness happens and works, how it is expressed and performed in the everyday, I use an epistemology of whiteness/ignorance lens that is, like any perspective, admittedly selective. Using a whiteness lens is but one way of interpreting the narratives. There is so much more to be discussed about Irina’s rich and textured lived experience in Bloemfontein. Due to the scope of the chapter and a lack of space, I had to draw methodological boundaries by zooming into the racialised aspect of her life, language and experiences. By stating this, and by focusing on this particular aspect of identity formation and the performativity of whiteness, I want to comment on how it is possible for macro-social policies to creep into the lives and bodies of people, where it becomes micro-socially embedded and stuck. That Irina lives a meaningful, good life where she contributes to the welfare of her family and others should be acknowledged. The immigrants preferred not to elaborate explicitly on their political opinions or personal background, which prevented a thorough collaborative project. Irina and Ioana’s stories are unique and not representative of all immigrants classified as white in South Africa. However, an analysis thereof will contribute to an understanding of the white habitus in South Africa, how it functioned in the recent past, and how it still functions today.

Life in communist Romania Irina Popescu was born in eastern Romania in the 1950s. When Irina recalls Romanian life, the scarcity of food, inflation, cultural isolation and media censorship are recurring topics: ‘Everything that happened [to us in Romania] really tested the limits of our survival’. The siblings were born during communist rule and experienced childhood under the dictatorial President Nicolae Ceauşescu (1974– 1989), who adopted a neo-Stalinist approach to economics and politics that resulted in a weaker economy, censorship, increased repression, dire living conditions and ‘demodernisation’ (Georgescu 1991: 255). In Romania today, it is a general perception that it was during Romania’s ruling by the Communist Party, particularly during Ceauşescu’s regime, that the country became severely impoverished. By 1981, economic mismanagement had forced the introduction of food rations, and by the mid-1980s, the population had to survive on minimal resources. To a large extent, the state was no longer fulfilling its social functions: annual state expenditure

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on healthcare, education and housing decreased severely between 1980 and 1985, after which the state failed to provide data on social expenditure. At the same time, underfed Romanians had to endure unspeakable working conditions and had to live in apartments without heating during icy winters (Georgescu 1991: 260–271). Under Ceauşescu’s regime, the idea of ‘true Romanianness’ – being an orthodox Christian, native Romanian speaker, ethnically Romanian citizen – was the core of Romanian nationalism. Ethnocentrism was also upheld by the cultural elite, but ethnic minorities, including Hungarians, Germans, Jews and the Roma were excluded from what was perceived as a homogeneous, ‘unmarked’ and dominant Romanian identity (Korkut 2006; Szakács 2011). The dominant ethnic group perceived of themselves as the unmarked norm, while other ethnicities were perceived of as ‘marked’, ‘racialised’ or ‘ethnic’ (Brubaker et al. 2006: 19). Ceauşescu accused those who campaigned for the rights of ethnic minorities of xenophobia, and insisted on creating a homogenised, industrialised nation by suppressing ethnic diversity in the country. Consequently, the Romanian Communist Party largely neglected the Roma population (Korkut 2006; Szakács 2011).2 The general population was also under surveillance and controlled by the secret police, known as the Securitate, who had informants in every factory, school or place of social gathering. Socialising with the broader public was only allowed under certain circumstances, and even then, the Securitate’s informants had an eye on every movement and conversation. Romanians’ right to be ‘autonomous social agents’ was constantly undermined. As a result of totalitarian interventions, most Romanians became increasingly indifferent and apathetic to public activities and communal living. Communism, ironically, failed to create a ‘communal ethos’, and a belief in collective action was destroyed. Families were living increasingly inwardly, and selfinterest became their main focus (Matei 2004: 42–44). The constant surveillance, militarisation, food shortages and violations of human rights resulted in a weakened civil society over time (Stan 2010: 380–381). Despite the apathy and lack of civil cohesion, the civil action momentarily became strong enough to oppose and topple the totalitarian regime. On 22 December 1989, large numbers of Romanians gathered at the Palace Square (today known as Revolution Square) in Bucharest to protest against Ceauşescu’s reign. A revolution ensued and led to the end of Ceauşescu and the Romanian Communist Party’s reign.

The habitus of the Popescus At the time of the Romanian Revolution, Irina was working in Bucharest and had a young son. According to her, the transition from authoritarianism to democracy was ‘complete anarchy’, but she never considered emigrating to other European countries. In fact, apart from a single trip to Bulgaria, she had never travelled to any neighbouring European country. However, she feared that her son might face a life of strife in Romania. When a relative, who lived in Bloemfontein, suggested that Irina

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and her family move to the Free State, she gave emigration a second thought. In early 1991, Irina, her husband and their son visited Bloemfontein on holiday, but decided to stay permanently when both Irina and her husband easily found work. Although her Romanian qualifications were not recognised in South Africa, her knowledge and work ethic helped to secure a job: ‘The manager said he would like me to work there because the people from Eastern Europe are hard workers’. During two interviews, Irina repeatedly emphasised that she found the people of Bloemfontein helpful and friendly. Socially, the Popescus adapted quite easily, despite initially feeling disorientated: the people [were] very nice, very friendly. I have a [Romanian] friend in Germany, she has been living there for 40 years. She has never visited anybody at their home, and nobody visited her to her house. Very cold. If you meet, you meet outside, not in their home. Irina repeatedly mentioned the quality of life that Bloemfontein offered her – something she could not attain in Bucharest – and the good climate was one of the main contributors to this quality lifestyle. Additional advantages included the lack of traffic jams and ‘cheap labour’, which allowed Irina time to spend on herself and her own interests. Irena’s relative, Ioana, on the other hand, preferred not to share her life story because her South African citizenship and visa documents were not yet finalised. She did, however, attend and at times participate in our interviews, and will feature in the analysis. The women perceive of themselves as a ‘mixture’ of Romanian and South African but feel at home in Bloemfontein. They have not considered moving back to Romania, saying that they do not know or understand Romanian life anymore. Both women speak fluent English and can understand Afrikaans, although they do not speak the language often. Irina is well-integrated into Bloemfontein society and has two sons who grew up in South Africa. Her eldest has dual citizenship, but the youngest has South African citizenship only.

Whiteness studies, an epistemology of ignorance, and the white habitus South Africa has a deeply problematic and racialised history. During apartheid, the government succeeded in securing a white supremacy state, due to ‘the systematic bureaucratisation and normalisation of race’ (Posel 2001: 88), a legacy that is still haunting South African citizens. The apartheid government used the concept of race to create a state policy concomitant with a societal commonsensical approach to race based on skin colour, language and class, to establish a thoroughly racialised social order. The different races referred to during apartheid were white, African, coloured, Indian and other, although the racial categories of the Population Registration Act (No. 30 of 1950) changed several times as a result of the ‘changing political needs

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of the apartheid state’ (Erasmus 2017: 88–89). Racial categories were socially and materially constructed, and a fluidity of racial categories allowed those in power to manipulate the classification to suit the needs of the white minority. Rights and privileges were allocated to people according to race, with white people benefitting most, and, as a consequence, forming unequal racialised power relations, the repercussions of which are still visible today (McEwen & Steyn 2013: 2). While the Population Registration Act made possible the classification of all South Africans into fixed racial categories, the Group Areas Act (No. 41 of 1950) ensured the residential segregation of people belonging to different racial categories. This was one of the strategies of the apartheid regime to make sure that white supremacy was protected and perpetuated (Posel 2001: 98, 102). The Publications Act (No. 42 of 1974) was one of the apartheid regime’s most important strategies to restrict access to information, and made censorship possible (Arko-Cobbah 2008), while the Immorality Amendment Act (No. 57 of 1969) prohibited sexual intercourse between white people and other races. It is important to note that a strong police force was active during apartheid, ensuring that South Africans adhered to racialised legislation. Resistance to these laws were met with intimidation and arrest. Although the above-mentioned laws have been repealed and new laws have been put in place to eradicate the inequalities of the past,3 ‘one cannot legislate a change of heart’ (Steyn 2005: 132), and South Africans are still struggling to build a socially cohesive nation. Among a variety of reasons for the inability of the social fabric of the country to heal, critical whiteness studies have identified the mechanics and strategies of upholding white privilege as an important factor. Critical whiteness studies drive an anti-racism approach by moving the focus to white people and the formation of white identities as the result of a broader racist society. Such an approach investigates the subtle and unconscious thinking habits and behaviour characterising racial discrimination. In line with critical race studies, critical whiteness studies focus on ‘[decentring] white normative ways of knowing and being in the world’ (McEwen & Steyn 2013: 3). Whiteness can be described as the reproduction of white supremacy that upholds privilege, where those who benefit from such an order are blind to these racialised privileges (Green et al. 2007: 390). Similarly, whiteness studies aver that most white people are blind to whiteness and its privileges. As such, whiteness is seen as a position, attitude, or space of structural privilege, characterised by an ignorance of privilege. Hence, whiteness is the lack of insight into such a racial order, where white people are unable to comprehend that opportunities are racialised (Steyn 2007: 421; 2012: 11), while race is a determining factor in every aspect of the daily life of the racialised other (Sundstrom 2002: 100). Steyn (2005: 122) states that in situations where white South Africans were aware of this racialised order, they took racialisation for granted, viewing whiteness as the norm because ‘this is how it should be’. It is argued that some white people still hold on to these colonial assumptions and strategies, which uphold white privilege and supremacy. Whiteness

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studies want to reveal these strategies, in an attempt to move to a more socially just society (Steyn 2007). For the purposes of this chapter, the adaptation of Irina and Ioana into South African whiteness will be interrogated. What makes their migration interesting is that they were not necessarily perceived of as white in Romania. Goldberg (2002) claims that immigrants who migrated to the colonies, often ‘became’ white after settling into their new home country, while they would not have been considered as white back home. ‘Colonies elevated the European proletariat to the property of whiteness by making available at least the semblance of privileges and power, customs and behaviour which were not so readily accessible to them in their European environments’ (Goldberg 2002: 172). The fluidity ‘of racial characterisation and identification’ makes a certain racial mobility possible, enabling the European working-class immigrant to ‘be devalued from or promoted into the relative privileges, powers, and properties associated with normative middle-class whiteness according to the political, economic and cultural demands and interests of place and time’ (Goldberg 2002: 173). South Africa, which was, by all means, a racial state in the early 1990s when Irina arrived, was a place where white identity was constructed and moulded, and the privileges associated with whiteness were protected by the state. Specific attention will be given to an epistemology of ignorance ‘as both a function of and functional in racialised societies’ (McEwen & Steyn 2013: 3) to understand how Irina, a Romanian immigrant, was assimilated into a white habitus. It is important to note that, although the concept of ‘ignorance’ has a negative connotation in popular language, it more technically indicates indifference, a lack of knowledge, or a nonchalant unawareness. The latter definition of ‘ignorance’ will be used in this chapter to explore how it strategically and systematically operates on an epistemological level, to keep an order of white privilege in place. In order to interrogate the epistemological dimension of whiteness characterised by ignorance, Steyn (2012) develops the ignorance contract, which entails ‘the ignorance “subclause” of the more comprehensive Racial Contract – the agreement, whether explicit or tacit – to maintain white epistemologies of ignorance’. Mills (1997: 14) postulates the existence of a conscious or unconscious consent of white people to uphold a racialised order, where whiteness and white supremacy are favoured, to the detriment of the subordinated non-white other. Epistemological ignorance, characterised by ‘white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception on matters related to race’, is implicit in and crucial for the ‘Racial Contract’ to be upheld: on matters related to race, the Racial Contract prescribes for its signatories an inverted epistemology, and epistemology of ignorance, a particular pattern of localised and global cognitive dysfunctions (which are psychologically and socially functional), producing the ironic outcome that whites will in general be unable to understand the world they themselves made. (Mills 1997: 18)

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Steyn (2005: 129) claims that structural white ignorance was the result of government interventions, which used censorship and propaganda to facilitate structural ignorance on a macro scale. However, ignorance was also created and upheld in micro social spaces as the product of a thousand tiny conscious and unconscious decisions white people made to not know, to not be informed about the lived experiences of so-called ‘non-whites’ during apartheid. Ignorance, just like knowledge, can be managed. The way ignorance is managed to control a racial hierarchy and to reproduce power can shed light on the mechanisms of whiteness. By interrogating an epistemology of ignorance, an understanding of ignorance as structural, intersubjective, social, performed and learned through ‘communicative practices’ can shed light on this dimension of whiteness (Steyn 2012: 9–10). The extent to which Irina was socialised into adopting a white identity after immigrating to South Africa will be interrogated with a specific focus on the presence of an epistemology of ignorance in her narrative. The habitus or ‘socially acquired tendencies and predispositions’ (Bonilla-Silva et al. 2006: 233) function like a ‘matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions’ (Bourdieu 1984: 83), cultivating a specific world view and way of knowing the world. Habitus helps us to understand ‘deep cultural conditioning that reproduces and legitimates social formations’ (Bonilla-Silva et al. 2006: 233) and can also be defined as ‘embodied history’ that is seen as commonsensical and second nature (Samaluk 2014: 6), especially when the dimension of embodiment plays a crucial role in the reproduction of structure and order: The habitus generates practices that, like moves in a game, are regulated by the regularities of the social structure and in so doing they reproduce these structures. But practices and knowledge are bound together by the body whose importance the intellectualist vision misses. The social order inscribes itself in bodies; that is to say, we learn bodily and express our knowledge bodily – all under the organising power of the habitus, itself largely unconscious. (Burawoy & Von Holdt 2012: 36) In this sense, the notion of habitus is a helpful lens to understand whiteness not only as embodied but also as structural: white South African subjectivities were constructed through cultural and economic practices embedded in an ideology of white supremacy and a colonial epistemology. Bonilla-Silva (2003: 104) emphasises this racialised element of habitus when he defines the white habitus as the ‘racialised, uninterrupted socialisation process that conditions and creates whites’ racial tastes, perceptions, feelings and emotions and their view on racial matters’. Subjectivities are constructed and conditioned through both overt and subtle mechanisms, such as parenting and the media, creating white identities and subjectivities that perceive of their homogeneity and exclusionary socialisation as normal (Bonilla-Silva et al. 2006: 248). As such, an epistemology of ignorance functions as an integral part of the white habitus, forming and shaping white subjectivities.

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It is important to acknowledge that the notion of Bourdieu’s habitus is not unproblematic. King (2000: 427–428) avers that the habitus ‘rules out the possibility of social change’ and ‘is inadequate to the explanation of social change’. In this sense, habitus implies that the social reproduction of structures is inevitable and that the actions of individual subjects are determined (King 2000: 430). According to Burawoy and Von Holdt (2012: 202), ‘[h]abitus does not seem able to explain the emergence of resistance to apartheid’, but other concepts of Bourdieu-like ‘symbolic order’ and ‘practical theory’ (King 2000) can account for resistance and social change. Keeping these shortcomings of habitus in mind, Bourdieu’s focus on the reproduction of social order will be taken serious for the purposes of this chapter. As a theorist of order (Burawoy & Von Holdt 2012: 5), it is exactly this dimension of his work that will help us to understand the lack of resistance and the perpetuation of ignorance as encountered in Irina’s life story.4 The extent to which her and Ioana’s habitus prepared them for being assimilated into whiteness in South Africa, as well as the role of an epistemology of ignorance in this process, will also be discussed. It is also important to mention that different shades of whiteness do exist in South Africa. Van der Westhuizen (2017) discerns between white English-speaking South African (WESSA) identity and Afrikaner identity, where the one competes with the other in becoming (more) white. WESSA is described as ‘normative South African whiteness [that] draws on global Anglo whiteness’, while Afrikaner identity can be described as a ‘subaltern whiteness’ that is used ‘to denote a non-dominant, marked, particularist or racialised identity’ (Van der Westhuizen 2017: 25). Afrikaners have a complex relationship with WESSAs, which dates back to the British colonisation of the Cape in 1795: ‘Groups belonging to “minority whiteness” have been both the object of racism as well as colluding in it’ (Van der Westhuizen 2017: 25). The scope of this chapter does not allow for an extensive explanation of these complex relationalities. It is, however, important to mention that whiteness in South Africa is not homogeneous, and white bodies were not marked only by race, but also by class and ethnicity. Irina was assimilated into WESSA culture, but she ‘picked up’ some Afrikaans along the way. The structural and deeply embedded ignorance that is characteristic of the white South African habitus was not sufficiently confronted after 1994 and is still, to a big extent, part of the white psyche, 25 years after the end of apartheid politics. I remember being a 15-year-old high school student when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) hearings started in 1995. At breakfast, before school, the journalist Antjie Krog would report on the previous day’s hearings. My father, a kind-hearted, empathetic man, was upset; he could not understand why we had to be confronted with the horrific details of the past. At the same time, like most white people, he could only respond with ‘we did not know’ when asked by the younger generation why they allowed these crimes to take place. I could not make sense of my father – a white man, ‘the oppressor’, but also a loving father – and the crimes against humanity that the TRC revealed. Neither could he. It is exactly this form of ignorance and concomitant inability to deal with the complex

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emotional burdens, brought about by white superiority, that critical whiteness studies want to investigate.

Race relations, the good life and cheap labour The main reasons why Irina enjoys her life in Bloemfontein include a lack of stress, not being part of a rat race and the good climate. According to her, South Africans are also more patient than bucureşteni, the people from Bucharest. Under communism, she was obliged to work six days a week, nine hours a day. Once she moved to Bloemfontein, she paid for ‘help’ – from mostly black or coloured people – to clean her house and to assist in the restaurant her son opened when he finished school. During her years in Bloemfontein, she became used to cleaning ladies and grocery-store personnel who pack her groceries in bags for her. Irina said: I have so much time for myself! It was easier than we thought [to adapt to life in Bloemfontein]. In Romania it was like: work, come home, clean, cook, homework. Then Monday again. And then here I had a neighbour who said: ‘Why don’t you take somebody to help you?’ I didn’t know how much it cost. He said, ‘My girl can come one day [per week] to you’. I asked how much? He said it was five rand per day in 1991.5 Five rand! But another funny story, there in Romania, if you move you carry all the furniture and you get friends to help. You have companies but it is so expensive. So here we had to move and somebody borrowed us a bakkie [a pickup truck]. We didn’t have a lot of things, but now I was thinking, ag, I have to carry this furniture to the second floor like in Romania. [So my husband asked people to help] and these three guys came and said they ask two rand each to carry the furniture.6 And this girl came on Friday, she did everything – wash, clean, iron. You come home, you do nothing on a Friday! I was like wow, thank you so much! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I think she was thinking I am crazy. Irina inhabited a social system in South Africa where labour was extremely affordable – and she accepted this racialised labour system as the norm, making her life in South Africa more comfortable than the life she had previously been living. Structural inequality is still largely prevalent in South Africa today. The minimum wage for domestic workers working less than 27 hours a week in South Africa was between ZAR 14 and ZAR 15.30 per hour in 2018, depending on whether the person worked in a metropolitan area, which demands a higher wage (Republic of South Africa 2017). For a full day of work (eight hours), a domestic worker should have been receiving between ZAR 112.24 and ZAR 122.24.7 During the interview, it became clear that Irina, just like my father and some white South Africans, struggles to come to terms with and truly grasp the impact of structural racism and racial discrimination of the apartheid government and its legacy, which had its roots in colonialism. Privileges were given to people on

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account of their skin colour; well-paid jobs were mostly given to white males, while hard labour jobs were mostly reserved for black males. ‘Racial capitalism’ in South Africa was a spin-off of the colonial economy and mining industry, setting the tone for a white supremacist apartheid government (Alexander 2002). It is worth quoting Alexander at length here, to explain the intricate weaving of a race-class web during colonialism and, later, apartheid, building the foundations for white supremacy: The most important political implication to this system of forced labour was the manner in which the dividing lines of colour and class came to coincide. That is to say, in general, at one pole of the system, a thin layer of white men were the owners and managers of capitalist wealth while a slightly broader layer of white men (and much later, also white women) were the skilled workers and foremen, all of whom had a vested interest in monopolising this wealth as well as these skills and their privileged positions. At the other pole of the system, an ever-increasing number of black men with their ethnic roots (heimat) in the rural areas of the entire subcontinent as far north as modern Tanzania, constituted a cheap migrant labour force. Their umbilical connection with their respective ‘homelands’ initially acted as a wage subsidy to the mining capitalists in that the subsistence and ‘education’ of the families of these eminently expendable workers did not constitute a factor in the wage bill. Simply put, the system of migrant labour and native reserves helped to depress the wage level and thus to maximise profits for the capitalist class. (Alexander 2002: 12) After moving to South Africa, Irina became part of the people categorised as white, and she also self-identified with white people, which consequently put her in a specific class within the South African capitalist economy. By being classified as white, Irina took on an identity given to her by the nation state. Samaluk (2014: 14) avers ‘that in each nation state there exists a normative habitus upon which Otherness is constructed, or upon which migrants’ [social] capitals get defined, appropriated and translated’. The normative white habitus in South Africa allowed Irina to optimise her cultural capital (read: whiteness), in order to create a better life for herself. Cultural capital can be defined as ‘understanding the codes and conventions of cultural forms and being able to demonstrate competence in using them’ where these competencies are shaped by habitus (Long et al. 2014: 1782) of, in this case, the country of immigration (here: South Africa). Research has shown that Eastern Europeans migrating to Western Europe are confronted with racism, classism, nationalism and/or conflict related to ethnicity (Long et al. 2014; Samaluk 2014). From the interviews with Irina, it became clear, however, that her cultural capital benefitted her when she moved to South Africa: she did not experience racism but became part of the white community. She is very clear about not feeling like an outsider in South Africa: The people never treated us like outsiders. We have been here for 27 and 20 years. This is home. Honestly, everything was better for us: the house, the climate, the work. In communist Romania, everyone...was put in the

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same category, be the same, lowest possible salary. All this time it was this abuse. It was a lot of corruption, but we didn’t know how much it was. It was the security police, like KGB, had their own shops, we didn’t know, we didn’t know. Ironically, Irina moved to South Africa where the abuse of people (racism, racialisation, racialised capitalism – see Alexander 2002; Van der Westhuizen 2017) was rampant. Apartheid was a ‘racialised hierarchy of discrimination’ where resources were unequally distributed according to race. More money had been spent on white education than black education, while white medical services and social welfare were more generously subsidised (Maré 2001: 86). The social order Irina encountered in South Africa was comparatively ‘better’ than the life she left behind in Romania, given, as mentioned above, the difficult living conditions in Romania at the time. However, she did not question the conditions and repercussions of this good South African life, especially the racialised dimension. It was, epistemologically speaking, only necessary for her to know that a better life was possible; she did not interrogate the political and ethical aspects of this (better) life. This is an example of how epistemological ignorance infused white habitus, normalising the racialised order and making commonsensical thinking regarding white privilege possible (Posel 2001). Irina was eased into a system characterised by structural ignorance and structural racism, demanding the person in a position of privilege to unconsciously ignore the social injustices that were part of her new ‘good life’ (Steyn 2012: 18). In Romania, you worked hard in the kitchen [in a restaurant], there are few people who do the cleaning jobs there [you do it all yourself]. So it helped a lot, the help [here]. You help them, you know, the people are poor, and they help you. Irina, herself once the oppressed, accepted the low-paying jobs of the racialised poor as ‘the way things are’ in South Africa, and she embraced the luxury along with being able to make use of cheap labour. She did, however, interpret this working relation with ‘the help’ as a mutually beneficial one: she paid the help, and the help assisted her with cleaning. There is truth in Irina’s claim. To a certain extent she did help the workers by paying them for services rendered. And the workers needed the money to survive and provide for their families. Perhaps this tension between personal goodwill and day-today survival on the one hand (‘we help them, they help us’), and structural inequality and systemic politicised injustice on the other, is what haunts racial relationships in South Africa, still. Irina had no bad intentions towards the underpaid workers. She did, however, by virtue of being classified as white, participate in a system where identities and material realities were constituted through daily interactions of this kind, and where society allowed her to be ignorant of the consequences of these interactions. When I asked Irina to share her opinion on South Africa’s race relations and politics, especially the end of apartheid and racial conflict in the country, she said: You know that it is everywhere that there are problems. Like in Romania and everywhere else there will be conflict between some groups. Here

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it is the blacks and whites. In Romania, it is gypsy and Romanian and there are this small minority of Hungarian people and small minority of Turkish and it’s always conflict. Stealing and crooking is all over the world, so it’s nothing new here. As long as people are poor there will be stealing and breaking into the house. I don’t think it’s different. Irina seems to be relativising, and to some extent also ‘justifying’, as normal the specific ethnic conflicts relating to her country of origin, on the one hand, and South Africa, on the other. She is aware of the ethnic conflict in Romania, but she does not mention the discrimination against ethnic and national minorities there. Could this be because she was part of the dominant ethnic group in ethnocentric Romania, which identifies as ‘the unmarked norm’ and the standard, too, while ethnic minorities are perceived of as ‘the marked other’? This could, however, also be because she has not been living in Romania for a while – and is truly out of touch with Romanian issues. Another reason might be that Irina is not politically inclined. When I asked her and Ioana about their perceptions of the Roma in Romania, Ioana immediately mentioned pickpocketing as something she associated with the Roma, as evident in this discussion between ourselves: [Ioana] And there you can get pickpocketed. They take the razor blade and cut open your bag and take out the purse. You get to work and you feel the bag is lighter. [Liezl] And are all the Roma like that? [Ioana] Most of them. [Irina] You know, it’s like here [in South Africa], they blame black people, but there are also white people who steal. [Ioana] But they [the Roma] avoid working hard. This conversation resembles stereotypical ethnicised (read: racialised) thinking habits, which underlie the normativity of white supremacy and are characteristic of the white habitus in South Africa. An awareness of a ranked ethnic system also becomes apparent. The question needs to be asked whether these ethnicised thinking habits were the product of Romanian nationalism and a by-product of ‘true Romanianness’. Ioana refers to the Roma as ‘they’, hence positioning herself as not being Roma but most likely part of the Romanian ethnic majority. As a result, the Roma are being defined as ‘the other’. Similarly, by referring to black people as ‘them’ and ‘they’, Ioana and Irina position themselves in the South African racialised order as different from blacks. The possible perpetuation of their ethnicised thinking habits, stemming from the Romanian habitus, and perpetuated in the South African habitus, could indicate a continuum of ‘othering’, characterising the habitus of origin as well as their habitus in South Africa.

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Ioana and Irina’s responses to the following question is a good example of how they were successfully assimilated into an epistemology of ignorance and whiteness, but also how such an ignorance finds itself on the verge of knowing more – but not knowing enough. I tried to engage them about their awareness of the extent of their white ignorance, an unfair question at best, seeing that an epistemology of ignorance renders itself (and its privileges) invisible to itself, as a manoeuvre to uphold the privilege in question (Steyn & Foster 2008: 26, 30). I also wanted to understand how the habitus they were socialised into in Romania created a political awareness, or a lack thereof. Irina responded to my question about the sentiment of South African citizens towards apartheid: To be honest, the people, which I know, they speak a lot about the good things that happened [under apartheid] because they were cut off from the world and even when they go on holiday they were treated badly because they were from South Africa and because you know...they were white people. With the black people, to be honest, I get along very well with black and white. And I never really had bad experiences. Throughout most of our interviews, Irina refers to white people as ‘people’ (without a colour), while specifically referring to black people as ‘black’. This is a common discursive habit among white South Africans, and demonstrative of an ignorance regarding the extent to which white identities in South Africa are the result of social construction, living in denial about the way apartheid constructed white subjectivities through racial hierarchies (McEwen & Steyn 2013: 5, 11). Irina’s ignorance could be strategic, as she might have been unwilling to discuss these topics. She did, however, become increasingly uncomfortable with the topic about race, indicating that she might be aware that race is still an issue in South Africa. It is important to mention that although Irina only arrived in South Africa in 1991 and indeed did not live through most of apartheid, it is the case that by 1991, white supremacy and racial capitalism were already deeply embedded in the psyche of white South Africans. After 1991, Irina found herself in a white neighbourhood in Bloemfontein and sending her children to traditionally white schools. One can argue that she inhabited the white habitus, and thus also a place of privilege in a racialised society. In a situation like this, ignorance can serve as a defence mechanism against that which one does not want to know. Geras (1998) avers that most Germans who claimed they were ‘unaware [of the Holocaust], [knew] enough to know that they prefer[red] not to know any more’. By consciously or unconsciously subscribing to ignorance, white people are protected against the uncomfortable ‘truths’ regarding systemic injustice and their complicity with such a system (Steyn 2012: 12). Ignorance makes it possible for the white person to uphold ‘moral certainty and arrogance’ rather than to come to terms with the unjust system maintaining privilege. It is exactly this refusal to engage with difficult emotions, like shame and guilt, that results in the perpetuation of a racialised and unjust system of white supremacy (McEwen & Steyn 2013: 3). In the following excerpt from an interview, Ioana indicates that she

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is unaware of the systemic and structural aspects of her identity as a white person in South Africa: It is very complicated and very complex what we are talking about... because there is so much poverty around us, and sometimes I am thinking do I feel guilty for having more than them? No, I don’t feel guilty. I came with the luggage of 10 kg. I had some clothes and it was destroyed in the washing by somebody who was washing for us. And then I refused to have somebody to help me, I prefer to work by myself...and it is not because I don’t trust them. I do trust them and I admire them for all the effort. But they are not the same as...they don’t have much responsibility. Or they don’t show too much, maybe they have. I am a perfectionist and I want my things to be perfect. I would rather do it myself than to have somebody else do it for me. So my husband is also working hard. He is working in a furniture factory. He would like to teach them and works hard to train them and give them a qualification...You want to help, but they don’t want to help themselves. Ioana’s use of ‘they’ and ‘them’ when she refers to black people could be read as an unconscious reinforcement of the racial divide and the racialisation of otherness. Trying to understand how Irina’s relatives perceive of themselves and their whiteness in the South African context, I asked whether it was perhaps ‘easier’ for them to come to South Africa than it is for other Africans because they are white, and it was perhaps easier to adapt and find a job. Irina responded: I don’t think so because we came in 1990 so it was four years before [1994, when South Africa became a democracy]. So, when we came the sanctions were lifted so we didn’t know...it was like now. We were working together black and white. So it looked like it was the same for everybody. But I understand because there was a coloured guy who told me about the bell that was ringing at night when all the blacks must be out of town, something like that. He told me about the toilets for black and for white people and after [the end of apartheid] they could use [the toilets allocated for white people], but they didn’t. And the black and the white tearooms. They could come to our tearooms but they didn’t because they did not feel good there. Eventually [management] closed [the black] tearoom and everyone was forced to use this one [the white tearoom]. But you know... we were so busy with our own problems you know because I had a small child, we stayed in a flat and I wanted to buy a house and you are busy with your [own] stuff. I think we got a good job because we were qualified. Here we see that Irina does have knowledge of the injustices and legacy of the racialised apartheid order. It can be argued that the epistemological ignorance does not hold; some whites did know, to a certain extent, that apartheid had detrimental and dehumanising effects on people. Irina, however, does not seem to

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display insight into the racialised order, or her positionality within this system. It is interesting to observe her sense-making of her position in the system, and justification that she found a good job due to her qualifications, rather than her phenotype. During apartheid, Van der Westhuizen (2017: 6) argues that ‘immigration... was only open to ‘appropriate’ white elements’. It is true that Irina found a proper job quite quickly as a result of being highly qualified, but her appointment took place in a racial hierarchy where some people were better qualified than others due to a racialised system of structural inequality. Mills (1997: 18) perceives the lack of insight into a racialised system (that Irina portrays in this case) as central to what we call white habitus: Part of what it means to be constructed as ‘white’ (the metamorphosis of the sociopolitical contract), part of what it requires to achieve whiteness, successfully to become a white person (one imagines a ceremony with certificates attending the successful rite of passage: ‘Congratulations, you’re now an official white person!’), is a cognitive model that precludes self-transparency and genuine understanding of social realities. To a significant extent, then, white signatories will live in an invented delusional world, a racial fantasyland... The Bloemfontein society Irina moved to and assimilated into was very similar to the society she lives in currently: ‘It was like now’. This might be an indication of how it is possible for the white normative centre to hold, keeping the white habitus in place. The implication of this observation could be that nothing has really changed in terms of social relations in Bloemfontein in the past 27 years. Another implication could be that, given that white privilege renders itself invisible to itself, Irina was quickly assimilated into a white epistemology and white habitus. From this vantage point, it looked like it was ‘the same for everybody’. Irina did not live through apartheid and only heard stories about the racial segregation. Upon her arrival, and after 1994 especially, the racial injustices and structural racism seemed to be a thing of the past. This was the grand narrative sold to South Africans at the time, in the spirit of reconciliation and the rainbow nation ideology. One can, however, argue that the majority of white South Africans wasted a good crisis in the mid-1990s by not gaining ‘racial literacy’ and neglected to develop their ‘racial cognisance’, notions which come in handy when an epistemology of ignorance needs to be interrogated. Twine and Steinbugler (2006: 344) defines racial literacy as ‘an everyday practice – an analytic stance that facilitates ongoing self-education and enables... [the translation of] racial codes, decipher[ing of] racial structures, and manag[ing of] the racial climate in their local and national communities’, while race cognisance ‘insists on the importance of understanding difference politically rather than through essentialised terms’ (Burke 2011: 652, emphasis added). One characteristic of racial literacy is the acknowledgment of racism as a current problem rather than just a historical legacy (Twine & Steinbugler 2006). Irina fails to see racism as a current problem and claims that racial problems only existed under apartheid.

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She did, however, notice that after segregationist policies were abolished, black workers did not want to move into white tearooms ‘because they did not feel good there’. Black workers were also free to use white bathrooms after apartheid ended, ‘but they didn’t’. This serves as a good example of the durability of the white normative centre, which upholds white habitus. The institution Irina worked for eventually united the tearooms and the bathrooms, finding a practical solution for the racial segregationist behaviour that was by now deeply ingrained in the South African psyche. Initially, combined tearooms, bathrooms and classrooms were seen as a breakthrough in healing a divided nation. In reality, this was only the first step in a very long process of reconciliation. Although black and white people now had the same rights, and the TRC addressed the atrocities of apartheid, the social fabric was severely damaged after centuries of dehumanising legislation, propaganda and militarisation. Also, white people did not gain racial literacy, leaving them unequipped to create a meaningful life in the ‘new South Africa’, as it was called (Van der Westhuizen 2017). It was in the intimate micro-spaces – tearooms and public bathrooms – where the healing that should have happened did not take place. Neither the deeply ingrained racist thinking habits of a large majority of white people, nor the dehumanising effects of the discriminatory legislation on the black psyche have been properly addressed. In hindsight, it becomes clear that South Africans needed more help and assistance to heal from their problematic past. Should the government have focused more on undermining white habitus and addressing white ignorance through racial literacy? In light of this, one can understand Irina’s discomfort with the topic. She moved to South Africa to find a better life for herself and her child. Her focus on her family and private life, amidst the injustice surrounding her, could, however, also be the remnants of her habitus in Romania under a totalitarian regime. It could be argued that her habitus of origin destroyed a belief in a collective ethos and even the ability to be an autonomous social agent (Matei 2004), as mentioned above. Growing up in communist Romania resulted in indifference and a certain form of apathy towards the problems of the wider community, creating the perfect breeding ground for Irina and Ioana to be assimilated into a white habitus in South Africa. Durkheim’s anomic individualism does, then, correlate with and support the argument of an epistemology of whiteness, which finds refuge in denial, claiming ignorance. Irina says she got a job because she was qualified; she does not take into account the constructed nature of white identities in the early 1990s in South Africa. ‘Colour blindness’ and denial of racialisation serve as a mechanism of an epistemology of ignorance, where only the interests of the dominant group are served: ‘By denying the effects of racialisation, colour blindness is a powerful mechanism in building white consensus and enabling the reproduction of racism’ (Steyn & Foster 2008: 29). Colour-blind narratives try to sell themselves as ‘cosmopolitan’, trying to cash in on humanistic liberalism, while hiding an agenda of the protection of privilege: [Liezl] So what do you make of the big divide between the haves and the have-nots and the fact that it is racialised?

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[Irina] You know, I think the race doesn’t matter. Because in Romania you also have these categories, of the ones who have and the ones who have not. The beggar in the street. Here it is not just the race (that determines poverty) because you have a lot of white people begging too and who are poor. Milazzo’s (2013: 36) description of colour-blind talk resonates with Irina’s perceived lack of insight into structural racism: Colorblind [sic] talk – which contends...that institutional racism no longer considerably determines life opportunities; that inequality can be understood as an expression of class disparities which transcend racial hierarchies; that economic power is primarily a consequence of individual merit and personal responsibility; and that racial categories should therefore preferably not be invoked... Irina’s identity has been partly constructed by Romanian nationalism, which favoured an ethnocentric notion of what it means to be ‘Romanian’. The Roma were also not acknowledged as Romanian nationals during Ceauseşcu’s rule, and to this day, national ethnic minorities in Romania are struggling for representation in government and recognition in the broader political narrative. According to Szakács (2011), denial of ethnic conflict in Romania, especially in schools, is still prevalent, despite reports of the lived experiences of marginalised others, who experience daily discrimination. The denial of lack of ethnic minority representation and discrimination is preventing a move towards a more just Romanian society. Szakács claims that the problems regarding ethnic diversity and conflict stem from the monoculturalism brought about by communism. Irina’s perceived ethnic or racial ignorance, registering here as colourblindness, might have had its origin in the Romanian habitus. Racial cognisance, which highlights politicised differences rather than focusing on difference as essentialised, is lacking in Irina’s thinking habits, indicating the extent to which an epistemology of ignorance succeeded in socialising her into a subjectivity of whiteness.

‘How do I live in this strange place?’ The heading to this section is a reference to Samantha Vice (2010), who asks whether it is possible for a white person in South Africa to live a morally just life. Interestingly enough, it became evident during the interviews that, although Irina claims that race does not matter, she is aware of and troubled by the racialised poverty surrounding her: It’s so complicated and it is so huge. I feel sorry for them all the time. I take those girls from the shop home at two am in the morning in the township, which is an hour drive. And then if you see how [their houses] look. Because if you see them dress, I look like the poor relative compared to them. They have beautiful clothes. When I arrive there and I see how poor they are and in what conditions they live and how far...to wake up and

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drive two hours [with the taxis] to work...I think they don’t know anything else. It’s like [the way] we [lived] there [in Romania], we didn’t know about sunny days every day in winter [like we have now in Bloemfontein]. I feel sorry for them, but how [can I] help everybody? Once again, the epistemological ignorance did not hold; Irina was aware of race/ colour and its correlation to poverty and privilege. It becomes clear, however, that the emotions of guilt and empathy are momentarily almost too much for her. It is exactly in this moment where the potential to move beyond the exclusivity of whiteness presents itself (Steyn 2005: 132). When Irina lets the veil of ignorance, ‘denial and defence’ lift, allowing herself to be confronted with the uncomfortable reality of white exceptionalism and black poverty, she acknowledges a system of white supremacy that favoured her. Once she comes to terms with the ambiguities of emotions, she can enter a space of transformation and becoming. Steyn (2005: 132) argues that only by grappling with these difficult realities and challenging emotions can white people move towards a society where everybody’s development is prioritised, irrespective of race. There is value, Steyn avers, in working with emotions of white guilt, which can guide a process of self-reflection and contribute to social consciousness regarding structural racism. Racial literacy and race cognisance can also aid the struggle to overcome an epistemology of ignorance. It is, however, crucial that white people have the political and empathic will to break away from an epistemology of whiteness, in which the white normative centre holds. In Irina’s case, her habitus has been formed by both her country of origin, communist Russia and white supremacy in South Africa (Samaluk 2014: 15). One can argue that an epistemology of ignorance was also part of communist Romanian society. It is important to understand what Irina experienced in Romania, to understand why her socialisation played out the way it did in South Africa: It is complicated. It’s complicated. You know what I learned from communism: don’t interfere with politics...You couldn’t get out of the system like...I was telling you [how I felt about Ceaușescu]. But you couldn’t open your mouth; they would put me in prison, they would shoot me dead there! And here it was the same! It is so difficult to do it [oppose a totalitarian state]. So I think it was the same here [in South Africa] for the whites. They were fine as long as you keep quiet, mind your own business. It was good for you and you have better conditions [if you kept quiet], you know. But I don’t think it was easy...How did they [the people] stand up [against the apartheid government]? In Romania they were imprisoned, they were killed, shot down. Or they ran over the border or was hold in prison at home. So I don’t understand these ones who were here. How? Because they would be put in prison immediately and killed. I understand the ones who ran away and made a lot of noises from outside, this I understand. But these one [white people who opposed apartheid] here, I wonder...how? How?

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An analysis of Irina’s life story will not be complete if her background and socialisation in communist Romania are not considered. She clearly understands the power that a militarised state can have over its citizens. She understands the extent to which white South Africans were ‘brainwashed’ under apartheid, because she was also indoctrinated since childhood. She also understood how to follow the path of least resistance, and how passivity was key to ensuring a better life for oneself and the family. In their research on resistance and dissent under communism, Petrescu and Petrescu (2007: 323) aver that in Romania, the opposition of the civil society to communist rule ‘compared with that of the Central European countries – the former GDR [German Democratic Republic, i.e. East Germany], the former Czechoslovakia, Poland or Hungary...was barely existent’. Opposition to the communist state was also met with persecution, harassment and imprisonment. This brutality, concomitant with the inability of the Romanian society ‘to surpass their own private interests and rally around a problem of public interest’ (Petrescu & Petrescu 2007: 340), made for an incapacitated Romanian civil society. Petrescu and Petrescu’s (2007) research on resistance and dissent under communism (or the lack thereof) in Romania resonates with many of Irina’s statements. The habitus she was socialised into in Romania was not the white habitus she encountered in South Africa, but it was a habitus where the people were structurally forced to comply and conform to communism. ‘Human rights...never shaped the political agenda in modern Romania, neither before the communist takeover nor thereafter’ (Petrescu & Petrescu 2007: 340). In other words, Irina’s habitus in Romania did not take notions like social justice seriously. She was socialised into not asking critical and reflective questions, not opposing the regime, and looking after the interests of her own family. One can go as far as to suggest that she had to be ignorant of injustices, to survive. When she immigrated to South Africa, she preferred not to become politically involved or informed. Being assimilated into a white habitus and epistemology of ignorance happened seemingly easy. It can be argued that Irina is just a woman who wanted to give her children better lives in South Africa; my father probably wanted the same. But as long as ordinary citizens like Irina and my father do not become racially literate, build an epistemology that takes radical relationality with ‘the other’ seriously (Steyn 2012), and come to terms with the structural racism of South Africa in the past and present, a socially unjust society will be perpetuated. It is exactly the ignorance of the ignorant ‘good people’ that maintains an unjust, racialised, and white supremacist society. Arendt (1994: 287) writes about the banality of evil in a book that covered Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem in 1961, which was conducted by World War II’s so-called ‘good people’: when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so only on the strictly factual level, pointing to a phenomenon which stared one in the face at the trial. Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have

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been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III ‘to prove a villain’. Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all. And this diligence in itself was in no way criminal; he certainly would never have murdered his superior in order to inherit his post. He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing. (Emphasis in original) A relational ontology of racialised identity implies an a priori reciprocal responsibility towards each other – what I become directly impacts the becoming (or lack thereof) of another. In this chapter I have argued that racialised identities are perpetuated by the everyday performativity of race as it manifests in an epistemology of ignorance. Although some whites in South Africa are working hard on their racial prejudices, other whites continue to unreflectively perpetuate an ideology of white superiority. Many whites often claim that that they were born after apartheid and therefore have done nothing wrong and cannot be blamed for anything. Due to the entangled, relational nature of racialised identities, ‘we are responsible for the past not because of what we as individuals have done, but because of what we are’ (Gatens & Lloyd 1999: 81), as well as who we are, who we have become and who we will become. White peoples’ everyday perpetuations of past identity formations, inextricably linked to everyday racialisation and racialised identities, are determining who we will become and who our children will be. Consequently, white people need to understand that there is a high interpersonal and moral price to pay for white privilege and the concomitant structural ignorance, which results in the dehumanisation of the ‘racialised other’ and the self. This ethic of ignorance, Steyn (2012) avers, supports an epistemology of ignorance, where a denial of the relationality with one another is damaging the social fibre. Ignorance protects white people from interrogation and makes a certain arrogance possible. Ignorance allows white people to benefit from an unjust system because they do not have to interrogate their complicity. It is only by coming to terms with the injustices of the past – and by dealing with complicated, difficult emotions – that Irina can live a responsible life in South Africa. In a sense, the notion of epistemic ignorance can be extended to consumerism, the global structures of capitalism and socio-environmental exploitation: Every single one of us who participates in consumerism chooses to remain ignorant regarding the condition of the manufacturing of clothes or produce – and we are, to a certain extent, complicit in perpetuating an unjust society, the possible violation of human rights and the destruction of the planet. In this sense, we are all somewhat like Irina. Endnotes 1

Pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the participants.

2

In Romania, like in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and elsewhere, ‘racialization occurs entangled with spatial marginalisation and segregation in severely deprived areas’ (Petrovici et al. 2019:3). Petrovici et al. (2019: 13) relate the racialisation and spatial

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marginalisation of the Romanian Roma to the phasing out of support coming from a postcommunist neoliberal state, particularly in the domains of housing and class conflict resolution. While this diminished the cost of families’ daily survival, the authors indicate that prejudices against the Roma were perpetuated and their work commodified at lower costs. This contributed to the ranked ethnic system that continues to mark out the relations between Roma and non-Roma (including other ethnic groups such as Transylvanian Hungarians) in Romania (Picker 2017; see also Horowitz 1985; Kiss & Kiss 2018). 3

The Employment Equity Act (No. 55 of 1998), for example, ‘provide[s] for employment equity’ against the background of ‘pronounced disadvantages for certain categories of people’, namely ‘blacks, women and disabled people’ (Posel 2001: 113).

4 Elsewhere (Dick 2018), I write about whiteness, affect and assemblage theory, and the possibility of subjective anti-racism practices. 5

South African Rands (ZAR; ‘rands’); euros (EUR). According to an South African inflation adjustment calculator (www.inflationcalc.co.za), ZAR 5 in 1991 would be worth ZAR 29.78 in 2018. On 31 October 2018, ZAR 29.78 was equal to EUR 1.78.

6

ZAR 2 in 1991 would be worth ZAR 11.91 in 2018, which was equivalent to EUR 0.71 on 31 October 2018.

7

This amounts to EUR 6.77 and EUR 7.37, respectively, as calculated on 1 November 2018.

References Alexander N (2002) An ordinary country. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press Arendt H (1994) Eichman in Jerusalem. A report on the banality of evil. New York: Penguin Arko-Cobbah A (2008) The right of access to information: Opportunities and challenges for civil society and good governance in South Africa. IFLA Journal 34(2): 180–191 Bancroft A (2005) Roma and gypsy-travellers in Europe: Modernity, race, space and exclusion, Ashgate: Aldershot Bonilla-Silva E (2003) Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham: Rowfield and Littleman Bonilla-Silva E, Goar C & Embrick DG (2006) When whites flock together: The social psychology of white habitus. Critical Sociology 32(2–3): 239–253 Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Brubaker R (2004) Ethnicity without groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Brubaker R, Feischmidt M, Fox J & Grancea L (2006) Nationalist politics and everyday ethnicity in a Transylvanian town. Princeton: Princeton University Press Burawoy M & Von Holdt K (2012) Conversations with Bourdieu: The Johannesburg moment. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Burke MA (2011) Discursive fault lines: Reproducing white habitus in a racially diverse community. Critical Sociology 38(5): 645–668 Dick L (2018) Assemblage-teorie, affek en witwees: ’n Alternatiewe blik op die werking van witwees [Assemblage theory, affect and whiteness: An alternative perspective on whiteness and its mechanisms]. LitNet Akademies 15(2): 229–248

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Essed P (2001) Multi-identifications and transformations: Reaching beyond racial and ethnic reductionisms. Social Identities 7(4): 493–509 Dwyer OJ & Jones JP (2000) White socio-spatial epistemology. Social & Cultural Geography 1(2): 209–222 Edgerton JD & Roberts LW (2014) Cultural capital or habitus? Bourdieu and beyond in the explanation of enduring educational inequality. Theory and Research in Education 12(2): 193–220 Erasmus Z (2017) Race otherwise: Forging a new humanism for South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Gatens M & Lloyd G (1999) Collective imaginings: Spinoza, past and present. Routledge: London Georgescu V (1991) The Romanians: A history. Columbus: Ohio State University Press Geras N (1998) The contract of mutual indifference: Political philosophy after the Holocaust. New York: Verso Goldberg DT (2002) The racial state. Malden: Blackwell Green MJ, Sonn CC & Matsebula J (2007) Reviewing whiteness: Theory, research, and possibilities. South African Journal of Psychology 37(3): 389–419 Horowitz DL (1985) Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press King A (2000) Thinking with Bourdieu against Bourdieu: A ‘practical’ critique of the habitus. Sociological Theory 18(3): 417–433 Kiss T & Kiss D (2018) Ethnic parallelism: Political program and social reality: An introduction. In T Kiss, IG Székely, T Toró, N Bárdi & I Horváth (Eds) Unequal accommodation of minority rights: Hungarians in Transylvania. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan Korkut U (2006) Nationalism versus internationalism: The roles of political and cultural elites in interwar and communist Romania. Nationalities Papers 34(2): 131–155 Long J, Hylton K & Spracklen K (2014) Whiteness, blackness and settlement: Leisure and the integration of new migrants. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(11): 1779–1797 Maré G (2001) Race counts in contemporary South Africa: ‘An illusion of ordinariness’. Transformation 47: 75–92 Massey D (2004) Geographies of responsibility. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 86: 5–18 Matei S (2004) The emergent Romanian post-communist ethos: From nationalism to privatism. Problems of Post-Communism 51(2): 40–47 McEwen, H & Steyn, M (2013) Hegemonic epistemologies in the context of transformation: Race, space, and power in one post-apartheid South African town. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies 9(1): 1–18 Milazzo M (2013) Racial power and colorblindness: The ‘sad black stories’ of Kgebetli Moele’s ‘Room 207’ and twenty-first century black South African fiction. Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies 1(1): 33–59 Mills CW (1997) The racial contract. New York: Cornell University Press Petrescu C & Petrescu D (2007) Resistance and dissent under communism: The case of Romania. Totalitarismus und Demokratie 4(2): 323–346

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Petrovici N, Raț C, Simionca A & Vincze E (2019) Introduction: Racialized labour of the dispossessed as an endemic feature of capitalism. In E Vincze, Petrovici N, Raț C & G Picker (Eds) Racialized labour in Romania: Spaces of marginality at the periphery of global capitalism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan Picker G (2017) Racial cities: Governance and the segregation of Romani people in urban Europe. London: Routledge Posel D (2001) Race as common sense: Racial classification in twentieth-century South Africa. South African Studies Review 44(2): 87–113 Republic of South Africa (2017) Government Gazette – Department of Labour. Vol. 630 No. 41326. Accessed November 2018, https://www.labourguide.co.za/workshop/1384-domestic-andcontract-cleaning-wages-2018/file Saldanha A (2006) Reontologising race: The machinic geography of phenotype. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24(1): 9–24 Samaluk B (2014) Whiteness, ethnic privilege and migration: A Bourdieuian framework. Journal of Managerial Psychology 29(4): 370–388 Stan L (2010) Romania: In the shadow of the past. In SP Ramet (Ed.) Central and Southeastern European politics since 1989. London: Cambridge University Press SAIRR (South African Institute of Race Relations) (2019) Inequality trends show folly of government policy. FreeFACTS 11/2019(19) Steyn M (2004) Rehabilitating a whiteness disgraced: Afrikaner white talk in post-apartheid South Africa. Communication Quarterly 52(2): 143–169 Steyn M (2005) ‘White talk’: White South Africans and the management of diasporic whiteness. In AJ Lopez (Ed.) Postcolonial whiteness: A critical reader on race and empire. Albany: State University of New York Press Steyn M (2007) As the postcolonial moment deepens: A response to Green, Sonn, and Matsebula. South African Journal of Psychology 37(3): 420–424 Steyn M (2012) The ignorance contract: Recollections of apartheid childhoods and the construction of epistemologies of ignorance. Identities 19(1): 8–25 Steyn M & Foster D (2008) Repertoires of talking white: Resistant whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(1): 25–51 Sundstrom RR (2002) Race as a human kind. Philosophy and Social Criticism. 28(1): 91–115 Szakács S (2011) Old wine into new bottles? Europeanization and diversity in multi-ethnic Romanian schools. Multicultural Education Review. 3(1): 99–127 Twine FW & Steinbugler AC (2006) The gap between whites and whiteness: Interracial intimacy and racial literacy. Du Bois Review 3(2): 341–363 Van der Westhuizen C (2017) Sitting pretty: White Afrikaans women in postapartheid South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Vice S (2010) How do I live in this strange place? Journal of Social Philosophy. 41(3): 323–342 Vincze E, Petrovici N, Raț C & Picker G (Eds) (2019) Racialized labour in Romania: Spaces of marginality at the periphery of global capitalism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan

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Extremism, essentialism and identity: The life story of Muhammad Elvis Ngum Jonatan Kurzwelly, Hamid Fernana and Muhammad Elvis Ngum

This chapter1 examines the identity processes involved in a specific case of radicalisation of a young Cameroonian migrant in Bloemfontein. This story of Muhammad Elvis Ngum, who became radicalised through joining a fundamentalist Islamist group, serves as our ethnographic example and the starting point for our debate. We explore the reasons which make such radical worldview, and particularly its essentialist and reductionist logic, attractive to an individual. A reductionist understanding of self and others, despite being fallacious and potentially dangerous, provides simple answers, a clear epistemic framework through which to make moral judgements and prescriptions for behaviour, a reinforced sense of a unified self, an increased sense of agency, and a potentially positive view of oneself. On the other hand, an active recognition of one’s plurality of social roles and identities, each of which define us differently and provide different epistemic frameworks, although accurate, can result in a sense of uncertainty and ambiguity. We draw from philosophical theories of the self (of personal identity), to show the intrinsic multiplicity and complexity of each individual, and also in order to emphasise the importance of social identities for the creation of an imaginary sense of being a unified, continuous and persistent person. Before discussing the main argument, we point out that the environment in which Muhammad Elvis adopted the fundamentalist radical worldview is an environment in which use of reductionism and essentialism is normalised (i.e. the use of essentialist notions of social identities and reduction of the complexity of human beings to singular identities is common and widely accepted in Bloemfontein). By doing so, we wish to emphasise the fundamental similarity in the logic inherent in radical ideologies and in the xenophobic anti-migrant discrimination in South Africa, which we understand as another form of radicalisation. We feel this similarity is important to point out amidst the high global Islamophobic sentiments and large media focus on predominantly Muslim radicals, with little acknowledgement of the radicality of Islamophobia or other forms of radicalisation along national, ethnic, racial or other identities.2

The life story of Muhammad Elvis Ngum This text is an outcome of a collaborative conversation between three people – Muhammad Elvis Ngum, the protagonist whose life and experiences we discuss below; Sheikh Hamid Fernana, a Sufi scholar, theologian and imam of the Brandwag

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Mosque in Bloemfontein, who was involved in the deradicalisation process of Muhammad Elvis and who initiated this book project; and Jonatan Kurzwelly, an atheist anthropologist who is interested in identity processes and radicalism. We met several times and engaged in various discussions in the spirit of respect and eagerness to understand both our differences and similarities, learning from and befriending each other. Although most of the typing and editing work was done by Kurzwelly, we discussed different versions of the manuscript and shaped the analysis collaboratively and thus are all co-authors of this text. We begin this chapter with the life story of Muhammad Elvis Ngum.

From Cameroon to South Africa I was born in 1980 in Bamenda, which is a small city in the Englishspeaking part of Cameroon.3 When I was two years old, my oldest sister moved with me to Bafoussam, in Francophone Cameroon. I went to a bilingual school. Back home we spoke Pidgin English and in school we also had English classes. However, because everyone around me spoke French, it became my main language. My friends and I, we all grew up loving soccer and dreamt of becoming professional players. This was a naive dream. I also used to dream of further education, but at some point I realised that many of those who went to universities came back with no jobs. They were hoping that a university degree would secure a good job and enable them to look after their families, but this was not the case. There were no jobs. Most of the parents in my region had no money, and sometimes were even forced to sell parts of their land to help out their children. This was especially true for parents whose children went to university, because it is really expensive. This is why I decided not to continue my education. My father had fourteen children with his two wives, and all of them, except me, are degree holders. Most of them had no jobs. Another reason for this decision was the age of my mother and my desire to earn enough money and be able to take care of her. When I was seventeen or eighteen years old, after finishing school, I moved back to the English Cameroon to my family. My father lived in a very big house, with both of his wives and many of his children. My father was a policeman. Both my mother and my step-mother were housewives. My father often complained, especially when it came to do the shopping, that he had no money to pay for different things. I said nothing in those situations, but in my mind I knew I had to do something. In my mother’s village people have a passion for woodwork. I used to buy some of the sculptures and go to a town called Foumban, which is in the French-speaking part of Cameroon, and sell them there. I used to do this

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regularly. With time I learned to make wood sculptures myself. I paid some young boys from my town to teach me how to sculpt. Some people would like to have their sculptures beautiful and shiny, some would like for their sculptures to look old and antique. I also learned how to make the sculptures look very old, so that they can be sold as antiques. Many of the sculptures were made for clients from abroad, mostly from France and America. While constantly living between the two linguistic regions of our country, I realised that the French and the English Cameroonians are different. The French are more business oriented, whereas the English care more about education and a stable job afterwards. The corruption is also much higher amongst the French. I feel much better amongst the Englishspeaking Cameroonians. They are much more honest, caring and very religious. The French Muslim Cameroonians are better though. They are like the English-speaking Cameroonians. The corruption in Cameroon is just too much. It affects everything. There are almost no possibilities for young people. In order to get a job, one needs to have contacts, to know someone or to have a member of family who works for the government or is in some important position. It is just connections and corruption. With time I realised that I don’t want to live in a place like this. Because my dream was to be able to look after my mother, I realised I will be able to do that better if I leave and work abroad. This was the case with the majority of young people. It is quite simple really – If you grew up in a house, or a whole region more generally, where the majority of people are unemployed and there are no jobs, you would not plan to stay there. On top of this, wherever you go or whatever you want to do or organise, you need to pay bribes. There is no future in such a place. My family was very sad when I told them I want to leave. At first I thought of going to Europe, as this was the dream of the vast majority of the youth. I knew a few people who did manage to go to Europe and take care of their families by sending money back home. I always saw them as very happy, so I wanted to follow the same path. Unfortunately it is very difficult to go to Europe. One needs to give money to someone to get a visa. Sometimes people would take your money and then run away, or keep asking you to give them more. I knew a lot of people who did that, who paid someone and never got the visa. I had not thought of South Africa before and when my friend proposed it, I said, ‘South Africa, no...In Africa, I think there are no jobs in general’. He responded that it is different, that it is not like in Cameroon. One of my elder brothers was already living in South Africa. He went there two years before me. So I also decided to go there. At that time there was no South African embassy in Cameroon, so it was necessary to go to Gabon

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to get a visa. I paid someone to do that for me, to take my passport to Gabon and get the visa. I then flew from Cameroon to Johannesburg. I was twenty-five years old when I arrived in South Africa.

Troublesome life in South Africa When I arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, the person who was supposed to pick me did not show up and did not answer my phone calls. So I called my brother who was living in Bloemfontein. He called a friend of his from Pretoria, a guy who used to be our neighbour in Bamenda, in Cameroon, who then came and picked me up at the airport. I stayed in Pretoria for the first six months. The first two months I stayed with him and his family, but after two months I did not want to be a burden anymore, so I left to rent something on my own. We used to call this place ‘the ghetto’, as it was twelve of us living in one room. I brought many sculptures from home with me, and I was trying to sell them at a flea market. This was not working out well though. It was very difficult to sell anything. Later I moved to Johannesburg, as I was hoping to get more money there. I stayed in Joburg [Johannesburg] for eight months. Ultimately, I had to auction all the sculptures just to get some money to survive. I called my brother and told him that things are not going well, so he offered me to work for him in his shop in Bloemfontein. After a year and a half, I returned to Johannesburg again. I had some little money I saved, so I ordered more sculptures from Cameroon, as I hoped to have a better luck selling them this time. I was wrong, it was difficult to sell them. After some time, I decided to go back to Cameroon to see if maybe there things could get better, but after three months I saw it was not possible to make a living there. I came back to South Africa again, to Bloemfontein, where I stayed ever since. I started selling T-shirts and jeans on the streets. I used to take all the clothes and walk between different offices trying to sell it. I often had to sell them on credit, as people would have no money and would have to wait until their payday. I would then have to return after their payday. The majority of people paid me back. Sometimes people would not pay me back and after insisting for a while I had to just give up. After a while I decided that I will be better off if I get a municipality stand at the street and sell from there, rather than the constant walking around. After I met Hamid, he talked to some members of our religious community, and one guy offered to rent me the space for my own small shop. So since then I am working from my own little shop, not from a street stand. We help each other in the community.

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I had many troubles since I came to South Africa. On one occasion a woman, a former girlfriend of mine, hit my leg with a brick. She broke my bone. She also took my money. When I went to the police station, the officers were very confused because it is usually men that hit women. I think there are many differences between the South African and Cameroonian women. The relationship life is very different here. When I had the first child, his mother left us. It was very difficult at the beginning to earn money and take care of my child. And I was also sending money to my mother. At the beginning I was sending almost everything I had. I now have two children so I cannot send so much money back home. They live with their mother, but sometimes they come and stay with me. We broke up some time ago. The other problem is with my papers, with immigration. I had a visa at the beginning, but after three years it expired and I was not able to extend it. Because my child is South African, I tried to get a sticker, a ‘relative’s permit’ in my passport. They rejected me twice. I had to become an asylum seeker, to be able to stay here in Bloemfontein. But because of that, when my oldest sister passed away two years ago, at the age of fifty-eight, I was not able to go to the funeral in Cameroon. I cannot leave South Africa, or otherwise I will not be able to come back in. The additional problem is that my family thought that it is because of my transition to Islam that I did not come. All my brothers came from overseas, but I did not. It was very difficult and sad for me. The asylum process can take many years. I do not have much hope in getting a permit that would allow me to go wherever I want. Such permits are too difficult to get. There are also some guys who regularly come by my shop and collect money. That is quite common here in Bloemfontein and South Africa. But it is not always easy to keep paying them, since my business is not bringing so much money. The crime is also too high. Where I work I often see crime on the streets, just in front of my shop. They stab people, they rob people...And everyone has a lot of fear, because there is nothing we can do. We know who the boys are, but we cannot do anything. That is why I, and the other shop owners, we do not feel well here, especially as foreigners, because if anything happens to us the government is not going to want to help us or get involved. We are on our own and need to look after ourselves. If anything happens, I would call someone from the religious community. Police would be the last people I would call, because they are part of this system. Police are robbing us themselves. They treat us badly and offend us, they tell us to go to our own country or comment on how dark our skin is. As foreigners we are second-class citizens. Others often want to charge us more or abuse us in various ways. People treat us badly. But even though it is all so difficult, it is still better than

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being in Cameroon. Here there are at least some opportunities and I can make some money, which is not the case in Cameroon.

Magic The guy who made me a Muslim, while I was still in Cameroon, was a Sufi Sheikh. He used to know different magical practices. The traditional people of magic are strictly following their concept of righteousness, so they help those who deserved it. He would not help everyone. Once, for example, when his son went to jail and awaited a trial, he wrote many things on a board and read different old scriptures. He then washed the board with water, and drank it. When the court process started, the case was dropped very fast and his son went free. This is a mixture of Islam with local knowledge and magic. In my town there was a lot of magic. There are some people who continue to be very strong in the old magic. Traditionally people who did magic did not charge any money for it. Now many became corrupt; they are making money with magic, which made it much weaker. Traditionally there were different people who specialised in different things. One uncle of mine was very powerful and dangerous. He could make people get sick or even die with his magic. For example, if they stole something he could bewitch them. Other people were able to dry the water of our enemies and win over them. Another example from my own experience is when I owed money to a guy and he was using magic against me, forcing me to pay him back. When I was sleeping, I was feeling like if someone very scary is trying to pull me outside. When such a thing happens, we know immediately that this is magic and that we have to fix whatever problem we have. It was a very small amount of money that I owed him, but I had to travel back to my village to pay it back. It stopped only after I returned my debt. There were also sometimes nomadic Fulani people in my region. These people are very dangerous. They also use a mixture of magic and Sufi Islam tradition. They usually liked to be on their own and did not marry with other tribes. Their magic is very strong. If you go to them in a very hot place and tell them you need something to drink, they can give you ice water. A case that everyone in Cameroon heard of is when some thieves went to rob Fulani people. When they were leaving a house with the stolen things, they all fell down paralysed. The Fulani are very dangerous with their magic. There are also many people who do not want to do anything with magic, they are mostly Christian. They are often still afraid of it anyway. In most cases, if you are innocent, you are protected, as the magic often only affects those who are guilty of something. We also have different types of

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protection magic. Some people even believe they can make themselves bulletproof. We also have, for example, some type of special oil against snakes, and many other scriptures and rituals of protection. One time, my mother took me to our uncle for him to give me a protection shield. He cut the skin on my arm and put a special powder in the wound, which protects from magic and evil spirits. Everyone has that in our region. I did it several times. I do not know how these people know to perform their magic. Maybe it is something satanic?

Change of faith I grew up as a Baptist Christian in Cameroon. I changed my religion in the city in which I used to sell the sculptures, in Foumban. An uncle of mine from my mother’s extended family living in Foumban, the same who did these rituals to get his son out of jail, had a big impact on me. I often stayed at his house, where they always gave me food and treated me very well. I admired his honesty, hospitality and morality in general. He was ready to always help and share with others what he had, even though he had little, as he never had a stable job. I was almost shocked by his behaviour. I was trying to understand what makes him and other people like that and I understood it was largely because of their religion. I always used to doubt my Christianity, especially when I saw different Christians who drink and do not go to church. When my father passed away I realised an important difference – the Christian Cameroonians they spend a lot of money for funerals. We do not have that in Islam – you die today, they bury you tomorrow and its finished. Whereas the Christians need to go and take a loan, which maybe you won’t be able to repay until you die yourself. Many things need to be paid for. It does not make sense to spend so much money on the funeral, when maybe the children of the deceased person do not have enough to eat. This reinforced my conviction that the way I want to follow is Islam. So I thought that the way of life of Muslims, is more what I would like to be as well. I had little knowledge of Islam and I was learning little by little. I aspired to learn from my uncle and become more like he and other Muslims are. So I started to go to different people and ask many questions about Islam. I cannot read and write very well, but I made sure I was asking people who are well educated. I went to the mosque and talked to imams as well. What inspired me the most however, is not the knowledge they gave me, but the way they practise Islam. The practical part was the most inspiring. They live with love, truth, honesty...They live with strong faith and conviction. For example, not a single shop in their community sells

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cigarettes. They share with others and care for everyone. I strongly felt that this is where I belong, so I decided to convert completely. There was a small ritual, a spiritual bath and an oath. My brothers did not like the fact that I changed my faith, but my mother was OK with it. She believed that if this is something I am choosing, that it must be something good. It was not just an easy decision to change my faith, it took a long time. I met different Muslim friends, who later became like a family to me. I studied their religion, I was learning a lot. When I came to South Africa, I met different kinds of Muslims. I was quite confused, because it was all different. Especially those Muslims from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, they are very different. Sometimes they would treat me worse than others, because I am black. Our community in Cameroon was very much based on love, but these Muslims here were very different. Since I believed I still have to learn a lot about Islam, I joined the community here called Tablighi Jamaat. I had a teacher here who told me how to read the Quran, how to read Arabic. I used to travel with them to different places in South Africa and preach. However, their way of sharing Islam is usually to give people food, rather than to give them knowledge. They convince people that their way is the only right way. They also tell people that believing is not enough, that they need to act. They have big mass gatherings every year, both national and global. I went to the national meeting in South Africa four times. The other thing they wanted is to travel abroad and preach. They asked me whether I would go to Pakistan to preach about the greatness of God. According to me, charity should start at home, but they always want people to travel to Pakistan, India or Bangladesh. I did not travel abroad; I only travelled within South Africa with them. In general they prefer people from these countries. If someone is black and disagrees with them, they would be quite angry about that. With time however, I also started to doubt and I discovered that the group I joined was radical. They would tell me how I needed to be. They said that Christians are not good for me. But my whole family is Christian and they are good people! So what should I do? This group was not tolerant and they condemned all other groups but themselves. They even condemn other Muslims who are not following their preaching. Everyone should follow their school of thought. Sometimes they even further discriminate within their own group against everyone who is not from Pakistan or India. It is just now that I realised that they did not have the true knowledge of Islam. Then one day a friend of mine told me that there is a new imam in town and that I should go and visit his mosque. When I went I realised that this was something else, that here were the answers to my doubts. It was

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Hamid who came to Bloemfontein from Cape Town, and he changed my way of thinking. He preached love and compassion, without judgement. God is the best of judges, so I don’t need to, and I am not supposed to judge other people. It was very different. No one can kill another person in the name of God. Whereas in the other group they were preaching hatred and violence. I had that hatred and ignorance inside me. Now I do not believe that radicals are real Muslims. No Muslim can tell me that I need to hate or kill others in the name of religion. I want to emphasise that my religious belief plays a very important role in my life. I strongly believe that if I would have never met Hamid, I would be completely lost. Religion gave me a good education and knowledge of how to live in peace with all people. This gave me a love for people. I really changed as a person.

Essentialism and reductionism as a basis of extremism Literature on radicalisation and fundamentalism and other forms of political extremism4 is extensive, covering many different topics and perspectives, such as: analyses of historical, political and socio-economic conditions which lead to formation of specific fundamentalist groups (for example, Mohamedou 2007, 2018); comparisons of case studies (for example, Marty & Appleby 2004); or the social and psychological processes involved in radicalisation of groups and individuals (for example, McCauley & Moskalenko 2011; Koomen & Van der Pligt 2016; or Richards 2017). While various drivers to adopt a radical worldview can be identified in Muhammad Elvis’s story, and a socio-historical analysis would also reveal useful insights, we do not pursue those in this chapter. Our goal is rather to focus on how essentialist and reductionist identity thinking makes extremist ideologies alluring. The specific group that Muhammad Elvis joined has also received some scholarly and media attention. Tablighi Jamaat is a non-violent neo-fundamentalist group, with origins in 20th-century India, which claims to have a non-political character. Arsalan Khan in his description of the movement in Pakistan explained that in most doctrinal aspects Tablighi Jamaat agrees with other revivalist and Islamist movements, however maintaining a sharp distinction based on a fundamental disagreement about the right way to create an Islamic society. Islamists have long insisted that the best way to create an Islamic society is by wresting control of the state from unIslamic forces and creating an Islamic state governed by Islamic law (shariat), one that enforces Islamic codes and injunctions and actively creates the space for Muslims to live according to Islamic precepts. (Khan 2016: 97)

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However, as Khan reported, Tablighis believe that spreading Islam through politics is a form of idolatry that destroys Islamic virtue; it is an ascription of agency to the self rather than to God. Instead, Islam should be spread solely through dawat, faceto-face preaching. The practice of dawat is a proselytisation mechanism designed by the Tablighi Jamaat that allows the practitioner to climb to upper echelons of the movement. ‘Tablighis aim to create a world of pious sociality shaped by an ethics of hierarchy in order to offset the danger of moral chaos posed by egalitarian individualism in both liberal and Islamist varieties’ (Khan 2016: 98, cf. Ahmad 1991). Dawat consists of groups of Tablighis travelling from house to house, exhorting Muslims to fulfil their ritual duties and live according to Islamic ideals and inviting them to the mosque. Through practising dawat Tablighis are also committing themselves to a training of the self. Preaching Islamic virtues to others and spending time with good Muslims is supposed to create a desire to become virtuous and fulfil religious duties. This is where the proclaimed non-political character of Tablighi Jamaat lies and its difference from other Islamist movements. Despite distancing itself from politics, Tablighi Jamaat has faced much criticism for its orthodoxy and allegations of connections with terrorism. As Hussein Solomon (2016: 82) wrote: There is after all a distinct linkage between non-violent extremism and violent extremism with groups like Jamaat Tabligh Wal- Da’wa (Society for Propagation and Preaching), which has a ‘quietist’ and non-political image, playing a crucial role in the radicalisation and recruitment of Muslims for the Islamist cause. Solomon is not alone in making such accusation about the potential dangers of Tablighi Jamaat, which has its presence around the world – see, for example, media reports.5 However, the focus of this chapter is not on this neo-fundamentalist movement and we are in no position, nor do we aim, to make generalising claims or assessments about Tablighi Jamaat as a whole. Our aim is to discuss the particular story of Muhammad Elvis from an existential perspective. Muhammad Elvis’s life has been marked by diversity and change between the Francophone and Anglophone regions of Cameroon, between different cities and countries, between different occupations and ultimately between different creeds and the search for belief and belonging. Understanding the diversity of his experiences, identities and societal roles is necessary to seeing him as a complex and multiple human being. Upon his arrival in South Africa and later in the city of Bloemfontein, this complexity of his personhood was often reduced to one singular dimension; an identity that was imposed upon him – kwerekwere – a derogatory term used to describe migrants form other African countries.6 The formal and legal state structures as well as many everyday situations confined him to this singular category, thus rendering his roles and identities of no or secondary importance. The new and hostile environment did not recognise all aspects of his being; the ways in

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which he defined himself. This is when the community he encountered at a local mosque in Bloemfontein offered him belonging, recognition and support, which he was not granted elsewhere, in quotidian aspects of his life. The issue here is not only that Muhammad Elvis gained a sense of belonging and community, which is, of course, very important, but also that he gained different interpretations of the world, or different grand narratives that give meaning to life. The law, bureaucracy, police abuse and daily xenophobia had imposed on him a narrative in which he was an unwelcomed and marginalised part of society. In the new narrative, he was recognised as a Muslim, a bearer and performer of the true metaphysical knowledge that ought to regulate all life knowledge, which he has a duty to apprehend, to practise upon, and to disseminate by juristic obligations. This community offered him the possibility of being perceived through a different prism and an opportunity to further shape his position amongst them and his identity as a Muslim. The radicalism of both these interpretative frameworks lies in their essentialism and reductionism, that is, in their belief that a given identity defines a person and in their inflation of that identity to a dominant position. Applying for asylum and residing in South Africa on temporary permits imposed a dominance of being a migrant over other ways of being – over Muhammad Elvis’s other roles and identities. This social category loomed over many aspects of his life. (Note that this is the experience of many unprivileged migrants, and that class and race play a role.) He was not just a shopkeeper but a migrant shopkeeper who can be extorted; he was not just a commuter in a taxi, but a migrant commuter who can be exploited; he was not just a father, but a migrant father whose child will not be granted the same rights or treatment. It is this almost ubiquitous relation of dominance of one social category over others that lies at the core of radicalism. A person is defined through reductionism, a denial of plurality and the dominance of a singular category, and a one-dimensional understanding or essentialist view of this category. It is this radical interpretation of the social world and a denial of the complexity and multiplicity of a person that many perpetrators of xenophobic violence use to legitimise their actions.7 Neo-fundamentalist Islam gave Muhammad Elvis another such interpretative framework, this time not imposed on him but accepted willingly. Tablighi Jamaat offered him a way to see his Muslim identity as dominant over all other social roles and categories. This Muslim identity ought to regulate all other aspects of life – from his clothes and diet to his way of parenting, expressing love and perceptions of other people. Muhammad Elvis spent almost a decade with this movement travelling to different South African cities to preach and to meet with other Tablighi brothers. Indeed, Muhammad Elvis found a new home, which offered him an alternative interpretative framework and a possibility to control how others saw him. His views became increasingly radical and judgemental towards others. He embodied this interpretation of the world to an extreme degree, beginning to feel anger and hatred

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towards those who believed and thought differently, which permitted him to reduce all those who were not Tablighi Jamaat adherers to singular categories of heretic or infidel. Such reductionism – the rejection of plurality and complexity of people for the sake of simple and singular categories – lies at the heart of most, if not all, forms of radicalisation. Reductionism can either target particular groups of people in a society, as was the case with anti-migrant xenophobia in Muhammad Elvis’s experience, or constitute the fundament for an ideology that wishes to change the whole of society, as is the case with neo-fundamentalist movements. Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006: 118–130) gives a compelling analysis of neofundamentalist radical ideologies. Radical neo-fundamentalists are often driven by a deep desire to make the world a better place. To achieve this, they propose to spread and implement universal ethics. However, the universality they desire is not based on rights independent of creed or worldview, but is characterised by uniformity and lack of toleration for any significant ideological differences. They have no curiosity for other people’s ways of thinking and being, as other people are nothing more than embodiments of error. They believe themselves to be bearers of the ultimate truth and virtue. Thus, apart from reductionism and essentialism, neo-fundamentalist movements are characterised by their lack of assumption of potential fallibility of own opinions, and consequently their views should not be challenged or questioned through dialogue; dialogue is conversion of others rather than conversation with them.

Radicalisation and identity Muhammad Elvis’s anger might well have led him to violence, were it not for his encounter with Hamid and subsequent conversion to Sufism. Many things contributed to Muhammad Elvis’s decision to abandon the radical group. For example, there was the apparent hypocrisy of some of its prominent members, who, despite claiming a brotherhood, treated him worse because of the colour of his skin. There was also a dissonance with Muhammad Elvis’s life – how could he reject all Christians as bad, if his own family is Christian and he knows they are good people? One of the most important factors, however, was meeting Hamid, who described the situation in these words: In 2013, I moved to Bloemfontein to serve the Sufi community at the Hilton Mosque, as an imam and a spiritual leader. Initially, the Sufi community belonged to the Old Market Mosque, until they were denied performing their rituals in the premises and moved to a new place of worship in the Hilton area. The Old Market Mosque is the first mosque established in Bloemfontein in the post-apartheid era. It has always been run by Tablighi Jamaat and their Salafi cronies. During a Friday sermon, the TJ preacher condemned the Sufi community of grave worshipping, idolatry and heretical practices.

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Thus, divided the local Muslims into two groups and two mosques. Hatred, backbiting and defamation spread widely among the community up until today. This religious and creedal conflict is common in the rest of South Africa and the Indo-Pak region.8 To rub salt into injury, the large influx of radical immigrants to Bloemfontein fuelled the contest and contributed to the establishment of a more structured organisation and network (funding, feeding schemes, recruiting strategies, deployment nationally and abroad). Amid this religious dissent, I met Muhammad Elvis – Muslim brother, my African brother and my Francophone brother, a three-dimensional association that would cement our friendship. Therefore, Muhammad Elvis felt at ease to inquire (by me) about certain juristic issues pertaining Islamic faith, practices and devotions, and trusted me enough to accept (follow) my opinion (verdict). Sadly, I found Muhammad Elvis in an imbroglio of tenets and misconceptions. While he came from a Sufi background back in Cameroon, he was trapped in a web of radical thoughts and extreme beliefs designed by the fanatics of the Old Market Mosque. After few years, Mohamed became an advanced Tablighi (missionary) and joined the caravan of propagation many times locally and nationally. He was about to travel to Pakistan and stay there for four months to gain more experience in propaganda and recruit, or to simply become an expert and join the elite. (A new and solid identity that would bring Muhammad Elvis a warm welcome and acknowledgement among the TJ practitioners. There is a popular saying and belief among the Tablighi: make the intention to go for four months to Pakistan, and God will definitely provide for your travel and your family back home. Such an irony! The danger being that some of these trips are funded by radicals, Salafis and jihadists, and can potentially lead to militant or terrorist groups.) Due to my responsibility as an imam and a brother, I felt the urgency to deradicalise Mohamed and to welcome him to the world of love, tolerance and non-judgmental outlook, where jihad is an inner struggle to be good and to serve others, despite their race, ethnicity, or affiliation. Sufism is the path of inner struggle, purification, ethical behaviour and love. A path that values the humaneness of each individual in society beyond any ethnic, religious, or racial differences. Sufi rituals endow the practitioner with many supernatural (spiritual) powers, guarantees sainthood, while they provide even a stronger brotherhood bond. The real danger of the TJ does not lie in their practices, it is embedded in their creed and their belief system. To deradicalise Mohamed and other community members, I set up a Friday night class at the local mosque,

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where I relied on Sufi literature that promotes love, tolerance and serving others. The Muslim tradition is rife with such ethics, i.e. ‘A true Muslim is the one who avoids harming others with his tongue and hands’, ‘the ultimate jihad and the greatest fight is to combat the Self: meaning to purify one’s character’: both are authentic Hadiths. We also shared a lot of passion for African football since we both played back home. I invited him on a weekly basis (Saturday evening) to play games with senior footballers. The players were of different backgrounds, Hindus, Muslims, Christians...beside shedding few kilos, we exchanged jokes, drinks, stories...thus, exposed Muhammad Elvis to another side of humanity as opposed to the rigid interpretation of the TJ. On the one hand, the deradicalisation9 process consisted of the multiplicity of theological arguments (elaboration of which lies outside of the scope of this chapter). On the other hand, the simple fact of spending time together, connecting in different ways and securing a new community was also of key importance. Hamid was able to establish rapport with Muhammad Elvis, not only as a fellow Muslim, using his authority and knowledge as a Sufi Sheikh, but also connecting as fellow Francophones, Africans, and passionate football fans and players. This provided a recognition of the importance of multiple identities, multiple ways of being, which undermine simplistic and essentialist interpretations of the world. Being a Muslim was an important identity, but not the only one. (One should, however, be cautious not to see deradicalisation as a finished and complete process. The allure of radicalisation is great and individuals who broke out from such movements and ideologies, including Muhammad Elvis, often struggle and are at risk of relapse.) The role of social identities in the construction of the self (or of ‘personal identity’, as some philosophers call it synonymously) can further help us understand the potential allure of essentialist thinking and, by extension, extremist ideologies. Our beliefs, values and even political attitudes are closely tied to social identities.10 In other words, people’s beliefs, values and attitudes are largely conditioned by identity affiliations and the interpretative frameworks these identities provide, rather than by a constant pursuit of determining sound and cogent arguments in favour of any given position. Consequently, it is important to see radicalisation and deradicalisation as issues of both ideology and identity. Further exploration of the identity processes at stake in relation to extremist and radical beliefs and attitudes is of great importance.11 In this text we will elaborate on one of the most fundamental issues, namely why are social identities important to people in the first place? Understanding the importance of social identities for the creation and maintenance of a sense of self can shed light onto one of the reasons why social identities might appear as essentialist and by extension why radical extremist ideologies that rely on and impose such logic might be attractive to some people. Social scientists are often faced with two very different ways to understand social identities. On the one hand, while doing research, we often encounter essentialist

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explanations of the social world, in which our interlocutors claim that some given identities define who they are. For example, being Muslim, Christian, atheist, South African, Anglophone, Francophone, Fulani, Cameroonian, African or European is claimed to define a person. On the other hand, we are faced with our academic theories and observations. We have a proliferation of constructivist and historical interpretations of the social world, in which social identities are seen as imagined, invented, relational, contextual and performative, in which our social backgrounds, actions and beliefs define our social identities, rather than the other way around.12 We can also observe that identities that people claim are essentialist are not, in fact, ubiquitous but, rather, contextually evoked. All these theories in social sciences and philosophy put into question the validity of essentialist claims of our interlocutors, yet often fall short of explaining why these identities are seen as essential to people. We should not see essentialist discourses as ontologically valid, but as indicative of the existential importance of a given identity for the creation of the self of our interlocutors (we might call it existential value rather than ontological validity). Social identities can be seen as important building blocks of the sense of self. In a world in which everything constantly changes, in which we, our bodies, minds, memories, opinions and social roles keep changing, we create for ourselves an illusion of unity, of being a continuous and persistent person. Building upon Hume’s work (2009[1739]), Derek Parfit (1984) theorised that this belief in the continuity and persistence of the self is formed through imaginary chains of psychological connectedness – through different properties or components (different chains), we create a sense of connectedness in time. The imaginary chains can consist of memories, character traits, tastes, aesthetic preferences, or indeed social identities. We can thus see social identities, such as being a Muslim, a man, or a Cameroonian, as some of the very significant imaginary chains of connectedness that contribute to our sense of self. In other words, not only social identities are constructed and imagined, but our very sense of a unified, persistent and continuous self as well, and it is maintained partially through our social roles and identities.13 Such a conceptualisation allows us to understand why many see social identities as essential, as defining who they are. That is because, despite social identities being fluid, contextual and changing in time (for example, the way in which one understands and performs being a man or a Muslim changes), they are key contributors to the sense of self and thus can appear to be essentialist. Such essentialism is often combined with a reductionist understanding of oneself and of others. If, as previously explained, we possess many different roles and social identities, all of which contribute to the sense of self, but which define us differently (that is, how we persist and continue in time and in society), then why would some people opt for dismissing this plurality and diversity of the self and adopt a reductionist understanding, reducing themselves or others to one social identity? Before exploring the allure of reductionist thinking, it is important to stress that the sense of self, of being a unified, continuous and persistent person, forms a basis of our

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lives. It is because of the sense of self, that we can understand time as ours (as my past, present and future), allowing the making of plans and giving sense to our actions. It permits us to derive our own self-worth and make value judgements about ourselves and others based on more than just the here and now. Social life in general relies on the assumption of continuity and persistence of persons, as we assume the people whom we know today will be still themselves tomorrow, in a month or a year. It is also the fundament of all administrative and legal systems with its identity cards, social security numbers, and the necessity to hold people accountable for their past actions. We could thus say that the sense of self, which is imaginary and constructed, forms a basis for human life in general. Furthermore, because the self is constituted of many different chains of psychological connectedness, it is necessarily plural and diverse. Moreover, contrary to the assumption of ubiquity of social identities, in our quotidian lives we move each day between different situations and contexts, which demand from us to embody different roles and identities. In other words, social identities are situational rather than ubiquitous. For example, situations in which we are supposed to enact our role as a parent or child, as a citizen, a religious follower, a football fan, a friend or a lover, all require us to enact social roles or identities that define us differently and bear different expectations of behaviour (Kurzwelly 2019; Okamura 1981). These flows between different epistemic frameworks (or language games, in a Wittgensteinian vocabulary) are usually automatic and unconscious. The situational uses of different identities and the multiplicity of who we are as people are usually both socially permitted and expected.14 An active recognition of the plurality of the self is analytically accurate, but not always easy in practice. All our roles and social identities position us differently in society, provide different epistemic frameworks, and give us different prescriptions for action and behaviour. In other words, being a Muslim, a man, or a Cameroonian migrant positions us differently amongst others, offer different understandings of the social world (through religious, gendered, nationalised, or other lenses), and bear different expectations of behaviour and different prescriptions for which course of action is considered good or bad. This diversity and plurality can be seen by some as a creative opportunity to constantly shape and reshape their own life, but for others it can cause a sense of uncertainty or ambiguity. Each question, value judgement or potential course of action can be considered from different perspectives, and we are left with no easy solutions. We are given many potential responses and many epistemic and prescriptive frameworks to consider and choose from, but no easy singular answers. Furthermore, such a recognition of plurality (different, contextual, incommensurate or even incoherent images of oneself) forces us to undermine, to bracket the very sense of unified self, continuity and persistence, as we are faced with many different ways in which we can understand and imagine our future and our past. Facing the ambiguity and precariousness of life, having to face others who might want to undermine our worth and place in society, one might wish to gain some certainty, a way to make sense of oneself and others. Essentialism and reductionism

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offer such a possibility to render the world into definite, stable and comprehensible shapes of one primary identity, one epistemic framework. Adopting a positive reductionist understanding of self and social identities can be alluring because they provide a sense of security and the clarity of simple answers, although at the cost of those who are at the negative receiving end of such reductionism. Prioritising one identity over all others provides a simple way to be recognised by people who think similarly, and to gain a sense of self-worth. It provides a clear understanding of social reality and a simple prescription for action and behaviour. There is no need to choose from different possible explanations and courses of actions if the correct answers are already given. We can speculate that in this sense such a reductionism provides an increased feeling of control and agency15 – that is, fulfilling the expected correct set of rules and prescriptions secures recognition and can provide hope for a better future. Such reductionism reinforces the sense of self by providing a singular and unified understanding of oneself, providing a sense of clarity, reducing uncertainty and ambiguity, and reinforcing a sense of agency. For these reasons, reductionist understanding can be attractive to people. We all, at times, apply reductionist logic, momentarily choosing to prioritise one role or identity to make sense of the world, which at a small scale seems inevitable. However, organised and widespread reductionist worldviews and ideologies that deny people’s plurality, such as in the case of anti-migrant xenophobia and neo-fundamentalist religious movements, are especially dangerous. (There is, of course, an important difference between less pernicious sporadic essentialist and reductionist utterances – such as Muhammad Elvis’s remarks about the Fulani people, or his essentialist reductive comments about South African women – and an organised ideology that imposes one essentialist worldview upon all aspects of life. However, this distinction can be blurry, as the first might contribute to legitimising the second.) Blaming migrants for the difficulties of one’s situation provides another such clear and simple view of the world, dismissing undesired complexity. Being on the receiving end of such discrimination, that is, being reduced to a single negative social identity, or an intersection of several limited identities, is awful and gruesome. Muhammad Elvis’s experience of being constantly reduced and confined to national identity and (lack of) citizenship, to being a kwerekwere, is an example of such negative reductionism. Encountered people and the state apparatus were constantly reducing him to an unwanted migrant. This interpretative framework posed him in a position of disadvantage, limiting the ways to exercise his agency, and within this framework the ways in which he wished to be seen were not recognised. In many ways, Muhammad Elvis’s experience is similar to that of other unprivileged migrants. We could say it is analogical to being dismembered – an abrupt breaking of many social roles and identities that lie at the core of our self; at the core of how people define themselves. Faced with building a life in a new place with different people, the continuity of many of the previous identities, which relied on previous social context, is being denied in the new environment. Building upon Parfit’s (1984) theory we could say that many of the psychological chains of connectedness are being cut or

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reshaped. There are different possible strategies to cope with such a dismembering. Amidst these experiences of discrimination, Muhammad Elvis adopted a different, but similar in its logic, reductionist framework that provided him with a positive interpretation of himself and a clear and simple epistemic framework. Muhammad Elivs’s radicalisation towards extremism is similar to many other cases from around the globe, in which people adopt ideologies that prioritise national, ethnic, racial or other identities as the basis for essentialist and reductive ideologies. Both of the above-mentioned interpretative frameworks – that of being reduced to a migrant and that of neo-fundamentalist Islam – actively oppose the recognition of our plurality and try to impose an ubiquitous relation of dominance of one identity over others. Such reductionist and discriminatory worldviews, which dismiss the plurality and complexity of people, is both fallacious and dangerous, potentially leading towards discrimination, hatred and, ultimately, violence. In this text we aimed at illuminating both where, precisely, lies the error of such a logic and why, despite its fallacious logic, it can be attractive to people. Figure 5.1 An illustration of pluralistic and reductionist understandings of the self, and their existential consequences

PLURALISTIC UNDERSTANDING

THE SELF

• Accurate • Many identities and roles • Many interpretative frameworks • Potential contradictions • Different possible courses of action • No singular moral judgement • Sense of agency varies • Complexity rather than simplicity • Either a creative opportunity or uncertainty and ambiguity

NEGATIVE

(A sense of persistence and

(The receiving end of discrimination)

continuity which forms the basis of

• Inaccurate • Dominance of undesired identity • Undesired interpretative framework • Imposition of undesired judgements • Struggling to proves one's worth • Undermined sense of agency • Exclusion and alienation • Uncertainty

human life)

REDUCTIONIST UNDERSTANDING

POSITIVE (The privileged end of discrimination) • Inaccurate • Dominance of desired identity • A simple interpretative framework • Ease of moral judgements • Positive evaluation of oneself • Sense of increased agency • Clear prescriptions for behaviou • Inclusion • Certainty

Source: The authors

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Acknowledgements

With thanks to Valley Omardien who participated in some of our discussions. Endnotes 1

A modified version of this chapter has been previously published in: Kurzwelly J, Fernana H & Ngum ME (2020) The allure of essentialism and extremist ideologies. Anthropology Southern Africa 43(2): 107–118, copyright ©, co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Informa UK Limited (trading as Taylor & Francis Group https://www.tandfonline.com) (https://doi.org/10.1080/2332 3256.2020.1759435).

2

The rise in Islamophobia can be partially attributed to popular media representations and news reports of Islamist terrorism, which portray it as predominantly (or only) religiously motivated. Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou (2018) well showed how many of such popular and even scholarly representations of Islamist extremism and the terrorism of Al Qaeda and ISIS are misinformed and fallacious, as they perpetuate theological analysis while neglecting its political and historical aspects. Such aspects are not neglected when discussing other types of perpetrators, thus creating a double-standard and a racialisation of radicalism and terrorism.

3

Although the general socio-historical context of Cameroon is important in shaping Muhammad Elvis’s life and decisions, an introduction to the country and its numerous economic and political problems lies outside of the scope of this text. We refer the reader to further readings: S O’Grady from The Washington Post on 5 February 2019 published a brief introduction to the current situation and violence between the Anglophone secessionists and the Francophone governmental forces in Cameroon (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/ cameroon-anglophone-crisis/). For a more detailed historical, political and social-scientific perspective on the situation in Cameroon and the divide between the two postcolonial linguisticidentity regions, see the books by Terretta (2014) and Konings and Nyamnjoh (2003). Here we will focus on the micro-perspective of Muhammad Elvis’s life and experiences.

4

Githens-Mazer (2012) points out that the terms ‘radicalisation’ and ‘radicalism’ are understood both as synonymous with violence and extremism and as denoting any challenge to a status quo. Such conceptual obfuscation has led to increased ambiguity, to risks of treating all challenges to the status quo as negative, and to making it difficult to operationalise the terms for heuristic purposes. Githens-Mazer proposes to understand radicalisation as ‘a collectively defined though individually held moral obligation to participate in direct action, often textually defined’ (2012: 563). Such a broad definition allows one to disassociate the term from its often-ascribed meaning as related only to extremism and violence. It also permits recognising other types of radicalism, including radical civil right campaigns or other movements that demand necessary social transformation and reform. In this chapter our concern is with a particular kind of radicalism, one that assumes a worldview based on an essentialist understanding of identities and that, in one way or another, negates notions of universal humanity and human rights.

5 Burnett V, 14 terror suspects held as Spanish police raid mosque, The New York Times, 20 January 2008; Lewis P, Inside the Islamic group accused by MI5 and FBI. The Guardian 18 August 2006. 6

For a discussion of both the complexities of how this term is being used and an introduction to anti-migrant xenophobia in South Africa, see Nyamnjoh (2006: 28–81; 2016).

7

For a critical debate of different explanations of anti-migrant xenophobia and its logic in South Africa, see Kerr et al. (2019).

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8

Being an imam for 10 years in Cape Town, I witnessed many skirmishes between Deobandi and Sufi groups, as well as among the Salafi and Shiite sects. Just recently in October 2018, 19 persons were detained in connection with the fatal attack at a KwaZulu-Natal Shia mosque and the placement of several explosive devices at Durban shopping centres. Among the accused were Somali refugees from the Bellville area in Cape Town (see: https://www.iol.co.za/ sunday-tribune/news/shia-hate-led-to-mosqueattack-14950713).

9

Although a review of literature on deradicalisation lies outside our scope, a recent study on the effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing for the reduction of transphobic prejudice (in itself also a form of radicalism) is worth recommending (see Broockman & Kalla 2016; also described in Denizet-Lewis B, How do you change voters’ minds? Have a conversation. The New York Times Magazine, 7 April 2016). [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/magazine/ how-do-you-change-voters-minds-have-a-conversation.html].

10 Lilliana Mason (2018) showed, in the case of political party affiliations in the United States, that it is more often identities than arguments that lead to a given party affiliation. In that sense, all politics is, to an extent, ‘identity politics’. 11 For a consideration of a bottom-up study of radicalisation, identity processes and political discourses, see Richards (2017); for a comprehensive introduction to different psychological aspects of radicalisation, including identity, see Koomen and Van der Pligt (2016). 12 Very commonly cited are: Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities (2016), Fredrik Barth’s idea of blurred and negotiated ethnic boundaries (1998), Eric Hobsbawm's invented traditions (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 2012), Judith Butler’s analyses of the performativity of gender (2006), to mention just a few. 13 Daniel Dennett (1992) also recognised that we as people are inherently disunified and proposed a narrative theory to explain the sense of unity of the self. He proposed to see the self as a centre of narrative gravity – in analogy to the physical concept of centre of gravity – as an abstraction that has no properties in itself and yet is strongly present in our daily life. In other words, the unity is established through stories that we construct of ourselves, in which the unified ‘I’ is the main character. In this sense, we could see social identities as significant forces that shape the centre of narrative gravity and assure its imaginary continuity with the past. For a more detailed account on how social identities relate to the self, through theories of Parfit and Dennett, see Kurzwelly 2019. Similar non-essentialist views of the self could be derived from the philosophy of difference of several continental philosophers, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze or Foucault (for whom difference is radically historical, subjective and relational, or is seen as a bodily property emerging out of affect and power relations). 14 Roccas and Brewer (2002) described the different ways in which people manage their multiple identities, distinguishing between intersection, dominance, compartmentalisation and merger. Usually these different strategies are used in different situations – an intersection of different identities might be important in one situation, while in another identities become compartmentalised and only one of them is relevant. For example – in a political debate at a university, being both black and a woman could be important to draw from, as they are both historically unprivileged positions and both push for certain policies – while in the context of a final semester exam for the same person, only the identity of being a student should matter vis-à-vis the examiners (which unfortunately still is not always the case). 15 Please note that, following Patricia Churchland (2013: 168–194) we understand agency as degrees of self-control and control over one’s life plans, rather than a binary of free will and determinism.

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References Ahmad M (1991) Islamic fundamentalism in South Asia: The Jamaat-i-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat. In ME Marty & RS Appleby (Eds) Fundamentalisms observed: The fundamentalism project. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Anderson B (2016) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. (Revised edition) London, New York: Verso Appiah A (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. New York: WW Norton & Co. Barth F (Ed.) (1998) Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press Broockman D & Kalla J (2016). Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-todoor canvassing. Science 352: 220–224 Butler J (2006) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge Churchland P (2013) Touching a nerve: The self as brain. New York: WW Norton & Co. Dennett D (1992) The self as a center of narrative gravity. In F Kessel, P Cole & D Johnson (Eds) Self and consciousness: Multiple perspectives. Hillsdale: Erlbaum Githens-Mazer J (2012) The rhetoric and reality: Radicalization and political discourse. International Political Science Review 33(5): 556–567 Hobsbawm EJ & Ranger TO (Eds) 2012) The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hume D (2009) A treatise of human nature: Being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects. Auckland: The Floating Press Kurzwelly J, Fernana H & Ngum ME (2020) The allure of essentialism and extremist ideologies. Anthropology Southern Africa 43(2): 107–118, https://doi.org/10.1080/23323256.2020.17594 35 Kerr P, Durrheim K & Dixon J (2019) Xenophobic violence and struggle discourse in South Africa. Journal of Asian and African Studies 54(7): 995–1011 Khan A (2016) Islam and pious sociality: The ethics of hierarchy in the Tablighi Jamaat in Pakistan. Social Analysis 60(4): 96–113 Konings P & Nyamnjoh FB (2003) Negotiating an Anglophone identity: A study of the politics of recognition and representation in Cameroon. Afrika-Studiecentrum series. Leiden, Boston: Brill Koomen W & Van der Pligt J (2016) How to rethink psychology: The psychology of radicalization and terrorism. Hove, East Sussex; New York, NY: Routledge Kurzwelly J (2019) Being German, Paraguayan and Germanino: Exploring the relation between social and personal identity. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research 19(2): 144–156 Marty ME & Appleby RS (Eds) (2004) Fundamentalisms observed. The Fundamentalism Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Mason L (2018) Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

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McCauley CR & Moskalenko S (2011) Friction: How radicalization happens to them and us. Oxford: Oxford University Press Mohamedou M-M (2018) A theory of ISIS: Political violence and the transformation of the global order. London: Pluto Press Mohamedou M-M (2007) Understanding Al Qaeda: The transformation of war. London: Pluto Nyamnjoh FB (2016) #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at resilient colonialism in South Africa. Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Nyamnjoh FB (2006) Insiders and outsiders: Citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary Southern Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA Okamura JY (1981) Situational ethnicity. Ethnic and Racial Studies 4(4): 452–465 Parfit D (1984) Reasons and persons. Oxford:Clarendon Press Richards J (2017) Extremism, radicalization and security: An identity theory approach. Palgrave Macmillan Roccas S & Brewer MB (2002) Social identity complexity. Personality and Social Psychology Review 6: 88–106 Solomon H (2016) Islamic state and the coming global confrontation. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan Terretta M (2014) Nation of outlaws, state of violence: Nationalism, grassfields tradition, and state building in Cameroon. New African Histories. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press

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The shifting social relations and national identity practices of a Peruvian migrant in South Africa’s heartland Luis Escobedo, Alba Gómez-Arias and Julio Castillo

‘Confirmed: Alan García is dead’1 On 17 April 2019 at 6.46 am in Lima, Peru (UTC -05:00), two SUVs hastily drove, honking, down a narrow avenue. The sky was grey and the morning air stubbornly humid with a kick of smoke. A voice with my accent narrated ​​ breaking news that officials from the public prosecutor’s office were rushing to the residence of twoterm former president Alan García (1985–1990 and 2006–2011) with a preliminary arrest warrant in their hands. O ​ nly a few minutes later, and right before his arrest, García shot himself. In Bloemfontein, South Africa, Julio Castillo received the news, almost in real time. Texts, photographs, videos and voicemails drifted across social media networks​ and messaging services. Supposed x-ray photographs of the politician’s shattered skull and confirmations of his death were passed around, creating a battleground of opinions around his decision to commit suicide in the middle of a corruption scandal. A mix of emotions and memories invaded Julio. He had to stop what he was doing, to process what was happening. After three long hours, the former president died. García was the first president whose name Julio could properly pronounce as a child, and the last one to take office before he left Peru indefinitely as a young adult. While this iconic event momentarily brought Julio into contact with millions of other Peruvians around the world, through the exchange of information on the topic, he soon resumed normal, daily activities. Other Peruvians remained focused on the event for longer, and some still discuss and continue to feel affected by it today. However, what those three long hours suggest is that, no matter how much Peruvians in different parts of the world differ in their understanding of their nationality, they may still be powerfully connected in multiple ways. Julio Castillo and Luis Escobedo (the first author of this chapter, also a Peruvian) met for the first time in Bloemfontein in 2017. Since then, several iconic events, affecting the lives of many Peruvians, have taken place. Included in these events was the return of the Peruvian men’s national football team to the FIFA World Cup after a 36-year long absence from the competition, and the bringing to justice of a long list of (mostly male) Peruvian politicians, including García, as a result of their involvement in the Brazilian firm Odebrecht’s corruption scandal, and other crimes.

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Julio and Luis were both born in 1982, when the Peruvian men’s team played its last World Cup prior to 2018; both witnessed all those who were elected presidents of Peru within this period face the law. More recently, they have also observed how a number of people back in Peru have started reshaping their collective self in front of Venezuelan migration by, for example, crediting Venezuelans with the spread of more brutal and physical forms and levels of crime. According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in 2019 the migrant population of Venezuelans in Peru amounted to 800 000 people (UNHCR 2019). Xenophobic attitudes and behaviours towards Venezuelans have started to entrench themselves in sectors of Peruvian society and travel across social media networks and messaging services. This gave Julio and Luis much to discuss from their migrant perspectives. Ever since the two Peruvians met in Bloemfontein, and partly as a result of how central the topic of national identity has been to Luis’s research and personal life in 20 years of moving across borders, Julio has found himself thinking and speaking about Peru, or doing something associated with it, more often than he had been doing on his own in the years since his arrival in South Africa in 2013. Since leaving Peru, Julio has certainly connected with Peruvians with whom he was acquainted (such as family) and unacquainted (for example, football fans), and he has done this directly (through visits to Spain2 and Peru) as well as indirectly (through social media). However, as his own story reveals in this chapter, this connection with Peruvians has mostly taken place when the appropriate context and incentives to ‘think’ or ‘speak’ about Peru, or to ‘do’ something associated with it, were significantly accessible. Otherwise, his self-identification as part of a national category such as ‘Peru’, ‘Peruvian’, or ‘Peruvian immigrant’, among others, had not been of special importance to him. Moreover, Bloemfontein, being an unpopular destination for Peruvian migration, has not offered him the above-mentioned context and incentives to connect with other Peruvian actors, symbols, practices and occurrences in the same wide-ranging ways and degrees as did his previous location in Spain, where he spent seven years before moving to South Africa. The objective of this chapter is to explore the way in which the national identity of a single Peruvian migrant like Julio functions in the tension3 between the context of a changing post-apartheid African city like Bloemfontein, where Peruvian migration is numerically insignificant, and his role as an individual to whom national identity is not meaningful unless provided with suitable incentives to think about it. We continue to question the traditional assumption that nationalism and national identity are ‘horizontal’ or ‘equalising’ concepts (Anderson 1991). People sharing the same nationality may differ in their understanding of themselves and their nationality, depending on the combination of ethnic, linguistic, religious, age, professional, socio-economic and other groups to which they belong (see, for example, Paerregaard 2008b). They may differ according to where they are located within and away from their national territory (see, for example, Evans 2019) or in

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terms of the form of thinking that they engage in. Julio would fit Rosenberg and Beattie’s (2019) description of ‘sequential thinker’ in their work on the cognitive structuring of national identity.4 This is someone who is not concerned with ‘self-identification’ or ‘social identity’ and thus does not find national identity to be ‘personally meaningful or salient’ unless provided with the ‘appropriate social reinforcement’ or ‘context’ (Rosenberg & Beattie 2019: 365, 368). Following Rosenberg and Beattie’s analysis, we argue that, while belonging to a particular national identity may not be meaningful to an individual, their understanding of national identity can vary with their changing contexts. We compare Julio’s migration experience in South Africa with his previous experience in Spain in terms of the ‘fresh contact’ (Mannheim 1952) that he had with each of these societies, in order to understand how an individual’s social relations shift according to their exposure to a significantly different context (see Paerregaard 2014a). We pay attention to how a Peruvian individual like Julio, while not finding his national identity particularly meaningful, still thinks of himself as part of Peru and orientates himself towards it from within the various foreign contexts in which he has lived in different times of his life. In the last two decades Spain has become Peruvian migrants’ primary European destination. Consequently, this country offered Julio multiple opportunities to remain in close contact with his place of origin and with others of his nationality if he so wished. However, the Peruvians who have been arriving in Spain since the 1990s have mostly done so in connection to the demand for low-paid unskilled workers in labour-intensive sectors of the Spanish economy. Thus, this migrant group, along with many other South American migrant groups, has been – and to some extent continues to be – perceived in terms of class. Peruvian (and South American) migrants in Spain, therefore, have been subject to social-class stereotyping, and at times (racial) prejudices and marginalisation, among other social issues. Thus, for Julio, ‘Peruvianness’ within Spanish society became bound to class distinction, driving his decision to exclude himself from it. Contrary to Spain, South Africa, and Bloemfontein in particular, is an uncommon destination for Peruvian migration. While this new context has consequently offered Julio less ‘reinforcement’ to ‘think’, ‘speak’, or ‘do’ anything in relation to Peru, within it the category ‘Peruvian’ has so far not been subject to negative stereotyping, marginalisation or related issues on the basis of national origin. Instead, ‘Peruvianness’ within South African society became for Julio bound to a scale of authenticity. Having less contact with anything related to his country of origin than he had in Spain, even if he no longer felt the need to exclude himself from his national category, contributed to his self-perception as missing or having lost the proper markers of being Peruvian, thus becoming in his own view an ‘unauthentic’ Peruvian. What Julio’s story reveals, and as we also argue in this chapter, even in a situation of self-exclusion or distancing from one’s national community or identity during migration, supported by the fact that national identity may not be meaningful in

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one’s life, individuals like Julio can still enter, in anonymity, a space of simultaneity, synchrony and unisonality with members of their national community the world over. We use Anderson’s (1991) understanding of simultaneity as part of his theory of nationalism in order to shed light on how different means of mass communication allow Julio to live in parallel with and in relation to other Peruvians around the world, while thinking of himself as part of the same community. Likewise, we engage Billig’s (1995) concept of banal nationalism to understand how such a connection with community is constituted by ideological habits consciously and unconsciously acquired throughout one’s life.

‘The story of someone’s life’ Peacock and Holland (1993: 368) describe life story as ‘simply the story of someone’s life’, and differentiate it from life history in that life story ‘does not connote that the narration is true, that the events narrated necessarily happened, or that it matters whether they did or not’. Drawing upon this idea, Paerregaard (2008b: 28–29) engages with the life stories of Peruvian migrants, with an emphasis on how they construct their lives, where they are heading to, and what their attempts ‘to create new lives and livelihoods’ are. By telling their stories, he continues, the narrators could be aiming to present their ‘past as a coherent life trajectory and to relate this reconstruction to present and future prospects’ (Paerregaard 2008b: 28–29). This chapter applies this trajectory approach to Julio’s life story. Furthermore, inspired by works such as those of Berg (2015) and Paerregaard (2014b), which provide a broader picture of Peruvian migration by considering the voice of the migrants’ families, friends, acquaintances and social environments, this chapter also acknowledges the voice of Julio’s wife, Alba, who is a Spanish national. Alba’s voice has been relevant in bringing our attention to aspects of Julio’s story we would have otherwise overlooked during the co-construction of his story. She has broadened the picture of how her husband understands his national identity, in the absence of the appropriate context and incentives, and how such an understanding has changed according to the different contexts he has been exposed to in the time before they met Luis. The first interviews took place between October and December 2018 in Julio’s university campus office. The idea was to record conversations where he and Alba could tell their stories extensively, openly and flexibly, with the occasional support of a set of open-ended questions. However, constant interaction between all three participating parties, beyond the scheduled sessions and the campus office, proved to be a great complement to these interviews. The more intimate space of the home, or the multiple activities and interests that they shared, such as listening to music, cooking or watching football, allowed them to feel freer to tell stories; express and describe emotions; and speak in ways that were not structured, normative or standardised. This also allowed for the sharing of stories in visual and other formats, such as music, photography and cooking. A few months after the first session, the

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couple highlighted the need, value and importance of telling stories and being listened to. From a capability perspective, this possibility could be understood as ‘narrative capability’ or ‘the real opportunities individuals have to tell their stories’ (Watts 2008: 99–112). After the first three months of interview sessions, Julio and Alba joined as co-authors. They were interested in exploring the expanded possibilities that the collective act of telling, writing, listening to, reading and analysing one’s own story can bring. Ever since, they have also been engaged in data collection through interviews, written questionnaires and ethnographic observations, and the analysis and editing of the work in progress. This participatory exercise has allowed for the expansion of perspectives on different aspects of Julio’s story. Likewise, it has allowed the co-authors to experience change. Not only have Julio and Alba, both natural scientists, engaged with topics traditionally studied as part of the social sciences and humanities, but Julio has also mentioned that he has learned how national identity functions in different contexts. During a presentation of the work in progress in May 2019, which was almost entirely attended by researchers in higher education and human development who were largely engaged with the capability approach, Julio expressed how much he valued being able to address a new and different audience and how gaining some understanding of the topic of national identity has brought some ‘peace’ to him. This allows us to think of the research space created by the three co-authors also as one where Julio has found a third way of understanding his national identity and himself, much beyond the territorial spaces provided by Spain and South Africa during migration.

National identity and ‘fresh contact’ People of the same nationality do not think in the same manner, are not uniformly brought together by their nationality, do not share the characteristics considered ‘national’ in the same way, and are not equally influenced by the process of acquiring a national habitus (De Cillia et al. 1999; Evans 2019; Rosenberg & Beattie 2019; see also Bourdieu 1977; Le Hir 2014). National identity is a ‘fluid and dynamic process of negotiation and renegotiation’ (Evans 2019: 174), one that individuals work towards ‘achieving’ (Bond 2006), something that they ‘do’ rather than inherently ‘have’ (Jenkins 2011: 12). As such, nationhood is not only constructed ‘from above’ (for example, state discourses) but also ‘from below’ (for example, diasporic ties) (Hobsbawm 1990: 10–11), and involves the participation of individuals and groups living within their national territory and abroad. To be able to understand how an individual like Julio thinks of himself as part of Peru and sees himself in relation to his country of origin according to the contexts where he has lived in different times of his life, we need to first ‘observe’ him and ‘ask’ him about it (Becker 1996). Social identity exists when its bearers classify themselves as distinct from others and are recognised as being distinct by significant others (Vasilev 2019: 513–514; see also Jenkins 2000). Back in Peru, Julio was perceived in terms of his belonging to a particular

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social class, or his personality, for example. He remembers, and Alba highlights, that he was engaged in activities unpopular among the children in the neighbourhood, such as staying home and studying, or participating in artistic and social outreach activities with friends from a youth-driven organisation. However, he cannot recall ever being classified in terms of his nationality in his natal Chiclayo.5 This was not the case when Julio moved abroad. In his ‘fresh contact’ (Mannheim 1952) with Spain and later with South Africa, Julio’s national identity was subject to what a significant part of these receiving societies ascribed to it, whether he wanted and agreed with it or not (see Brubaker 2013; Patten 2011). His national identity was also subject to how he thought of himself as Peruvian within these new contexts at particular times of his life. According to Mannheim (1952), ‘fresh contact’ is based on a shift on social relations experienced by a new generation in a context of transformation, such as that of war or migration, for example. A generation is understood here as ‘a socially constituted set of people belonging to roughly the same cohort and residing typically within a defined geographical area’ (Dyson 2019: 314). As Dyson (2019: 314–315) discusses, this kind of change reflects a new generation’s relative distance from their inherited social and environmental surroundings, prompting their re-examination of ‘their collective position with respect to historical circumstances in order to develop a set of shared understandings’. In the ‘fresh contact’ experienced in the context of migration, the pre-migration and post-migration experiences stand out, respectively, as moments of ‘death’ and ‘rebirth’ for the migrant (Paerregaard 2014a: 2133). Julio’s decision to move to Spain in 2007, like that of many Peruvian migrants (Paerregaard 2007, 2008b, 2014a), was largely based on the linguistic and cultural proximity that the European country has with Peru. By 2000, Peruvians were the second largest immigrant group in Spain, a group mostly made up of women (Escrivá 1997: 54, 2000: 207). Currently, more than 440 000 of the more than three million Peruvians abroad (INEI et al. 2018: 22, 36–38) live in Spain, out of a total population of over 31 million (INEI 2018: 13). This country and its capital Madrid are respectively the European state and city with the highest number of Peruvians (INEI et al. 2018: 36–38; Tornos et al. 1997: 41). This accounts for the abundance of Peru-related actors (for example, associations), symbols (for example, products), practices (for example, gastronomic festivals) and occurrences (for example, visits of Peruvian celebrities), among others. Resources for Julio to maintain a close contact with Peru and other Peruvians were, thus, available. However, it was not in his interest to make use of them, because neither maintaining relations with Peru and other Peruvians, nor identifying himself with this migrant group was particularly meaningful for him. Alba has emphasised that Julio specifically chose not to ‘spend time with’ members of a Peruvian migrant-led institution in the city they lived in. Julio suggested that this might have been due to the ‘realities’, ‘upbringing’, interests (‘we were not finding anything in common’) and collective behaviour (‘it was not a question of social class, but of behaviour’) that differentiated them. Paerregaard’s (2014a) use of ‘generational

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units’ and ‘cohorts’ in his study of Peruvian migration could provide some insight on this matter. ‘Generational units’ grow out of a shared experience of establishing ‘fresh contact’ with both the sending and receiving societies and of using the former to establish the latter (Paerregaard 2014a). ‘Cohorts’ constitute the aggregate of individuals, due to the fact that they occupy the same position in the world, ‘whether as political refugees, undocumented immigrants or low-paid unskilled workers in the sending society, or as members of the same social class or ethnic group in the receiving society’ (Paerregaard 2014a: 2134). Although Peruvian migration is characterised as being ‘extremely heterogeneous’ in terms of ‘class, ethnicity, education, gender, and age’, besides also being geographically ‘dispersed’ (Paerregaard 2008b: 8–9, 2014a: 2134, 2014b; Takenaka et al. 2010), it ‘is to a large extent a middle-class project’ (Paerregaard 2014b: 50–51). When leaving Peru in 2007, Julio was not only part of one of the three highest-earning income groups, to which more than half of Peru’s emigrants officially belonged, but statistically speaking he fitted the profile of the majority of Peruvian emigrants in their pre-migration phase: he was between 25 and 34 (24.5 per cent), a student (21.9 per cent), single (65.2 per cent), and from an urban area (92 per cent) of the coast (67.8 per cent) (INEI and OIM 2010: 49–50; Paerregaard 2014b: 50–51; INEI et al. 2018: 30–44). Besides that, 2007 was the year when the percentage of male migrants (51.9) in relation to that of female migrants (48.1) peaked (INEI et al. 2018: 30). Additionally, Spanish is Julio’s first language.6 In his post-migration experience, however, Julio shared less in common with other Peruvians. Since the 1990s, Peruvians arrived in Spain mostly due to the relaxation of migration policies to meet the demands of the domestic service, manufacturing, agricultural and construction sectors (Berg 2010: 125; Berg & Paerregaard 2005: 15; Escrivá 2000: 133, 202; Paerregaard 2003; 2007; 2008b: 46–47, 63–64; 2014b: 182). Being a numerically visible population of migrants, it was subject to the various discourses surrounding migration in Spain, some of which included prejudices against Peruvian immigrants that could also be found in other receiving societies (see Garcés 2014; Imilan 2015; Mora & Undurraga 2013; Paerregaard 2005, 2014a, 2014b; Tijoux 2011). Although Julio was not free from the prejudices affecting Peruvians – ‘identification by others is often based on stereotypes’ (Patten 2011: 745) – his belongingness to a particular class group in his post-migration experience allowed him to avoid them, at least to some extent. Alba recalled some Spanish people’s reactions when finding out she was in a relationship with Julio: The image that some of them had was ‘oh no; he is an immigrant without qualifications who only wants to get married in order to get the visa’... That is just the concept that people have of any immigrant who moves to a better country in order to look for an opportunity...‘They are desperate, and they are going to do anything, even if it is not ethical, in order to get it’. However, once they get to know him [Julio], they realise that he does not respond to the stereotype. (Emphasis added.)

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In Spain, Julio was in fact a grant-holding master’s and, later, doctoral student. After graduation he became a contracted researcher. Throughout this time, his Peruvian, Latin American and Spanish friends – or one could say ‘cohorts’ – were all university graduates or well-reputed artists. His post-migration experience, thus, differed from that of a significant number of Peruvian immigrants in Spain, in terms of level of education and class. In his study of Welshness in a town in Wales with ‘relatively low levels of Welsh identity’, Evans (2019: 176, 181–182) discusses that some of the locals understand ‘proper Welshness’ as mainly ‘a set of embodied behaviours, synonymous with working-class habitus’, ultimately infusing the nation ‘with the positive and negative connotations of working classness’. Based on a similar understanding of national identity, Peruvianness became for Julio bound to class distinction within Spanish society. Hence, acquiring more visibility as ‘Peruvian’ in a context where he may be subject to marginalisation and other issues was something from which Julio preferred to exclude himself. In this process, however, Julio did not seek to create or make use of formally established diasporic ties.7 According to Bond (2006), national identity construction can also involve ‘self-exclusion’. While it may seem that Julio’s intention was to position himself as a different kind of Peruvian through self-exclusion, he was, instead, acting in response to a context that provided him with the ‘appropriate social reinforcement’ (Rosenberg & Beattie 2019: 364–365) to think about his national identity. According to Edensor (2002), some places are perceived as being ‘more national’ than others. This idea is normally applied in comparing regions within a national territory, when considering the different ways and degrees in which nation-building discourses are present, for example, through the educational system or the media. These discourses are also present in migrant communities abroad, coming both ‘from above’, such as through state discourses and policies addressing Peruvians abroad (see Berg 2010; Berg & Tamagno 2006; Imilan 2015), and ‘from below’, such as through Peruvian migrant-organised activities (see Waiting for Miracles, directed by UD Berg in 2003;8 also Paerregaard 2005, 2007, 2008b, 2014a, 2014b). This means that the presence of these nation-building discourses can, to some extent, also depend on the diplomatic ties that the receiving society has with Peru and the number of Peruvian migrants already present in that society. If we translated this onto the map of Peruvian migration, South Africa could figure as being ‘less national’ for Peruvians than countries where larger numbers of Peruvian migrants live, such as the United States (30.9 per cent), Argentina (14.5 per cent) or Spain (14.3 per cent) (INEI et al. 2018: 36–38). By the same token, Bloemfontein would figure similarly in front of cities like Buenos Aires (10.7 per cent), Santiago de Chile (9.2 per cent), or Madrid (6.8 per cent) (INEI et al. 2018: 38–39). In fact, Peruvian migration is rather uncommon in the whole of Africa:9 Oceania and Africa host 0.58 per cent and 0.04 per cent of the Peruvian population living abroad, respectively. In comparison, America10 hosts 66.4 per cent, Europe hosts 8.8 per cent, and Asia hosts 4.16 per cent (INEI et al. 2018: 22, 36–37). In other words, 15 times more Peruvians reside in the Japanese prefecture of Aichi than in the whole of Africa (INEI et al. 2018: 38–39). In Alba’s words: ‘We are more connected to Spain than to Peru. And, I

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think, we are less connected to Peru here than when we lived in Spain. At least [then] it was cheaper and easier to travel to Peru’. As suggested in conversations held in 2018 with representatives of the embassy of Peru in South Africa and a Johannesburg-based administrator of social media groups where Peruvians and Latin Americans in South Africa and Africa in general interact, Bloemfontein has not hosted Peru-related events partly because it is believed that the number of migrants is too limited. Those in the conversations were also unable to recall an activity organised by Peruvian migrants in that city. In the larger cities of Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Pretoria, however, the Peruvian embassy and a few Peruvian social media groups, businesses (such as catering, hospitality, entertainment and sport), practitioners (such as architects, researchers, physicians, coaches and artists), as well as some local people and institutions have certainly sought to foster relations between Peru and South Africa. Julio admitted to having been invited to participate in events organised by the Peruvian consulate in Pretoria, but having ignored such invitations: The consulate always sends e-mails and I never reply to them. They organise meetings because there is a slightly bigger Peruvian community in Pretoria. They make Peruvian food and film festivals. It is something that I would be interested in doing, but it is too far away from Bloemfontein. (Emphasis added.) Taking into consideration the presumed absence or limited presence of Peru-related actors, symbols, practices and occurrences in Bloemfontein, Julio’s ‘fresh contact’ with South Africa was certainly different from the one he had had with Spain. Unlike in his previous experience, in South Africa Julio arrived in a context where Peruvian migration was not numerically visible, and also where Peruvians were not stereotyped or marginalised as a result of their nationality. He was no longer associated with common prejudices against Peruvians and other aspects, which had been his post-migration experience in Spain. Additionally, the words ‘foreigner’ or ‘foreign national’ were not applicable to his case in the same way they had been to some groups of migrants targeted and victimised by xenophobic violence in the largest South African cities since 2008.11 In Alba’s words: The [academic] level of the Peruvians who live in Africa is much higher... People do not go to a country that is doing worse than theirs and become an immigrant in order to grow. No. Who are those who come here, then? Those who find a good job and who have a CV that supports them, as is your [Luis’] case, as is his [Julio’s] case...There are too many people starving here, more than in your own country...When he [Julio] says ‘I come from Peru’, they reply ‘ah’; and the conversation stops right there... The good side [of this] is that they [the local people] don’t have prejudices about Peruvians...everybody knows Machu Picchu, but most people do not know what Peru is.

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It is arguable how much Bloemfontein residents know about Peru and what they think about the people coming from that country. What we can draw from Julio’s experience is that, since his move to South Africa, ‘white’, ‘European’, or a combination of these and related categories have been more commonly used to refer to him than ‘Peruvian’.12 Together with his position as scientist and other economic, cultural and social capitals, or the symbolic capital resulting from the perception and recognition of these capitals as legitimate (Bourdieu 1986, 1989), these categories have supported the contextualised perception that people have of Julio as a privileged foreigner. Speaking in terms of ‘fresh contact’, Julio has become part of a ‘cohort’ of individuals occupying a particular social class, one mostly made of local and foreign academics or individuals in professions rendered as privileged; Julio’s foreign friends and colleagues are often Spanish speakers from different parts of Europe and Latin America. This leads us to think about ‘generational units’ (Paerregaard 2014a). Those foreigners who, like Julio, arrived in South Africa to hold academic or other similar positions, often perceived as privileged, share with him a similar experience of establishing ‘fresh contact’ with the receiving society. While they do not all necessarily come from the same country or region, or have officially formed formal institutions among themselves in the way Peruvians in other parts of the world have, as in the case of the ‘diasporic ties’ studied by Paerregaard (2008b, 2014a), they generally have access to professional networks that support them and others like them in their post-migration experience. For example, Julio has recently started to discuss with friends and colleagues from when he was a student in Peru and Spain, and whose academic background is similar to his, about potentially joining him in South Africa for collaborative work. In this context, Julio’s understanding of his national identity has changed. For him, Peruvianness is no longer bound to class distinction as it was during his time in Spain. He has not had to worry about being visible as a ‘Peruvian’ because in South Africa it has not led to him being marginalised. He has also not had much of the ‘appropriate social reinforcement’ (Rosenberg & Beattie 2019: 364–365) to think or speak about, or to do something related to Peru or Peruvianness. Nor has this become less or more important to him than it was before. In fact, since Julio moved to Bloemfontein he has become increasingly ‘indifferent’ to nationhood (Fenton 2007), and has started understanding his national identity not as sewn into class distinction but rather as on a scale of authenticity (Evans 2019). During one of our first sessions for the purpose of this chapter, Julio stated that the last ‘truly Peruvian’ thing that he had left was his passport, following this up with ‘I feel as if I’m losing everything...my identity’. He even gave this as an explanation for his previous refusal to apply for Spanish citizenship, held by both his wife and his daughter. To this Alba added that since she met Julio in 2008, among other things, his accent, vocabulary and expressions have changed considerably, and currently more resemble those associated with Spanish than with Peruvian nationals. In this way, lacking the proper context or ‘reinforcement’ to reproduce or contest his nationhood, being indifferent to it, and, from his own perspective, lacking the proper markers of authenticity, Julio

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has distanced himself from Peruvianness and has instead chosen to be associated with a more cosmopolitan identity. As previously discussed, according to Rosenberg and Beattie’s (2019: 364–365, 368) cognitive structuring of national identity, Julio can be described as a ‘sequential thinker’ – someone for whom ‘self-identification’ or ‘social identity’ are relatively insignificant or inconstant, and for whom national identity is thus not ‘personally meaningful or salient’ unless provided with the ‘appropriate social reinforcement’ or context. According to this understanding, Julio fits the profile of an individual who is focused on current and immediate experiences, ‘the here and now’ of a sequence of events, and hence as someone who does not think of himself as part of a category with characteristic features but rather in terms of his role within these events (Rosenberg & Beattie 2019: 363, 365). For example, at one time Julio may show concern about ‘losing’ his Peruvian identity, suggesting that he considers it important, but at a different time he may say that it is not something relevant to him, choosing instead to identify himself first as a cosmopolitan individual. This aspect has become more salient as Julio’s engagement with storytelling has increasingly urged him to think and speak about Peru-related topics, as well as to engage in activities that make constant reference to them, turning his participation in this chapter into a pivotal moment in his understanding of his own national identity.

National identity, simultaneity and ideological habits While Bloemfontein does not provide Julio with the proper context in order to stay connected with Peru and other Peruvians, as Spain used to do, and Peruvianness is not particularly meaningful to him, we argue that when given the proper ‘reinforcement’, an individual like him can still anonymously enter a space of simultaneity, synchrony or unisonality with his national community. Anderson’s (1991) understanding of the concept of ‘homogeneous, empty time’ sheds some light on how this process takes place. Drawing on Benjamin (1999), Anderson (1991: 24) explains homogeneous, empty time as the simultaneity that is ‘transverse, cross-time’, marked by ‘temporal coincidence’, and ‘measured by clock and calendar’. In his theory of nationalism, Anderson (1991: 43, 188) claims that in the time period 1500–1800, print-capitalism, or ‘the interaction between a system of production and productive relations (capitalism), a technology of communications (print), and the fatality of human linguistic diversity’, made it possible for substantial groups of people to think of themselves as living in parallel to other substantial groups of people, and so they were able to relate to each other in new ways. Although the members of such a substantial group of people would never meet, he claims, they were now aware that they were simultaneously ‘proceeding along the same trajectory’ (Anderson 1991: 188). The novel and the newspaper were, in Anderson’s (1991: 204) view, the first instruments set in homogenous, empty time as they presented a historical frame measured by clocks and calendars, and particular sociological settings. From this

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perspective, both the novel and the newspaper played an important role in the demarcation of ‘the rising national boundaries’ (Sand 2009: 36). The idea of the novel being set in homogeneous, empty time could be illustrated in the way its characters, even when unaware of each other, are still embedded in a particular sociological setting that relates them to one another. At the same time, these characters are embedded in the minds of the ‘omniscient’ (Anderson 1991), or ‘omnipresent’ (Howells & Negreiros 2012: 209) – readers who are able to observe their simultaneous acts within a particular ‘socioscape described in careful, general detail’ (Anderson 1991: 32, emphasis in original), and which they may or may not recognise as theirs. Latin American novels such as Payno’s (1888/2003) Los Bandidos de Río Frío, García Márquez’s (1967/2010) Cien Años de Soledad, or Vargas Llosa’s (1969/2006) Conversación en la Catedral illustrate this idea well. They involve a great variety of characters that may not know about each other but are still connected and Mexican, Colombian and Peruvian readers, respectively, can relate to them and the historical and sociological spaces within which the authors have situated them, whether it be in a land with yet undefined borders (early 19th-century Mexico), a fictional town (Macondo), or a city that has changed considerably in more than 60 years (1950s Lima). As for the newspaper, according to Anderson (1991: 35), the date at the top of the page provides the connection within a particular national community, provoking a sort of daily ‘mass ceremony’ as large numbers of people read it simultaneously throughout that particular day. Anderson (1991: 62) highlights the role that newspapers have played in the development of national consciousness among the members of the creole states of the American continent before their respective independences. Anderson indicates that the newspapers in Spanish America were characterised by their provinciality, as Americans were aware that if they read each other’s newspapers they were reading about worlds similar to their own, but which were not their own, per se. ‘Mexican creoles might learn months later of developments in Buenos Aires, but it would be through Mexican newspapers, not those of the Rio de la Plata; and the events would appear as “similar to” rather than “part of ” events in Mexico’ (Anderson 1991: 63). Anderson (1991: 36) refers to this community in anonymity as ‘the hallmark of modern nations’. The coming of the radio would make this simultaneity even more pronounced (Soffer 2013: 52); it would make communication more accessible (Douglas 2004). Later, television (Mihelj 2011; Soffer 2013), films and other technologies (for the internet, see Soffer 2013) would play a similar role. Susan Sontag, one of the discussants in an episode of Voices,13 discusses how writing stories and making films allow us to tell ‘several stories at the same time’ by means of cross-cutting, or ‘parallel editing’ (Howells & Negreiros 2012: 219). The last scene of Eastwood’s Invictus,14 where various groups of South Africans are shown supporting their national rugby team play New Zealand in a Rugby World Cup final, illustrates this point well. A ‘time-bomb effect’ is introduced in the last minutes of the match,

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where takes of a clock slowly counting down the time to the end of the match alternate with those of rugby players in action and people watching or listening to the game at the stadium, at home, at a bar, or on the street, resulting in a padding out of real time into reel time (Howells & Negreiros 2012: 220). This scene does not only illustrate Sontag’s point, but also Anderson’s understanding of simultaneity as it projects the image of a national communion, or mass ceremony occurring in anonymity and facilitated by modern tools. The idea of substantial groups of people simultaneously and anonymously ‘proceeding along the same trajectory’ (Anderson 1991: 188) supported by means of mass communication has also been suggested in more recent works. Mihelj (2011) and Postill (2011) speak about the importance of simultaneous or synchronised exposure to the media in the framing of the national time and calendar. More recent works on nationalism, such as that of Billig (1995) have gone beyond Anderson’s focus on the crucial role that the ritual of shared consumption of mass media plays in the demarcation of national boundaries, to pay more attention to the importance of the ideological discourse conveyed in this process (see Soffer 2013: 51). By speaking of ‘banal nationalism’, Billig relates to the way nations reproduce or construct themselves by means of ‘ideological habits’ promoted and reinforced by everyday discourses, such as the one conveyed, for instance, in traditional media. The members of a nation, he says, do not need to engage in emblematic or official demonstrations of loyalty to reproduce or construct their nation, as even ‘the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building’ (Billig 1995: 6–8) functions as an ideological symbol of nationhood in their daily lives. This places emphasis on the anonymous participation of national subjects, because even those who do not consider themselves nationalist, or for whom national identity is not particularly meaningful, like Julio, are still conscious of their belonging to a nation. This is also because, according to Billig, ‘little’ words are important. They make national identity memorable through the inclusion of these individuals in the words ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘ours’, as opposed to ‘they’, ‘them’ or ‘theirs’. How Peruvians around the world engage in the simultaneous consumption of mass media as well as in day-to-day ideological habits, prompting the demarcation of their national boundaries, and the reproduction and construction of their nation, has been illustrated in the literature on Peruvian migration. Berg and Tamagno (2006) show how Peruvian migrants often ‘invent new forms of belonging’ that challenge state discourses: ‘Migrants continuously revalue “Peruvian culture” and claim “Peruvian identity” through a variety of cultural practices, including the commemoration of Peruvian national holidays, consumption of Peruvian food, and circulation and consumption of Peruvian religious objects and popular culture items’ (Berg & Tamagno 2006: 277). Altamirano (2000), Paerregaard (2008a, 2008b) and Ruiz-Baia (1999), among others, recognise the yearly procession honouring the Peruvian Catholic saint Señor de los Milagros (Lord of Miracles) as one of the most (if not the most) emblematic displays of Peruvian identity abroad. Similarly, practices around football (Escobedo & Agbedahin 2019; Paerregaard 2005: 242; 2008b: 19, 118–129; 2014a: 2139;

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2014b: 129–130, 141, 189–190) and more recently, Peruvian gastronomy (Bohardt 2014; Imilan 2015; Paerregaard 2008b: 145; and a documentary15 directed by Cabellos in 2009) have become crucial elements in Peruvian migrants’ self-representation, recognition and linking with their communities of origin. Besides these contributions, the simultaneous practices and ideological habits of Peruvians spread around the world are also exposed in journalistic works such as those of Mosca (2009) and Pazos (2015); memoirs like that of Ortiz (2013); and even novels and other literary pieces like Vargas Llosa’s Travesuras de la Niña Mala (2006). All of this diverse literature is, however, based to a considerably large extent in countries (for example, United States, Argentina) and cities (for example, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile) that are home to the most numerous communities of Peruvian migrants, hence the stories of those living in unpopular destinations such as South Africa, and Bloemfontein in particular, have been largely omitted.16 The present chapter, which is based on Julio’s life story, also aims to provide an ethnographic contribution to this literature.

Meanwhile, in Bloemfontein ‘Finally, people who like football. I am up for [the match] Peru versus Argentina. Also, for playing [football]’, read the first message written by Julio to Luis back in September 2017. A few days later they were preparing to watch Peru play Colombia on the last match day of the South American qualifiers for the Russia 2018 FIFA (Men’s) World Cup. On that day, both Julio and Luis wore red and white jersey in simultaneity with masses of Peruvians worldwide, as several texts, photographs, videos, notifications and other pieces of information that had been drifting across social media networks, messaging services, online radio and other media since early morning could confirm. Just as he would feel compelled to do a year and a half later as a consequence of the death of the former President of Peru Alan García, Julio felt the need to stop what he was doing, as a result of being overwhelmed by a mix of emotions. This time, however, he was also concerned about being able to purchase access to live streaming on cable TV in time to watch the match. What began with a message in relation to football suddenly also included food. Later that day, the Peruvians discussed over the phone the different ingredients that each one of them had in their respective kitchens, to determine what Peruvian dish was doable for dinner. They agreed that lomo saltado (Chinese-Peruvian stir fried strips of beef steak, red onions, tomatoes and French fries, typically served with rice) would be cooked and enjoyed collectively in the company of Julio’s wife and daughter, long before the start of the match at 01.30 South African Standard Time (UTC+02:00). Finally, once the match started, Julio sang the anthem, and when Guerrero scored a goal, he screamed in unison with thousands, or millions, of Peruvians, and shared with them a collective feeling of joy for his team being one step closer to qualifying for the World Cup. Although that evening the lomo was made of ingredients found locally, a little more than a year later, the lomo, the ají de gallina (Peruvian spicy creamy chicken) –

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Julio’s favourite dish – and even the arroz chaufa (Chinese-Peruvian fried rice) – the Peruvian dish which both Julio’s and Luis’s families most often cook at home – were all being made with ají amarillo (yellow chilli pepper). The ají had left Trujillo, Peru, together with canchita serrana (corn nuts), tamales (corn-based dough filled with chicken or pork, eggs, olives and chilli pepper, and wrapped in banana leaves), and chifles (plantain chips), in the suitcase of one of Luis’s relatives in December 2018. After stopovers in the capitals of Peru, Costa Rica and Romania for a few days each, the ají reached Julio’s cupboard in Bloemfontein in January 2019. This was probably the first individual attempt, and so far the only one we know about, to activate a Peruvian transnational activity from Bloemfontein.17 However, the day of the PeruColombia match was certainly not the first or only time when Julio used various communication technologies to connect with his national community. Neither was this the first or only time when he engaged in the reproduction of ideological habits learned in Peruvian dining and living rooms back in his natal Chiclayo. Imilan (2015) indicates that discourses, strategies and campaigns around Peruvian gastronomy, originally in the hands of the state and the elites, were important in reaching out to Peru’s dispersed migrant population through various means of mass communication (such as documentaries and social media networks), allowing it to assume this project as its own and in its own way. He describes how this is reflected in a gastronomic festival organised by Peruvian migrants in Chile’s capital Santiago: The migrant population adopts sophisticated aesthetics to present their stands and dishes. They serve, wear uniforms and explain the dishes as if they were professionals from high-end restaurants. These aesthetics and manners comply with a high global culinary standard, such as the one constructed by the official Peruvian discourse...Nevertheless, they make themselves part of this imaginary of the Peruvian gastronomic world. What the participants do is appropriate the globalized semantics of Peruvian cuisine. In these terms, the makers of these celebrations articulate a sort of popular globalization. (Imilan 2015: 238) When Julio first arrived in Spain, he did not know how to cook at all. In fact, he first learned how to cook Spanish dishes before attempting to cook Peruvian ones. Currently, not only does Julio know how to cook several Peruvian dishes, but he also finds in this practice a peculiar relation to his national identity. In Alba’s observation: I think that cooking or eating that food [Peruvian dishes] is something very Peruvian. It is something that takes effort to make, even if you [anybody] can make it. It is something that only Peruvians know how to make, even if you can teach it to other people. I think it is something patriotic. A very important part of Peruvian identity is its cuisine. In fact, Julio’s peculiar relation to Peruvianness through gastronomy is not merely limited to cooking. Much like Imilan’s (2015) observations of amateur Peruvian cooks at food festivals in Santiago demonstrate, Julio is careful about the ingredients,

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the preparation, the aesthetics, the stories behind the dishes, and the reproduction of the context of a Peruvian kitchen. In the presence of guests, he invites them into the kitchen; asks them to help him cook and serve; and explains the preparation, the ingredients, the Spanish and South African influences, the personal contribution and touch that he gives to his dishes, the limitations, and the ideal side dishes to accompany them. In his words, ‘You don’t find all the ingredients of Peruvian cuisine [in Bloemfontein], but you manage’. The word he used for ‘manage’ was ingenias, a word derived from ingenio, Spanish for ingenuity or inventiveness, that speaks to the way in which Julio articulates meaning, revalues Peruvian identity and contributes to the construction of nationhood ‘from below’. In one of the last interviews for the purposes of this chapter, Alba asked Julio what, in his view, united Peruvians besides the way they relate to their gastronomy, to which he decidedly answered ‘football’.

Conclusion The experience of migration involves a sudden shift of social relations that places the identity of the migrant amid the tension between the structure of the receiving society and their own agency within it. In this chapter we have paid attention to how a specific individual’s understanding of national identity can change, function and influence the way he orientates himself towards his nation, when the individual is confronted by diverse foreign contexts at different times of his life. As we have seen in Julio’s story, an immigrant’s understanding of national identity can vary through time, even when belonging to a particular national identity may not be meaningful to them. While a context familiar to Peru and Peruvians, like Spain, offers the resources for an immigrant like Julio to remain in close contact with their nation and their co-nationals, the implications of Peruvian migration being largely associated with low-paid unskilled employment such as marginalisation, made Peruvianness (from Julio’s perspective) become bound to class distinction. Even if Peruvianness was not particularly meaningful to him, he did not respond with indifference but mobilised resources, including privilege, to exclude himself from this established identity. However, in a context unfamiliar with Peruvian migration, like South Africa, where Peruvian actors, symbols, practices or occurrences are largely absent, as are widespread stereotypes or prejudices about Peruvian migrants, Peruvianness (again from Julio’s perspective) becomes sewn into a scale of authenticity. Being associated with circles of privileged foreign professionals and identifying himself primarily as cosmopolitan, or a less authentic Peruvian, led Julio to approach his national identity with indifference. However, as we have also observed in Julio’s story, even in contexts where the appropriate reinforcement for a migrant to ‘think’, ‘speak’ or ‘do’ anything in relation to their nation is considerably less present, once incentives are presented, even if briefly, they are still able to enter a space of simultaneity, synchrony or unisonality with their national community by making use of modern means of communication and as a result of ideological habitus. As the story shows, even in a place like Bloemfontein, a Peruvian immigrant like Julio can experience a flow of

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emotions when hearing about an event that affects his nation, when his national football team scores a goal in a relevant match, when receiving a few bags of ají from a friend, or when asked about the importance of maintaining one’s Peruvianness in an interview. Even in a place like this, he can cook, support his team, and live like other Peruvians do in other parts of the world. The focus on a single immigrant allows us to see beyond national categories and pay attention to the individual behind them. We are able to observe that national identity is not approached in the same way by all members of a particular national community, but that this community’s universalisation and reduction into a single social category is largely context dependent. We hope that through our analysis we encourage other works not to disregard the stories of immigrants living, possibly on their own or among only a few other co-nationals, in destinations around the world that are unpopular for their national communities, but to engage with them critically and empathically, as they can teach us not only about national identity or our place of origin, but also about ourselves. Likewise, we hope that our contribution helps to challenge the social categorisation and reductionism affecting Peruvian or other immigrants, especially in societies where they constitute a more numerous and visible group, and particularly in times when Peru itself is starting, once again, to become a receiving society. Endnotes

1 ‘Confirmado falleció Alan García’, in Spanish, read a message sent to a group of former schoolmates on the cross-platform messaging mobile application WhatsApp to which the first author of this chapter belongs. The message was sent by one of his former schoolmates before the public announcement of the actual death. Not long after that, some of his former schoolmates left the group following a heated debate around the passing of the political figure. 2

As we will explain below, Spain is a popular destination for Peruvian migration.

3

We are grateful to Jonatan Kurzwelly, co-editor of this book, for suggesting the use of the term ‘tension’ to refer to the type of relation between agency and structure.

4

The other two types of thinking to which Rosenberg and Beattie refer are linear and systematic.

5

This case is specific to Julio and to the specific context that he navigated during his childhood and adolescence. Some other Peruvians living in Peru, however, may in fact be perceived and labelled by their co-nationals as more or less authentic than others, with the use of denominations and expressions such as agringado, alienado, autóctono, criollo, del Perú profundo, de pura cepa, lleva el pasaporte en la cara, etc. Some of these categories are meant to be derogatory and may carry racist connotations. For reflections on the use of mostly racial categories in Peru, see Bruce (2007), CVR (2003), De la Cadena (2012), Drinot (2014), Escobedo (2013, 2015, 2016), Espinosa et al. (2007), Golash-Boza (2011) and Portocarrero (2009, 2010), among others.

6

In most of Peru, and certainly in Chiclayo and the whole of the Pacific Coast, Spanish is culturally ‘unmarked’, in Brubaker et al.’s (2006: 211–212) sense of the word, meaning that Spanish is a reference language taken for granted in most regions of the country. As of 2007, when Julio left the country, officially more than three million Peruvians spoke Quechua, more than 400 000 Aymara, close to 68 000 Ashaninka and around 174 000 other native languages (Ministerio de Cultura del Perú 2014: 19). Spanish enjoys the status of dominant

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public language. Relatedly, those who speak Spanish as a first language also enjoy a more privileged position. Portocarrero’s view that Peru is still a ‘society where colonialism is very internalised as a model, or ideal, which shames and corners all that is indigenous’(Portocarrero 2015: 20, our translation), suggests that to a certain degree the system where Peruvians who speak different first languages co-exist continues to be ‘ranked’, in Horowitz’s (1985) understanding of the word. 7

For the case of Peruvian migration, Paerregaard (2008b: 229, see also 2014a) describes diasporic ties as ‘the networks that Peruvians form with their fellow countrymen in other countries and cities, which they use to achieve social mobility in their new countries of residence and to distinguish themselves as a national or ethnic group from other minorities in the receiving society’.

8

Waiting for Miracles (2003) [documentary film] Directed by UD Berg. New York University, New York City: Program in Culture and Media.

9

However, as a representative of the Embassy of Peru in South Africa mentioned during a telephone conversation in 2018, the Peruvian mining community of Kitwe, Zambia, is not only the most numerous of Africa but it has also been rather actively engaged in the promotion of Peru-related activities. In the 2016 series Peruanos en el Mundo, Roberto Pazos provides a more visual account of this community’s influential role in their receiving society (Peruanos en Zambia: La Verdadera África!, viewed 26 August 2019, https://www.pazostv.com/2016/11/ peruanos-en-zambia-la-verdadera-africa.html).

10 In the Peruvian educational system ‘America’ is used to refer to the continent otherwise referred to as ‘the Americas’, or the conjunction of ‘North’ and ‘South America’, in other systems. In this chapter we use the term ‘America’, grouping together ‘North’, ‘Central’, and ‘South America’, and ‘the Caribbean’, according to the understanding most commonly used in Peru. 11 For contributions discussing and exposing how xenophobic attitudes and behaviours have affected primarily African migrants, especially those of particular nationalities, social classes, ethnic groups, phenotypes and other identity markers, see Govinda et al. (2017), Landau and Pampalone (2018), Matsinhe (2011) and Nyamnjoh (2006, 2010), among others. 12 As some posters promoting hair salons or products in Bloemfontein often show, the word ‘Peruvian’, like ‘Brazilian’, is usually used to refer to a type of hair extension. 13 Voices: To Tell a Story (1983) Channel 4, [1983]. 14 Invictus (2009) [motion picture] Directed by Clint Eastwood. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. 15 De Ollas y Sueños (2009) [documentary] Directed by E Cabellos. Lima: Guarango. 16 We must however highlight that journalist Roberto Pazos does engage with the stories of Peruvians living in less popular destinations, including South Africa and other parts of Africa, mostly on the different websites and social media that he runs under the title Peruanos en el Mundo, or ‘Peruvians in the World’. 17 Paerregaard (2008b) discusses how these kinds of transnational activities are undertaken by Peruvians in other parts of the world.

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‘Do you miss kimchi?’: A collaborative artsbased narrative of education and migration Marguerite Müller, Frans Kruger and Ji-Hyeon Jeong

Part I This chapter is an exploration of education and migration. The purpose of our exploration is twofold: firstly, to consider how the concepts of becoming, event and affect allow us to think differently about subjectivity in relation to education and migration, and secondly, to experiment with an arts-based approach to explore education and migration. We employ an arts-based approach to create a collective biography about the experiences of a South Korean student migrant in Bloemfontein as well as our experiences as teacher migrants in South Korea. In our collective biography, we specifically foreground an affective and sensorial engagement with memory and the new possibilities this creates to conduct educational research. Figure 7.1 Ji-Hyeon, 2017

Source: The authors

Figure 7.2 Marguerite and Frans, 2006

Source: The authors

The methodological approach we take up falls within a narrative tradition of research inquiry that ‘revolves around an interest in life experiences as narrated by those who live them’ (Chase 2011: 421). Narrative inquiry in education is strongly influenced by an understanding that education, experience and life are inextricably intertwined (Clandinin & Connelly 2000: xxiii). Thus, to study education, one needs to study life, and how the lives of those involved in educational settings are filled with complexities, hopes, dreams, wishes and intentions (Clandinin & Connelly 2000: xxv). We employ an arts-based form of narrative inquiry in order to tell the life story of Ji-Hyeon Jeong,

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a South Korean migrant student in South Africa, as we explore how her experiences intersect with our own lives (that is, Frans Kruger and Marguerite Müller) since we used to be South African migrant teachers in South Korea. By using an arts-based approach, we pursue the creation of alternative forms of data generation that draws attention to the complexity of everyday life experiences, as well as new ways of considering such complexity and conducting research inquiry about it (Cahnmann-Taylor & Siegesmund 2017). Through a collaborative and participatory approach, we create a narrative to explore the conditions for new possibilities that an entanglement of self and others might create (Davies & Gannon 2013: 362). Our use of collective biography is influenced by creative nonfiction (Barone 2016) since we use memory and experience in a creative and aesthetic way to weave new narratives that do not necessarily attempt to represent our lives and experiences, yet remain based on actual lived experiences. Creative nonfiction can be understood as a form of ‘scholarship of openness rather than singularity to interpretations’ (Pillay et al. 2018: 115). Through collective biography, we explore the possibilities that research inquiry creates for interrogating the ‘becomings’ produced in relation to education and migration, rather than to interpret and assign fixed and representational meaning to lived experiences as based on our memory-work. Our work is, furthermore, influenced by post-qualitative research. Le Grange (2018: 6) describes post-qualitative research as a non-totalising approach to research inquiry. Lather (2013: 635) similarly avers that post-qualitative research is composed of ‘a thousand tiny methodologies’. Within this approach to research inquiry, the focus is placed on the decentring of what counts as research inquiry in order to critically interrogate how research can be conducted, and what becomes privileged as knowledge as the research process unfolds. Post-qualitative research thus opens room for experimentation within research inquiry by critiquing the representational logic on which conventional research traditions are founded. In other words, the presumption inherent in conventional qualitative research traditions ‘that there is a primary ordinary reality to be found and that language can represent such a reality’ (Le Grange 2018: 7). Our approach to research inquiry in this chapter should rather be thought of as ‘a correspondence, in the sense of not coming up with some exact match or simulacrum for what we find in the things and happenings going on around us, but of answering them with interventions, questions and responses of our own’ (Ingold 2015: vii, emphasis in original). As such, our collective biography should not be read as a (re)presentation of data that we have gathered, but rather as a performative and affective response to experiences of education and migration and the possibilities of ‘becomings’ that these produce(d). We craft a researchassemblage in which we as researchers and Ji-Hyeon as collaborator co-construct a visual/textual engagement with memories of migration, specifically focusing on our collective memories. For Mitchell et al. (2011: 1): [t]he fundamental purpose of memory-work is to facilitate a heightened consciousness of how social forces and practices, such as gender, race and class, affect human experiences and understandings of how individuals and groups can take action in response to these social forces and practices

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in ways that can make a qualitative difference to the present and the future. It is important, however, to point out that in taking up the concept of memory we do not employ it as a recollection of distant events past only, but also as a creative rupture. This is partly because our memories are reworked in the light of our present experiences and practices (Jones 2011). In this manner our memories, and by extension the pasts that our memories recall, are continuously reinterpreted and changed (Hacking 1998). Yet, we should not think that only present practices influence the past, but should recognise that the past similarly influences the present, since the ‘trajectories of the past-into-present...are always in place through the various interconnecting ecological, corporeal, material, cultural, economic and memorial flows’ (Jones 2011: 876). There thus exists a creative interplay (in which memory plays an important role) between the present reaching into the past and the past gnawing into the present (cf. Bergson 1929: 194). While our performative moment of the present is informed by the past, our memories of past are at the same time continually being reinterpreted in the present. It is based on this interplay of the present and the past that we agree with Jones (2011: 875) who states that ‘memory makes us who we are’. Ansell-Pearson (2010: 161) similarly argues that ‘whenever we think we are producing memories we are, in fact, engaged in “becomings”’. Here we understand becoming as ‘the very dynamism of change...tending towards no particular goal or end-state’ (Stagoll 2010a: 26). As an open-ended process of differentiation that emerges from the interplay between the past and the present, becoming is ‘the unfolding of difference in time’ (May 2003: 147). Massumi (1987: xiii) similarly argues that becoming should not be conceptualised as a closed equation (A + B = AB) but rather in terms of an open equation (... + y + z + a + ...). In the context of this chapter, we employ the concept of becoming to foreground the ever-present processes of becoming-other produced by the connections different material and discursive bodies (human and nonhuman, corporeal and incorporeal) enter into as the present reaches into the past and the past gnaws into the present. By foregrounding becoming, we posit subjectivity as something that is being continuously produced; as never a given, but always something under construction (Boundas 2010). Subjectivity then is understood as that which remains forever ‘in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo’ (Deleuze & Guattari 1987: 25). Our memory-work is created through the use of drawings, objects, photographs and oral narratives to assist our exploration of the micro-social educational experiences of migration in a South Korean/South African exchange and the ‘becomings’ that these produce. It is through such an exchange, for example, that different material and discursive bodies connect with one another and create the potential for subjectivity to be continuously produced. Given this, we interrogate subjectivity in our collective biography as expressed through memories of educational experiences and migration as an affective event. For Deleuze, an event is the ‘potential immanent within a particular confluence of forces’ (Stagoll 2010b: 90); that is, the potential immanent in the connections we, together with Ji-Hyeon, make as we create, narrate

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and curate our collective biography. Yet, an event should not be understood as a particular happening, itself, but rather as that which is made actual in a happening (Stagoll 2010b). In his discussion of Deleuze’s (1990/1969) use of the concept of event in The Logic of Sense, Foucault (1998: 349) similarly stresses that an event ‘is always an effect produced entirely by bodies colliding, mingling, or separating’. If this is the case, it follows that affect is central to event. This is because an event functions as ‘the milieu providing an ability to affect and be affected’ (Semetsky 2009: 443). In this sense, affect should not be read as a synonym for emotion (affection), but rather as that which signals the ‘potential for interaction’ (Massumi 2002: 35). Considering this, we take up event to signify the productive potential immanent to our collective biography (both in terms of process and product) as the various bodies that constitute our work affect and are affected by one another as they collide, mingle and separate, as well as the ‘becomings’ that are actualised in this process. This is done specifically in relation to experiences and memories of a South Korean/South African educational exchange, as we explore how such exchanges and learnings about the lives of others make us who we are (to become). It is through our use of memories of our sensory and embodied experiences (see Pink 2009) that we consider how life stories connect in the past and the present, and how such experiences in various educational roles and settings speak to issues of migration, education and subjectivity. In what follows, we present our collective biography. The narrative is created by drawing on multiple sources including: an interview between Marguerite and Ji-Hyeon; drawings made by Ji-Hyeon during the interview; objects and photographs contributed by Ji-Hyeon, Marguerite and Frans; and recounted memories of Marguerite and Frans. The performative narrative is written in the first person and narrated by Marguerite.

Part II It is a hot summer’s day in Bloemfontein; the sun is shining so brightly that everything seems covered in a white haze of heat against the brilliant blue background of the sky. We are making salad for lunch. ‘What is this?’ my friend asks as she reaches for the red tub in the back of the fridge. I watch her as she opens the tub and dips her finger into the red, sticky paste. She looks at the Hangeul (character alphabet used to write the Korean language) on the label as the taste settles on her lips. Her eyes widen. ‘Wow, this is good...and strong...’ I am not sure if the drop of sweat forming on her forehead is due to the heat of midday or the effect of the powerful chilli paste on her tongue. ‘Frans recently got it from the Chinese supermarket downtown,’ I explain. He was overjoyed to discover the familiar red tub of Korean gochujang on the shelf.

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Figure 7.3 Gochujang (고추장)

Source: The authors

When he came home with it, we immediately made a pot of sticky rice and ate the paste with seaweed strips, sesame seeds and soya sauce like we used to do when we lived in South Korea. The bright red, smooth, salty chilli paste exploded in our mouths and loosened our tongues and our memories. How we miss Korean food. It has been six years since we returned to South Africa. How we miss those tastes and smells. We sit talking late into the night with the tub of gochujang between us, reminding each other of all the tastes and smells, as we travel back through colourful and intense experiences of living and teaching in a foreign country. We went to South Korea in 2006, intending to stay for one year. We, however, ended up staying until 2011. During those five years, we worked at a theme park, high schools and a university. My first encounter with the smells and tastes of South Korea were, however, many years earlier in South Africa. As a university student, I was employed on a part-time basis as an English tutor to an eight-year-old South Korean girl. The girl, So-Hyeon, had come to South Africa with her mother and one younger sibling to study English. On my first day of work, I arrived at the address given to me. A small, dark-haired woman opened the door of the tiny apartment. She gestured for me to take off my shoes before entering. Inside, the room was sparsely furnished with a mattress on the floor, a table and two chairs, a clock against the wall and an English/Korean dictionary on the table. I noticed a strong and unfamiliar smell. It took me a while to locate the smell as coming from the fridge that stood in the corner of the room. I later learned that the smell was that of a Korean pickled cabbage dish called kimchi (김치). I could never have guessed that I would one day long for that smell and taste which, in that moment, seemed so strange and foreign to me.

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Figure 7.4 ‘A Foreign Space’, Marguerite Müller, 2014, pen drawing

Source: The authors

‘Do you miss kimchi?’ It is one of the first questions I ask Ji-Hyeon when we meet in my office. I first met Ji-Hyeon a few months earlier when she assisted me with the marking of student assignments for a module I teach. When I saw her name, I instantly recognised it as South Korean. Before our conversation I felt curious (and excited) to meet a South Korean person in Bloemfontein. Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked her a few questions about how she came to be a student at the University of the Free State (UFS). I was surprised to learn she had spent much of her life in Bloemfontein. She moved to South Africa, with her parents and younger brother, when she was eight years old. They moved from Deagu (South Korea) to Bloemfontein because her father enrolled at UFS to study towards a doctorate (PhD) in theology. She attended primary school and high school in Bloemfontein and eventually studied at UFS. I met her when she was already a post-graduate student enrolled for a postgraduate certificate in education. ‘What is your first memory of arriving in South Africa?’ As I ask Ji-Hyeon this question, I think back to my own arrival in South Korea. I was 24 at the time and had just completed my teaching degree. I cannot really remember why I had decided to go to South Korea to teach English in the first place. Maybe my tutoring experiences with So-Hyeon had made me curious. In reality, I think I just wanted an adventure to take me away from everything that seemed so familiar and predictable in South Africa. Nothing could really have prepared me for the five years that stretched ahead of me as I stepped off that airplane at Incheon International Airport on an icy winter’s morning. The unfamiliar cold seeped through my thin South African clothes with ease, and the landscape seemed harsh and uninviting. It would only be later, when spring came, that I would learn the true beauty of the this ‘new’ place; the land of the morning calm.

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Figure 7.5 Cherry blossoms, Gangneung, South Korea

Source: The authors

Ji-Hyeon thinks for a moment before answering my question: There were no cars. When I came to Bloemfontein, there were no cars. I think it was Christmas time and everyone was away. It was just empty streets. You know in Korea there are so many cars? So I thought, maybe it was just like that in Africa, like people had no cars. Because I knew nothing of Africa, just like the TV shows, like National Geographic and the huts and people with those weird ponchos. So that’s what I thought Africa would be like...The other thing I noticed was the many swimming pools. From the airplane this is the first thing I saw. So many pools. In Korea no one has a pool. Everyone goes to the public pool. The difference between public and private spaces was also something that we noticed when we returned from South Korea to settle in South Africa. In South Korea, we lived on the 18th floor of a tall apartment building. The urban landscape is characterised by rows and rows of buildings that, for the newcomer, look shockingly similar to one another. In moving to South Korea, we lived in an apartment building for the first time in our lives, as they are not as common in South Africa. Even the apartment buildings that you find in larger cities such as Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town very seldom are as high as the average South Korean counterpart. Living in an apartment meant that one very often met one’s neighbour in the elevator, or in the basement parking lot. This is not something we were used to growing up in white middle-class suburbia in South Africa, where there are ‘so many swimming pools’. What is considered middle class in South Africa might be different from what is considered middle class in South Korea, not so much in terms of the income bracket, but more in terms of living and social spatial arrangements. In South Africa, we are still living in the aftermath of the apartheid government’s spatial planning, which created definite special boundaries between people based on their racial classification as defined by the apartheid regime or the specific social class they belonged to (see Davies 1981). A middle-class South African life might, therefore, be one that is characterised by living in a suburb where socialising take place in ‘private’

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rather than in shared or public spaces. This arrangement has become even more pronounced in recent years; with a perception of rising crime levels the middle class is retreating to gated communities or walled in spaces with restricted access. However, in South Korea, we observed that there were much fewer boundaries between people from different economic classes. The spatial planning meant that people from different income groups often lived together in the same neighbourhoods or even the same buildings. Moving to South Korea we were still considered middle class due to our level of education, qualifications and income group, however our experiences in this context were very different from South Africa. We soon learned that socialising happened in different spaces than we were used to. In South Africa, friends and family would usually visit each other’s homes for social events. In white middle-class households, such as what we experienced growing up, socialising often happens in ‘private spaces’ around the braai (barbeque) or the swimming pools Ji-Hyeon mentioned. However, in South Korea we came to notice that social spaces are more public. The children of the neighbourhood would gather in the playgrounds located around the building complexes. The older people would also have raised platforms, often mimicking pagodas, where they would sit to play games such as baduk (바둑) (Hangeul for the game of go) or just to chat. We were very surprised when we saw young people aged around 12 or 13 years making use of public transport after finishing their classes at hogwan (학원) late in the evening. These youngsters, moving around on their own at that time of night, were an unfamiliar sight to our middle-class South African eyes. When we were visiting South Africa while we worked in South Korea, and after we finally returned to South Africa, this was perhaps one of the hardest things to get used to again – the segregated, gated and ‘privatised’ living and travelling arrangements that most white middle-class South Africans take for granted, suddenly seemed so limiting and suffocating. At first, we tried to resist these boundaries that now seemed so ridiculous. Ji-Hyeon similarly mentions how this was hard for her to get used to: In Korea there were a lot of playgrounds where you could play with your friends after school. We did rollerblades. Rollerblades. Some people would fall down so hard that you could see their bones. But playing with friends in South Africa is different. In South Africa, you cannot really play with other children unless they invite you. That was a bit hard for me, because I was so used to always be part of a group. Suddenly I lost my confidence, my English, my friends; it is also when you want to visit a friend you need to ask your parents’ permission. You have to drive. You can’t just go there by yourself.

‘So, you attended school here in Bloemfontein?’ Yes. It was a multiracial school. Although before coming here, I did not really know what race was...and English was...I think in Korea I only learned ‘Hello, how are you?’ It was a big stress for me...because in [South]

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Korea we would only learn English from the fourth grade up back then. So, it was a big stress. But obviously I was a kid, so it was still carefree stress. In [South] Korea the teachers are so strict – they will beat you or give physical punishments. I think it is illegal now. But back then they had rods and they would choose one. School was such a scary place. It was such a shock. Even if you did nothing wrong, you might get punished because you are part of a team. It was not like I was abused; I get why the teachers did it. But South African schools were very different – not so strict. Ji-Hyeon speaks of her experiences of growing up as a child in South Africa. While we were in South Korea, we became parents, and this influenced our decisions and experiences to a large extent. For example, I remember taking my seven-month-old baby down to the communal playground. Once at the playground he started to crawl towards a group of Korean children who were also playing. However, when these children saw our little blonde baby, they were so surprised that they screamed and ran away. This experience made us realise that our child would, in most likelihood, be considered an outsider because of looking different and it contributed to the decision to return to South Africa that we took a few months later. We were worried our child would ‘stand out’ too much and always be considered a foreigner in a more or less homogenous Korean society, in which a notion of longstanding ethnic and cultural unity (Ha & Jang 2015; cf. Campbell 2015; Cawley 2016) accentuates the importance of ethnic nationalism (Shin 2006). I look at Ji-Hyeon who must also have had similar experiences of being ‘othered’ in South Africa – even though South Africa is racially, ethnically and culturally more heterogeneous and supposedly more tolerant of differences. However, Ji-Hyeon’s economic and social class status may have insulated her from experiencing the more extreme xenophobia. Since 1994, there has been a worrying occurrence of xenophobic attacks in South Africa (Reitzes 2009), with peaks in 2008 and 2015. In the majority of these cases, the attacks have been directed at African migrants and have, as such, been labelled as Afrophobic by some (Steenkamp 2009), whereas others (for example, Dube 2018; Landau 2008) have called for a more nuanced and detailed analysis. Landau et al. (2005), for example, point out that the experiences of xenophobia by non-citizen Africans in South Africa are diverse. Similarly, it has been noted that very often the economically precarious and undocumented African migrants are the victims of xenophobic attacks (Muanamoha et al. 2010). So, what else do you remember about attending primary school in South Africa?’ Ji-Hyeon considers my question before responding: In my class there was another Korean girl. This made it slower for me to learn English. I relied on her. I think they were generous, the school, because they allowed me to carry my electronic dictionary. So, I would write a test and they would allow me to use it. The other Korean girl – she was there a few years before me. She was well in place. I realised

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our culture was different. She used to watch songs, like sing-along songs – Disney. I never really watched Disney before; I thought it was a bit childish. They were still playing with Barbie also. So, in Korea you would stop playing dolls at ten. Here they were playing with it until grade six or eight. I think even this generation would think we are childish. I enjoyed it because it was not something we used to do in Korea, you know? New culture. Your teacher speaking in a different language, and you don’t understand anything, so you just sit in school for the whole day not knowing what was going on. Figure 7.6 Marguerite and co-teachers, Wonju, South Korea, 2002

Source: The authors

I think back to my experiences of working in a Korean high school. I was the only foreigner in the school – the only oegug-in (외국인). It was an interesting, exciting, yet, at times, disconcerting experience to spend the whole day in an environment that you could not really understand or navigate – neither linguistically nor culturally. I remember I often felt completely out of my depth. I did not follow the conversations, could not always follow the social cues, and sometimes I had to eat things that I really had no idea what they were. Once I decided to bring a cake to school to say thank you to my Korean co-teacher. She had helped me tremendously during my time at the school and I wanted to give her something for Christmas. I thought a cake would be a very innocent gift. However, when I walked into the communal staffroom to give her the cake, she immediately took me and the cake to the table where the vice-principal was seated and presented the cake to him. I

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was completely flabbergasted about her actions since I had never spoken a word to the vice-principal. Even more surprisingly to me was that the cake was cut there and then, and we each ate a slice, the vice-principal, my co-teacher and myself. It was only later that I realised that I had transgressed cultural and social norms and expectations by offering her a present and not her superior. There was a hierarchy of gift giving that I was completely unaware of until that day. Cultural confusion was not the only hard thing to navigate. Often it was simply the language barrier that made it hard to do very ordinary things. I remember how difficult it was to use the public transport system when we first arrived. In the rural areas of South Korea, such as where we worked during our first year, the destinations and routes of public transport such as buses and trains were often only written in Hangul (한글). To help us to navigate this, our Korean friends would print a picture of the bus we had to take, with the Hangul writing on it. We would wait at the bus stop, trying to decipher the Hangul characters of every bus that passed, hoping and praying that we would get on the right bus. After a year or so, reading Hangul became easy and we no longer experienced this kind of frustration. It was amazing how the world started to open once we began making sense of the Korean language. Suddenly the buildings we used to pass were transformed, held meaning, made sense and became accessible to us – the hospital, the dentist, the bank, the hotel, the pharmacy. We found reading Hangul much easier than speaking Korean. We once wanted to go to a specific hospital in Seoul and asked the taxi driver to take us there. After driving for about 30 minutes we realised we were heading in completely the opposite direction to where we wanted to go. We could not understand what was going on and kept repeating the name of the place we wanted to go to, yet the taxi driver just kept driving in the opposite direction. Eventually we had to ask him to stop so that we could get out. He did not seem pleased with our request but abided by it. We searched around and eventually found a subway station. This helped us to figure out where we were. After telling the story to our Korean friends, they burst out laughing. Apparently, our pronunciation of the place we wanted to go to, Sincheon (신천), was incorrect; we were actually saying the name of a completely different place, Sinchon (신촌), on the other side of the city! Our friends kept repeating the names to us, but we simply could not hear the difference between them, much less pronounce the names correctly. Eventually, we did learn a quite a few Korean words; enough, for example, to order pizza over the phone (albeit to the great amusement of the person on the other side) or to do online shopping on G-Market, the largest and most popular online shopping website in South Korea. To be honest, we were never sure that we would get exactly what we had intended to order – the sizes and colours would often be completely wrong. We felt like children learning to live in a completely new world, one that was simultaneously frustrating and exciting. In reflecting on the memories invoked by the photograph with myself and my teacher colleagues, I remember feeling as if I belonged to the group, even though

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I obviously remained an outsider. The ways in which we experienced our belonging (and not), while working as teachers in South Korea point to an important aspect of entering a community as a foreigner. Even though obvious differences such as language, appearance or social norms may be used as markers to differentiate and classify each other, another space, one characterised by an out-ofjointness is also brought into reality. Within this space, differences cannot be located on a register characterised by binaries or dichotomies. Rather, we argue, the (ontic) space one dwells in is one of uncertainty, of affective flows and different materialities, and ultimately one composed of flashes of puissance (power) that make becoming possible. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) take up Spinoza’s reference to power as puissance, using it to describe a disruptive yet affirmative force that allows one to act with others and that ultimately allows becoming to occur. It is thus in such a space that the ‘active process of forming new identities’ occur (Venn 2009: 4). In this manner, identity becomes transformed into something disorderly and disjunctive. I remember that among the staff of the school where I worked, many group activities were often organised to take place on public holidays. I found this strange, but it certainly did help me adapt to my ‘different’ life. I recall one specific visit. On this day, we travelled to a beautiful mountain, Chiaksan (치악산) to have a picnic next to a mountain stream. I was fascinated when some of my colleagues made a fire, heated up some of the rocks next to the stream, and used these like a hot stone to cook strips of meat. This was a version of braai that I had never experienced. We ate the meat with salad leaves, raw chillies, vegetables and other pickled dishes such as kimchi. This is an experience I will never forget – eating Korean barbeque from the rocks and watching my co-teachers’ children play in the stream. Perhaps the memory is so acute because I experienced a mixture of feeling like an outsider and an insider at the same time. In this group I was so obviously different, the foreigner, yet paradoxically I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging.

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Figure 7.7 Barbeque on the rocks, Wonju, South Korea

Source: The authors

In writing this now, it seems as if learning some of the Korean language, culture and customs was in the distant past. In my Bloemfontein office, Ji-Hyeon is showing me the objects she has brought to help tell her story: a Bible, a copy of The Little Prince and a family photograph. Figure 7.8 A family photo, The Little Prince (Afrikaans version) and the Bible

Source: The authors

She explains that the Bible plays a central part in her life story. She was born in a Catholic hospital. Later, her father came to South Africa to study towards his PhD in theology at UFS.

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Figure 7.9 Part of Ji-Hyeon’s drawing of her life story

Source: The authors

Ji-Hyeon explains the centrality of the cross in her drawing of her life story: He [her father] was not always a Christian, so I think it is a big thing and that is why I also emphasised that. I think growing up it was like your dad is a pastor, so you must not be too naughty in church. You have to be a role model for others. So strict. ‘So, your father studied at UFS. And your mother?’ In Korea she used to teach in a hagwon1 but when she came here she had to be housewife. I think it was a bit depressing for her. She only had a few close friends and she always wanted to go back. And then eventually my dad finished [his studies] and they did. ‘So, you stayed behind?’ My parents left when I was in grade eleven. They went back to Korea. I had to move into the school hostel. It was also a big difference. You are used to your Korean home where you can speak Korean, but now you are just completely English the whole day. And I had to learn to use a knife and fork. I remember my own struggles using flat metal chopsticks when I first arrived in South Korea. It took some time to master. When friends or family came to visit, I always carried an extra fork or two inside my bag in case the restaurant we ate at had only chopsticks and spoons. ‘It must have been hard when your parents left?’ In the beginning I cried, sitting alone in my room...but that was just one day. As a person, I adapt well to changes but I was influenced by this. My marks went down drastically.

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‘And your brother?’ Ja, I still see him. I see him Sundays at church, or sometimes we just watch a movie. Normal brother and sister. He is my only family here. ‘So, your marks went down when your parents left?’ I was reading The Hunger Games and my marks went down because now my parents were gone and I had freedom like I never had before and I could not stop myself. My English mark went up. Just by reading. I always enjoyed reading. I always went to the library. I think I was such a nerd, but I was still social. We would just sit in circle and read. This is why I brought The Little Prince, because it was one of the first books I remember reading in English. I later got this copy in Afrikaans. Actually, it is a hard book to read, even though the story is easy. ‘So, reading really helped you learn English?’ When I was younger, Spongebob was a big part of my learning English. Spongebob and English church. Going to church, listening to sermons. School, friends, cartoons and church. My parents got me tutors to teach me English as well. Oh yes, and interacting with the locals. Figure 7.10 Another part of Ji-Hyeon’s drawing of her life story

Source: The authors

‘What was your experience, coming to UFS?’ First year initiation and the RAG farm. Ritsims, chicken run and inters,2 and you would have to go change your ugly self, three times a day. I feel like I lost so much weight that week. I did not know that the varsity does not feed you, unlike the cafeteria in the school hostel. I did not have a fridge or microwave or anything. I was just eating from the Bridge.3 What I remember was just the RAG farm and not the lecturers. I forgot

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to mention when I first came [to UFS] my language barrier was not only English but Afrikaans also. Our residence had so many traditions. And we had to do TD4 and I was in an Afrikaans residence. When we had to make announcements, we had to do it in English and Afrikaans: Attention ladies...aandag dames...and if you say it wrong the seniors would come shout at you...and every time you enter the residence you had to say hello to oom Dolfie [a bronze bust of a previous administrator at the university]. Like My mooiste dag is lewe...[my most beautiful day is life...] something like that, I cannot really remember. We were not allowed to use the front stairs...tradition. Also, we had need to know all the names of the senior students in the residence. These days initiation is no longer allowed, and now they only have to use English. ‘So, you are still living in the same residence?’ Yes, but I think all those stuff is gone. They [the first years] graduated in June. So none of this anymore. I am a senior. I just say – just call me Ji. Because in those days you had to use titles 'tannie' [aunty] if you are second year and ‘duchess’ if you are third year...and then ‘queen’...‘royal goddess’…RCs [representative council] ‘mademoiselle’ [young lady]. I think it was so childish of them...kind of cute...but as a first year I hated all this. ‘You mentioned that between your first and second year at UFS you took a gap year and went to South Korea?’ So I stayed in a rural area, like outside of the big city, but not too far... where there is a lot of nature, but it was not uncivilised, like a lot of grannies or grandpas...not poverty stricken...not uncivilised...but less civilised...we weren’t in the city. There were not like a lot of jobs for me...so I struggled a bit to find a job. Also, I did not have a degree yet... so I tutored English a bit...and helped my aunt in the...sandwich shop and serve[d] coffees. But I think it was a time to bond with my family, because before that I had not seen them for three years. It was also them getting used to me. Before this visit I only went back once in grade six. So mainly my influence was in South Africa...So whenever I go back there I feel like there is a change...like everything is different...I do not know how to explain it...I am a South African, not a Korean anymore... ’cause just everything is different...I do not know how to explain it, but you do not feel you belong anywhere...like even in South Africa...I am still a foreigner...but when I go to Korea...I don’t feel like a Korean, so I feel like I am floating...I don’t have an anchor. When we reflect on our experiences of living and working in South Korea, we often discuss that getting used to and adapting to a new culture or language, or working in a different education system was not the hardest thing. The hardest thing was returning to South Africa. After five years in South Korea returning to South Africa was like coming home to a foreign country. Not because much had necessarily changed here, but

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because we had changed. Everything that used to seem obvious and common sense before going to South Korea no longer seemed this way. Readjusting to the rhythm of living in South Africa has not always been easy. We have made peace with the fact that some aspects of who we have become will never again ‘fit in’ in South African society. So, in a way, we can relate to Ji-Hyeon’s feeling of not having an anchor, of floating. The purpose of our exploration in this chapter was to consider how the concepts of event, affect, and becoming allow us to think otherwise about subjectivity in relation to education and migration, as well as to experiment with an arts-based approach. Based on our collective biography it is evident that the migration we speak of is certainly one that is tinged with privilege – of having a choice to work or study elsewhere. However, in the case of Ji-Hyeon, it was her parents’ choice and not hers to come to South Africa (in her words: ‘I did not have a choice, I was just a kid’). Yet, her life in South Africa seems to be one of access to good educational facilities and middle-class experiences (both in South African and South Korean terms). However, within the narratives a sense of loss emerges: not financial loss but rather a loss of certainty, home and what Ji-Hyeon refers to as an anchor – that affective something that ties you down to a place, a community or a culture. Migration means to move, and to move means to change. This is a constant theme in our narrative. Our theoretical and methodological approach places emphasis on becoming and non-representation. This is echoed in our experiences and memories of migration. These memories unsettle us and cast us into constant motion – we do not have an anchor – and show us how impossible it is to capture the moments as we remember them. They float in and out of our narrative and become part of us. They become a ‘home’, not in the fixed sense of the word, but rather in a constantly negotiated, changing and dynamic state. This loss of anchor and home is, perhaps, one of the unintended consequences of migrating. Even if you return home, it seems like a different, foreign place. Yet, a familiar taste, sound, smell or feeling can return you, even if it is just for an instant, to a place you once thought to be foreign. One’s memories become a new ‘home’, not in the sense of a nostalgic longing, but rather in the way that we are changed and change; we become different because of them. ‘Do you miss kimchi?’ I ask Ji-Hyeon. Endnotes *

All photos used in this chapter were taken by the authors.

1

A private educational institution that offers extracurricular activities after school hours.

2

‘RAG, Raise and Give’, refers to a university charity drive that used to be run on the UFS campus. It included fundraising activities like selling a university magazine (Ritsim) and collecting money (chicken run) for charity. During this time, it was also common for first year students to participate in social events (called ‘inters’) organised between residences.

3

Thakaneng Bridge on the Bloemfontein campus of UFS.

4

TD refers to front door reception duty often performed by first year students in the residences on the UFS campus.

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References Ansell-Pearson K (2010) Deleuze and the overcoming of memory. In S Radstone & B Schwarz (Eds) Memories: Histories, theories, debates. New York: Fordham University Press Barone T (2016) Creative nonfiction and social research. In T Barone (Ed.) Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, issues. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Bergson H (1929) Matter and memory. London: George Allen & Unwin Boundas CV (2010) Subjectivity. In A Parr (Ed.) The Deleuze dictionary (revised edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Cahnmann-Taylor M & Siegesmund R (Eds) (2017) Arts-based research in education: Foundations for practice. New York: Routledge Campbell E (2015) The end of ethnic nationalism? Changing conceptions of national identity and belonging among young South Koreans. Nations and Nationalism 21(3): 483–502 Cawley KN (2016) Back to the future: Recalibrating the myth of Korea’s homogenous ethnicity. Asian Ethnicity 17(1): 150–160 Chase SE (2011) Narrative inquiry: Still a field in the making. In NK Denzin & YS Lincoln (Eds) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. Los Angeles: SAGE Clandinin DJ & Connelly FM (2000) Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers Davies B & Gannon S (2013) Collective biography and the entangled enlivening of being. International Review of Qualitative Research 5(4): 357–376 Davies RJ (1981) The spatial formation of a South African city. GeoJournal (supplementary issue) 2: 59–72 Deleuze G (1990/1969) The logic of sense. (Trans. M Lester & C Stivale). New York: Columbia University Press Deleuze & Guattari F (1987) A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Dube G (2018) Afrophobia in Mzansi? Evidence from the 2013 South African Social Attitudes Survey. Journal of Southern African Studies. Accessed January 2019, https://www.tandfonline. com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2018.1533300 Foucault M (1998) Theatrum Philosophicum. In JD Faubion (Ed.) Michel Foucault: Aesthetics, method, and epistemology (The essential works, Vol 2, 1954–1984). London: Penguin Press Ha SE & Jang SJ (2015) Immigration, threat perception, and national identity: Evidence from South Korea. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 44: 53–62 Hacking I (1998) Re-writing the soul, multiple personality and the sciences of memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press Ingold T (2015) In P Vannini (Ed.) Non-representational methodologies: Re-visioning research London: Routledge Jones O (2011) Geography, memory and non-representational geographies. Geography Compass 5(12): 875–885

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Landau LB, Ramjathan-Keogh K & Singh G (2005) Xenophobia in South Africa and problems related to it. Forced Migrations Working Paper Series No. 13. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Landau LB (2008) Attacks on foreigners in South Africa: More than just xenophobia? Paper presented at the Security 2008 Conference, University of Pretoria (26 August). Accessed February 2019, https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=4f760e3f1b2e-418e-89dc-104cef398534%40sessionmgr4009 Lather P (2013) Metodology-21: What do we do in the afterward? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26(6): 634–645 Le Grange L (2018) What is (post)qualitative research? South African Journal of Higher Education 32(5): 1–14 Massumi B (1987) Translator’s foreword: Pleasures of philosophy. In G Deleuze & F Guattari A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Massumi B (2002) Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham: Duke University Press May T (2003) When is a Deleuzian becoming? Continental Philosophy Review 36: 139–153 Mitchell C, Strong-Wilson T, Pithouse, K & Allnutt S (2011), Memory and pedagogy. New York: Routledge Muanamoha R, Maharaj B & Preston-Whyte E (2010) Social networks and undocumented Mozambican migration to South Africa. Geoforum 41(6): 885–896 Pillay D, Cullinan M & Moodley L (2018) Creative nonfiction narratives and memory-work: Pathways for women teacher-researchers’ scholarship of ambiguity and openings. In K Pithouse-Morgan, D Pillay & C Mitchell (Eds) Memory mosaics: Researching teacher professional learning through artful memory-work. Cham: Springer Pink S (2009) Doing sensory ethnography. Los Angeles: Sage Reitzes M (2009) Xenophobic triggers situated in the history and legal provisions of domestic and international migration policies in South Africa. Synopsis (10)3: 9–14 Semetsky I (2009) Deleuze as a philsopher of education: Affective knowledge/effective learning. The European Legacy 14(4): 443–456 Shin GW (2006) Ethnic nationalism in Korea: Geneology, politics, and legacy. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press Stagoll C (2010a) Becoming. In A Parr (Ed.) The Deleuze dictionary (revised edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Stagoll C (2010b) Event. In A Parr (Ed.) The Deleuze dictionary (revised edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Steenkamp C (2009) Xenophobia in South Africa: What does it say about trust? The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 98(403): 439–447 Venn C (2009) Identity, diasporas and subjective change: The role of affect, the relation to the other, and the aesthetic. Subjectivities 26: 3–2

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Written writing: An account of the emergence of an(other) academic author Pablo Del Monte

No sé cuál de los dos escribe esta página. ‘I do not know which one of us has written this page.’ (Borges 1998/1960: 19) This chapter is an auto-ethnographic account of my arrival in Bloemfontein upon being awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of the Free State (UFS).1 The chapter is driven by two discussions: firstly, I use my life story as a method to address the conditions that are enabling me to become an academic author; secondly, I explore possibilities of using auto-ethnographic accounts as ‘technologies of the self ’ (Foucault 1988) that assist me to critique the set of power relations that I am subject to as an emerging academic and I attempt to intervene in my own becoming through writing. The chapter deploys principles of critical auto-ethnography (Gannon 2018) to explore the set of relationships that makes up the author of the text. It uses a personal diary and the writing of this very paper as devices for critique (Ball 2007). Furthermore, this text has been shared with friends, colleagues and relatives as a form of ‘care of the self ’ (Ball 2017).2 In other words, writing, sharing the text with others and getting feedback, and further writing, are tools to expand my perception of my own positionality and my attempts to transform it. The research, then – as a methodology for the study of power relations – uses auto-ethnography, which is not solely individual but collective, and where knowledge can be used to attempt displacements of the subject of knowledge. Higher education scholars claim that the academic profession is in crisis globally, with a deterioration of salaries, reduction of tenure positions and an increasing privatisation of the sector. At the same time, it is argued that the production of young academics is of special relevance for the development of the sector, due to its current expansion and the expectation that a large proportion of academics will retire in the upcoming years (Altbach 2012; Yudkevich et al. 2015). This paper draws on my trajectory as an early career academic and my conversations with peers, sketching the relationships within the global field of higher education. I am subject to those relationships, and they mobilise my navigations and detours. Mobility is a key feature of the story, and one that structures it. There is an extensive literature on academic mobility (Ackers & Gill 2008; Byram & Dervin 2009; Jons et al. 2017; Kahn & Misiaszek 2019), but auto-ethnographic accounts of international transitions in doctoral and postdoctoral studies are unusual (Henderson 2019; Reyes et al. 2018).

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This account looks at transitions across the Global North and the Global South, in and out of academia, looking at early career academic mobility as an in-between condition. Having said this, it will be evident to the reader that the flows that enable such mobility are constitutive of advantaged positions in the sector (Yudkevich et al. 2015). So, in spite of the nuances that the account intends to elicit, it should be noted from the outset that this chapter, among other things, is also a story of social advantage due to the accumulation and deployment of different forms of capital, especially cultural capital (Bourdieu 2006/1986). However, the object of this reflection is not my story, but the emergence of the author of this chapter. Based on the premise that the author of a text is not only the result of an individual writer, but of a complex set of social processes (Foucault 1984; Wilson 2004), the text explores the conditions that have allowed Del Monte, the academic author, to emerge. Although I will write in the first person, seeming to be the sole source of creation of this text, I hope that it will be evident to the reader that the ‘I’ that writes is composed of various voices and constituted by various subjections. I nevertheless use the first person to write because writing is also, in my methodology, a tool to rethink myself and my positionality, and to offer a response. So, while I am not the unique creative source of this text, I ‘become’ in writing it. As mentioned, a starting point of this story is migration, and more specifically, academic mobility. This has enabled a narrative space that looks closely at the material conditions that constitute the emergence of the author. The focus on mobility and employment conditions may suggest a complete separation of these from the intellectual trajectory and project of the author. Instead, I propose that the narrative of my intellectual – or research – project has been tightly intertwined with mobility and employment. My research interests have mobilised me to Buenos Aires – while doing research on narratives of youths living in slums – and the different positions in which I was hired have introduced me to fields of research that were outside of what I would have considered to be my research interests at the time. The research agenda mobilises resources and people, and mobilities expand and redefine the research narrative of the writer. Thus, through the contingencies and fragility of employment conditions, the writer ‘becomes’, is broken and reshaped, as a research bricolage. Having said that the working conditions and career of the writer form the object of this reflection, deeply intertwined with the emergence of the author, the main story of this chapter is that of becoming published in peer-reviewed, internationally recognised, academic journals or books. This is the account of the emergence of another academic author: firstly, because becoming a published academic was what I considered to have been the main factor for my family’s migration to Bloemfontein; secondly, because publishing tells about the particular positions through which I transit the field of academia, currently working within a postdoctoral fellowship that prioritises knowledge production rather than teaching or other academic work; and thirdly, because authorship has been a theme of study and a problem in my short trajectory as an early career academic. This text is the result of a process of reflection that is meant to

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explore some of these discomforts. It is an attempt to practise an ‘ethics of discomfort’; ‘never to consent to being completely comfortable with one’s own presuppositions. Never to let them fall peacefully asleep’ (Foucault 1994 quoted in Ball 2017: 52).

On writing this chapter The self does not simply begin to examine itself through the forms of rationality at hand. Those forms of rationality are delivered through discourse, in the form of an address, and they arrive as an incitement, a form of seduction, an imposition or demand from outside to which one yields (Butler 2005: 125). It was midday in sunny Bloemfontein, winter was coming to an end and the early heat was starting to be felt. Luis Escobedo and I were walking to have lunch with Jonatan Kurzwelly at the university restaurant. We walked past the fast-food stalls, and into the restaurant that, as Luis would tell me with some degree of discomfort, only staff were allowed access to. As ‘postdocs’3 we were not staff, but we were allowed there. And it had great food. He wanted to introduce me to Jonatan, to talk about the project he was leading with Hamid Fernana, a local imam and scholar. Over lunch Jonatan told me that he and Hamid had been exchanging ideas in the frame of seminars at the Anthropology Department of UFS and that they had come up with the idea of producing this edited book. It would consist of narratives of international migrants to Bloemfontein, where the participants would experiment with methodologies of co-construction of stories, with a particular concern with ethics. The idea of the book was to represent international dimensions of Bloemfontein – a city often represented as a provincial place. This was hardly related to my research interests on the study of disadvantage in education, but the idea of the book fascinated me. I was interested and intrigued about issues of co-construction of stories with participants, but I was mostly engaged with the politics of the project; the broader politics of representation that it pursues, expanding the ways that we can think of the city where we live. Being a newly arrived temporary migrant from Argentina, I would not be able to pose, let alone pursue that aim by myself. The collective aspect of the project engaged me because it was an opportunity to relate to other writers, speakers and migrants, both through meetings and by reading each other’s stories. So, writing this chapter was a way of establishing relationships with colleagues in the city. Also, it was a way of rethinking my relationship with the city, to question what is often taken for granted, to bring to the centre what would otherwise be the background of my stay as a postdoctoral fellow. Furthermore, it was aimed at transforming my relationships, exploring different ways of becoming. I follow Foucault’s practice, when he says: The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? (Foucault 1988: 9)

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The author-function as a methodological tool Becoming an author entails embodying a specific function within a field of knowledge production. In his 1969 lecture at the Collège de France, titled ‘What is an author?’, Foucault develops an argument where the author is an ‘interpretative construct’ (Wilson 2004: 350) by which a writer is attached to a text as its creative source. Moreover, this construct is a functional ‘principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes, and chooses’ (Foucault 1984: 119). The academic author is the ‘functional principle’ by which I choose the words in my writing, the issues that I write about, the literature that I cite, the circuits where I publish, the ideas that I think, the place where I live. I am pronounced by the academic author-function. I, then, rephrase my query: what is the academic author-function? Foucault (1984) analyses how the function of authorship operates – both in the process of production of texts and in how they are handled – and argues that the author of a text is the result of those sets of operations. He outlines four points. Firstly, ‘the “author-function” is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine and articulate the realm of discourse’ (Foucault 1984: 349). This point is of particular relevance for this paper because it underlines that the function of the author is ‘historically contingent and mutable’ (Foucault 1984: 349), hence, this sociological exploration into the specific conditions that are enabling the emergence of ‘Del Monte, P’, the academic author. Secondly, ‘it does not operate in a uniform manner in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture’ (Foucault 1984: 349). Wilson (2004) highlights that here Foucault is referring to at least three forms of text – poetic, fictional and scientific. As different kinds of authorship are constituted differently, it is relevant to state that in this chapter I reflect on a specific type of production, which is the academic article that could be published in an academic journal or an edited book. As the narrative unfolds, the reader will find that I am driven to speak specifically of internationally recognised peer-reviewed publications. Thirdly, ‘it is defined not by the spontaneous attribution of a text to its creator, but through a series of precise and complex procedures’ (Foucault 1984: 349) and, finally, ‘it does not refer, purely and simply, to an actual individual insofar as it simultaneously gives rise to a variety of egos and to a series of subjective positions that individuals of any class may come to occupy’ (Foucault 1984: 349). These two last points are at the ‘heart’ of Foucault’s argument, by which he detaches the individual historical writer of a text from its author. In this paper I explore the socio-materiality of the procedures that have participated in the emergence of Del Monte, the academic author: a function that is regulated by the rules and tropes of academia, and that operates on the production of an academic subject as it governs the text; even though the text is populated by various egos, among which there are those of Del Monte and me. In this pursuit I will use life story as a method. But how would it be appropriate or suitable, if my selves and my identities are disconnected from the production of this author; that is, if the author ‘Del Monte’ is the result of complex socio-material

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processes rather than only of my work? Foucault’s hiatus between the writer and the author has been challenged (Burke 1989), and this account runs through that hiatus, whereby I become author as I write. Which means that I produce and am being produced by the text simultaneously. My life story as a writer will illustrate how I inhabit various subject positions within the emergence of the author. Throughout the story I tell not only how I come to inhabit these subject positions, but also how I pursue them, at the same time that I am driven by them (Butler 2005: 47). Furthermore, in telling this story I bear witness (Oliver 2001) to the emergence of the author, because through this publication I contribute to its emergence. This is the first academic paper published solely under the name of Pablo Del Monte. Therefore, my stories, the many voices that speak in them, my identities, are relevant to the extent that they are a constitutive part of the emergence of the author. Some of the critique of Foucault’s notion of the ‘author-function’ is that it dismisses the subject named by authorship (see Lamarque 1990), that is, it dismisses the question of who the author is. Foucault asks with Beckett, ‘what matter who’s speaking?’ (Foucault 1984: 138). The question of ‘who speaks’ is not explored in Foucault’s lecture (Wilson 2004), he rather focuses on how the author-function operates. So, this chapter will use Foucault’s notion as a tool to analyse how flows of power constitute a particular author, rather than to pursue a theoretical and methodological statement on the relationship between the author and the text, or to analyse a text in relation to or dismissal of its author.

Going down the author-function In following the traces of the author-function, I set out to identify enabling conditions of the emergence of Pablo Del Monte, the academic author. What seems to be the most structuring enabling condition, is that of currently holding a postdoctoral fellowship in Bloemfontein and having been awarded a doctorate (PhD), which is the basic condition of eligibility for this kind of fellowship.

The PhD I acquired an academic habitus (Reay 2004), to a great extent, by doing a PhD thesis in the United Kingdom (UK), on the transitions of youths, who were living in shanty towns of the City of Buenos Aires, to tertiary education. This involved developing bodily and emotional dispositions, such as leaving my country of origin and going through periods of distance relationship with my girlfriend; but also learning to speak and write differently in a foreign language and culture, developing relationships with participants in my position of researcher, engaging with social and educational issues to the effects of producing knowledge and learning the conventions of academic writing. My thesis, however, was titled ‘This is not a thesis’, manifesting contradictory attempts at becoming and also becoming differently (see Del Monte 2015). ‘This is not a thesis’ is, actually, a thesis.

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‘I am pleased to confirm that you have satisfied the examiners in the examination for the Degree of PhD. This means that the degree of PhD can now be awarded’ said an email sent to me in 2015 by a university administrator. The degree certificate was sent some months later by post to Argentina, where my girlfriend, Anita, and I, had returned from the UK after my studies. That email was my newly gained institutionalised cultural capital (Bourdieu 2006/1986). I should elaborate on the conditions under which I became a ‘Dr’. Encouraged and with the support of the professor who would later be my PhD supervisor, I finished writing a PhD proposal in early May 2009, in the last term of my Master of Arts degree in the UK. His encouragement was crucial, as I had not imagined myself pursuing such a project. I did not have a clear plan for how I would fund my studies; my idea was to apply for a post-study work visa in the UK, work part-time and do the PhD part-time – hoping that I could make ends meet. However, my plans were shattered when my student visa extension was rejected, despite the application being done through the university student support office. The whole process was traversed with unclear communication because the Home Office contacted the student support office and not me, even though I was considered responsible for the applications. As a result, not only was my student visa extension rejected, but I was also labelled as an illegal immigrant. The UK Council for International Student Affairs, a student advice agency, advised that should I return to the UK I would probably be deported back to Argentina. I remember a Venezuelan friend telling me in the students’ union bar, where we worked evening shifts to earn pocket money, that he also had to return because of his visa, but he encouraged me: ‘If you want to come back to the UK [to do your PhD], don’t let anything distract you from your goal’. Finding myself back in Argentina with no plans – but with the support of my family – I started looking for options to return. I found two: in my position of Argentine citizen I would apply for a scholarship for international students from developing countries; and I would also apply for Italian citizenship because my grandfather and my father were Italian citizens (my father was born and raised in Argentina). Against the odds, the application for an Italian passport was successful.4 As soon as I got it, I booked a flight to the UK via New York, just in time to start the PhD at the beginning of the academic year. I stopped in New York for two days and stayed on a friend’s couch, as if not wanting to arrive in the UK. I remember having dinner in the apartment with master’s and doctoral students from a New York ivy league university, saying that I was on my way to the UK to do a PhD and feeling part of that select group, but not saying that I did not know if I would be deported to Argentina at the UK border. Although my passport said that I was now a European citizen, I was also supposed to have a black mark in my records for having technically overstayed in the UK due to the rejection of my visa. I thought the taint of the black mark would be more powerful than the European citizenship.

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When I arrived at Heathrow Airport in the early morning, the UK border officer asked me to wait on the side when he saw something on his screen after scanning my passport. When all the other passengers had gone through the gate, the border officer started talking to other officers and on the phone. I thought he was consulting about whether I could enter the UK. I was sleepy and feeling adrift. He came back and asked me how I had got the Italian passport. I answered that my grandfather was Italian. After a long time of being the only person standing in front of the border gate, the officer came to me and said, ‘That’s alright, Sir, welcome to the UK,’ or something similar...for a long time I remembered his words clearly, but now I seem to have forgotten them. I went to the registry at the university and my presence surprised the administrator. I showed my European passport and enrolled – I had already been given a place to do the PhD. After a couple of weeks, I was called by a more senior administrator. Following a series of questions surrounding the contradictions of my enrolment as a European citizen who had also applied for a scholarship for candidates from developing countries, I was told that I had been listed second for the scholarship. As there was only one scholarship available, it was clear that I had not received it. She continued to tell me that the winner had not been able to accept the offer, so the scholarship would be awarded to me. But I was now Italian. Finally, a university director decided to offer it to me, anyway. It was also expected that the awarded fellow would return to the country of origin to work for the development of his/her country, an expectation that would not be enforced in any way but that, symbolically, was always present in my mind. I wrote to my supervisor telling him the news about the scholarship, he congratulated me and said that it was really good news, both for me and for the topic. In hindsight, those words become more meaningful. The funding would not only provide me with more security and a better quality of life (not to mention better conditions under which to complete the course), but it would benefit the topic. The scholarship would allow me to be dedicated full time to the thesis, so I would be able to do more extensive fieldwork in the shanty towns of Buenos Aires, in such a way that the methodology of the thesis would be transformed. So, becoming a ‘Dr’ emerged from being asked to leave the country on the basis of living illegally in the UK, becoming a European citizen and being repositioned as a developing country student, failing in my initial application for a scholarship – and ending up being successful. Being international and out of place The PhD years went by, spent between Buenos Aires and London. In the last months of the fourth year my girlfriend, Anita, and I decided not to settle in London but to move back to Buenos Aires, where we would start a new life and I would pursue an academic career. After being together at a distance because of my studies – I was in

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London, while Anita had already returned to Buenos Aires – we wanted to live close to our families and friends, and very importantly, to work in the place we had thought ourselves working. My PhD had had a clear territorial engagement. I will not talk for Anita, but she had her own reasons, relationships and dreams, which drew her back to Argentina. In 2016 Anita and I were getting married in the place where we wanted to live. Although I experienced last-minute hesitations, it had always been my intention to return to Argentina. However, I was detached from the Argentine academic field, so I did not have a clear perspective on the demands for my next transition. On my arrival in Argentina, I was introduced in the Argentine higher education field by two academics whom I had met through my PhD supervisor. I was writing up the conclusions of my thesis and simultaneously searching for a professional academic placement. Both my new contacts were generous, valued my trajectory, and made efforts to introduce me into the local academic job market – in Buenos Aires, specifically. Their advice was to target the National Scientific and Technical Research Council – CONICET, in its Spanish acronym. But neither my academic habitus nor my institutionalised capital seemed effective in gaining me employment as an academic in Argentina. The PhD thesis, despite its necessary individual authorship, was not a sufficient production to allow me to constitute myself as an academic author. I needed to be a published academic. Throughout my PhD my only concern had been to write the thesis, not to write articles. Although I had had some discussions with other students about the increasing expectation in the job market to have published articles, this had not been in my PhD agenda. My lack of publications in peer-reviewed journals seemed a significant weakness in my CV when applying at CONICET for a postdoctoral fellowship to begin a researcher career path. I should mention that at the time, the national administrations had funded CONICET, releasing an increasing number of postgraduate scholarships. This meant that there was an inflation of postgraduate degrees; a further increase in a trend that had been growing in the last decades (Jeppesen et al. 2016). My initial exploration of alternatives recognised three main desirable affiliations to apply to: CONICET, teaching at universities and teacher training colleges. Of the three options, the only one that would ensure working conditions that were conducive to producing research was CONICET. However, I then found CONICET to offer more precarious and unstable working conditions than universities. Recent studies show that there are few incentives to do research in Argentine state universities, and the production of academics based only at universities is marginal compared to those who are also affiliated to CONICET. Beigel (2017) draws a broad typology of university teaching scholars and CONICET-affiliated researchers. The former navigate a higher education field, deploying locally embodied forms of cultural capital, and are mostly evaluated for their experience in teaching and higher education management. The latter also navigate an internationalised higher education field, mainly through affiliations to CONICET (but also to the University of Buenos Aires), deploying publications in high ranking – mostly English

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language, international journals – to gain positions in the field. Beigel (2017) then describes different circuits within the field of Argentine higher education: one that is connected with and expands into the international field of scientific knowledge production; and another that is, to a great extent, local and teaching oriented. Beigel’s research resonates with that of Marginson (2008) where he argues that there is a global hegemony of the United States system of higher education, one of its manifestations being the stabilisation of English as the main language of publication. From Marginson’s theoretical stance, the local and the international circuits are not only separate, but the latter reduces the former to a subordinate position. As I have mentioned before, my access to CONICET was conditional to my journal publications; Reyes et al. (2018) also describe how this is the strongest imperative to access a researcher post at CONICET. Since I needed to secure my income, I also applied for teaching positions. In the three years that I lived in Argentina, I applied for a teaching post in a teacher training college and another in a public university. I could not apply for a post in a university of another province because it was not feasible to make myself present at their offices to collect the forms in hardcopy, then to submit the application also in hardcopy, and then again, eventually, for an interview. I thought that if the application process was so inaccessible for someone living in another province, the selection process would be equally inaccessible. I should mention that I did not find many job openings, many of which circulate within universities and are difficult for outsiders to access. In the evaluation criteria of the two jobs I applied for, experience in teaching within the system was the item with the most value and the number of points given for my PhD degree were irrelevant. Unsurprisingly, I was not called for the second stage in the application process at the teacher training college and my application for the teaching post at the university ranked last. To further illustrate that teaching experience was more valuable than a PhD degree, the other applicants to the university teaching post, who were also early career aspiring academics, included some that had not yet finished their doctoral studies. My first job in Argentina in my post-PhD phase of my career was working for the team of a head of department at the Ministry of Education of the City of Buenos Aires. I was contacted through a lecturer from the university where I did my Bachelor of Arts degree and teacher training, to apply for a position that was not publicly advertised and was renewed on a yearly basis. The job was mostly administrative and did not contribute to my aim to write papers for publication in international journals. Nevertheless, I managed during the three years to move towards research jobs, finally participating in internationally publishable research projects in the year prior to moving to Bloemfontein. Writing ‘any-way’ A different story could be told, a more progressive one, in which my academic conditions of possibility developed after my arrival in Argentina. This took place

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mostly through my participation in various academic communities and collaborations, which were partly driven by common research interests or disciplinary fields. I should begin by clarifying that when Anita and I arrived in Argentina from the UK, I had not finished writing my thesis. I had yet to revise it and finish writing the introduction and conclusion. We arrived in July 2014 and I only submitted it in December. My viva voce examination was scheduled for March 2015. So, on my arrival to Buenos Aires I needed to begin by completing the PhD. As I arrived, a senior scholar at the University of Buenos Aires invited me to co-ordinate a reading group on educational inequalities in her research institute and gave me advice on finishing my thesis and on applying for a postdoctoral fellowship at CONICET. I remember that my main concern was that I did not belong to an academic community. It was certain to me that much of my writing had been the result of conversations with my supervisor and peers, and of participating in student societies and seminars. At that time, I thought of the ‘author-function’ as this set of relationships, which spoke through and constituted my thesis. Also, having an affiliation to a research institute gave me access to journals and a library, although access to knowledge had ceased to be a major constraint in the boom of online ‘shadow libraries’ such as Library Genesis (Karaganis 2018). Access to knowledge was an important consideration when I thought about returning to Argentina without an academic job or affiliation, so the existence of these networks was enabling. In the following year I participated in the running of a module led by this same colleague at the University of Buenos Aires, and applied for funds to carry out an ethnography at a school located next to a shanty town in Buenos Aires. I should also mention that soon after my arrival to Buenos Aires, I received an email from a UK scholar I had met in a conference on informal settlements. The scholar invited me to present a paper in a workshop that would take place in the Argentine Catholic University, in Buenos Aires. At the workshop I also met researchers from different disciplines doing research in informal settlements. My engagement with this community then converted into participation in a human development research project on youths in villas5 of Buenos Aires, which received funding from the University of Bath (see Mitchell et al. 2018). So, in the year after my arrival, I was participating in research and teaching in two universities, the University of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Catholic University. These were ad honorem participations and had a marginal place in my diary – either in early mornings before work or during the weekends, or I took days off paid work to do them. However precarious these affiliations may seem, they sustained me within academia and have become ongoing collaborations. In the second year after my return to Buenos Aires, new possibilities of working as a researcher began to appear, partly through the deployment of both stored and acquired forms of social capital (Bourdieu 2006/1986). One of them was through the academic network that I was beginning to be part of, with people who, like myself, had multiple institutional affiliations at the Ministry of Education and in

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universities. This is common, given the scarcity of full-time positions at universities. A 2014 study showed that 65.5 per cent of academic staff at public universities were hired on an hourly basis (García de Fanelli & Moguillansky 2014). My friendship with researchers working at the University of Buenos Aires helped me to move to a research position within the Ministry of Education. The second case was more haphazard, but it was also related to university networks within the Ministry of Education. In a conversation with a curriculum specialist who worked at a private university, I told her about my aspiration to work in research, and she told me that a colleague of hers, whom I already knew, was starting a new research project and looking for junior researchers. I had met him years before, through my PhD supervisor. This contact concluded in my participation in a large-scale project on globalisation and education (Beech et al. 2018) and in my engagement as a tutor in a BA module. The research project was a one-year contract. So, when I accepted the offer to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship in Bloemfontein, I had actually achieved full-time employment in research, with some teaching in an undergraduate course. Then, why do I think of myself at that time as not being produced as an academic author? As I intend to think of the conditions of my emergence as ‘myself-as-author’, I also need to rethink the temporality of my narrative, moving towards one in which the past endures in the present (Mazzei 2016). Although the material conditions of my working life were contributing to the construction of the author, there was a continuing instability of those conditions. One of the two paid projects I was working for was temporary, as well as my affiliation to a university as a tutor. These might have become permanent contracts, or they might have persisted through further temporary contracts. I could also write a progressive story, moving from an arrival to Argentina to do research under very adverse working conditions, to working full time in research three years later. However, this would not account for the duration of my ontological insecurity (Ball 2015a).

The call The main reason I have come to the conclusion that the narrative space of this chapter is authorship is that becoming an academic author has been the primary factor in my migration to Bloemfontein. I hope to illustrate how my unsuccessful attempts to access the higher education job market in Argentina were a push factor, but also what other available capitals I could deploy in my trajectory. During the year prior to moving to Bloemfontein Anita and I had a daughter, we were living in a neighbourhood that we liked, and my job situation had improved. Still, managing three jobs at the same time was demanding and a lot of pressure, and required very careful time management. These can be considered to be common working conditions in the academic profession in Argentina and internationally (Altbach 2012). One of my research jobs would eventually lead to being published in international journals, but it was a one-year contract, so I would not have a salary

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by the time that the writing of the articles started. Realising that my main source of income was to finish soon, I started job hunting again. For some time, I had looked for fellowships but had not found any that my profile would suit. At that time, I might not have been well informed and my internet searches might not have been well done. Also, fellowships were extremely competitive, and they asked for a record of publications. But, when I was working late one Friday afternoon at the Ministry of Education offices, I googled some key words around education, sociology and postdoctoral fellowships. Within the first five searches I saw the call for applications for a research programme at UFS. I seemed to have the expected profile and I was also soon to have a co-authored paper published in an international journal, so I thought that I might have a chance. When I found the call for applications on the internet, I saw two main things: I was eligible, and the director of the research centre was a renowned professor in the field of education and human development, whose work I had read while doing research in the shanty towns of Buenos Aires. I felt that I not only met the criteria, but as though I had been called. If I compare the feeling with that of being ranked last on the application for the position at the University of Buenos Aires, it was like becoming somebody. Seeing the name of the director of the research centre gave me confidence because I knew the theory, methodologies, interests and style of research that she produced. Furthermore, I thought that working at her centre would be an opportunity for professional development, given her expertise in a field of research that I was interested in. After conversations with colleagues in the process of writing this article I came to think that her name also gave me a sense of security. What would have happened if the call for applications had not been signed by her? This question addresses, precisely, how the author-function works; how a name operates. This exercise of thought was hypothetical, but my conclusion was that I might not have dared to move to South Africa if it had not been a name that I recognised and valued. In this sense, it was somebody else’s authorship that was mobilising me. On that Friday, when I found the call for applications to UFS, I returned home and asked Anita, ‘What would you think of moving to South Africa?’ I intended to surprise her with a possibility that seemed far from realisation. The moment of courage that opens up this story is when she replied that I should explore the possibility and we would then decide. Both of us had previously lived abroad in an English-speaking country and we both knew friends or relatives who had moved abroad. The idea of moving to South Africa took us by surprise but it was thinkable. We knew what moving entailed, we had gone through those emotions, our current relationships with family and friends had already survived our stays abroad, and we were confident of our skills to manage such a transition. So, we could conceive that call for applications as an opportunity, and we had resources to assess it.

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However, whether we wanted to move is a different question. Anita would probably respond negatively – and so would I. We were at the beginning of starting a family, so we considered it to be suitable to stay close to our parents. Our one-year-old daughter was enjoying seeing them every weekend, and we all enjoyed the music jams and trips to the countryside. After leaving corporate life, Anita was starting her career as a high school teacher, with a very good relationship and commitment to the school. Although having small children broadly works against the mother´s profession in Argentina (and almost everywhere else), we were balancing family care duties and workload by Anita teaching a reduced number of hours per week, and relied on the income from my work. During the first week in Bloemfontein, our daughter would repeat her grandparents’, uncles’ and aunts’ names over and over before sleeping, like a prayer. Lately I have been having sudden daydreams where I walk along the uneven leafy streets, heading to the main street of our neighbourhood in Buenos Aires; sit under the tree in our backyard; or remember the morning smell of croissants in the coffee shop next to work.

Beneath the call Although finding the fellowship call can be seen as a haphazard connection that led to its final award, I would also like to consider some of the conditions that enabled such a connection. There is, of course, a contingent moment which could have led to other outcomes. I could have pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in Argentina in the following months and my story would have been a different one. I would like to make two points about this: first, I have already mentioned my acquired cultural capital and academic habitus, to which I could add a certain degree of ‘motility’ (Henderson 2019), that is, a capability for mobility, understood not only as a set of skills but also as an intention to pursue it; and second, the context of a higher education policy in South Africa that promotes the production of knowledge through the offer of postdoctoral fellowships. The increase in numbers of postdoctoral fellows is considered a strategic item for the development of the South African higher education system, specifically in terms of research capacity building (DHET 2013). It is (White Paper for Post-School Education and Training, 2013). It is also argued that it contributes to the formation of doctorates (Herman 2011). In the case of UFS, which funds my scholarship, its Integrated Transformation Plan includes ‘Number of postdoctoral fellows (black and female)’ (Herman 2011: 8) as a possible indicator of development of their research, internationalisation, and innovation vision. On the other hand, there is a national policy to increase the amount of scientific knowledge produced in universities. In the framework of the national University Capacity Development and Grant, UFS is allocated the following [r]esearch incentives and awards (available to all researchers, including emerging researchers) – R20 000 for a publication unit earned for an

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article published in a journal indexed in the Web of Science, R10 000 for an article in a local journal accredited by the DHET, R20 000 for a book, R20 000 for a Conference Proceeding. (Mouton et al. 2018: 217) Postdoctoral fellows do not receive these incentives; they receive a set stipend, but their publications result in funding for their host universities. The current policy emphasis is on quantities of postdoctoral fellows, papers, books and other productions, but the condition, function and role of ‘postdocs’ remains undefined (Kerr forthcoming). Within the current global ‘tyranny of numbers’ (Ball 2015b), Patricio Langa (Cloete et al. 2015: 240) asks about ‘postdocs’: ‘Where are they headed? What is the role for these postdocs?...some people joke that the job of the postdoc is to look for another job’. I can only add that I do not know where I am headed. The current academic labour market in South Africa, Argentina and also in the Global North does not offer evident opportunities for the next steps.

The international field of higher education Worldwide higher education is a relational environment that is simultaneously global, national and local...Although most activity in higher education is nation-bound, a distinctive global dimension is growing in importance, connecting with each national system of higher education while also being external to them all. (Marginson 2008: 303) My arrival at the research centre in April 2018 connected me in a new and different way with academia. At the beginning of the year I had written an email to my former PhD supervisor in which I had described my last years as being ‘intermittent’. I had fragile connections with academia, through research projects that had very marginal hours in my weekly schedule – a kind of career bricolage. My full-time affiliation to the research programme at UFS was, to me, a reconnection with the relationships that constituted me as an early career, or aspiring, academic. On an everyday basis, I started to find myself engaged in conversations where I had a legitimate opinion in matters of education and academic work. I found myself giving presentations and feedback to doctoral students, and supervising students. Although I had been working in teaching and research in Argentina, being affiliated to a university on a full-time basis made a fundamental difference. In relation to the creation of the researcher career in CONICET in the 1960s, Bernardo Houssay said that full-time dedication was not only a matter of the number of hours of work, but a mental disposition (quoted in Dosne Pasqualini 2008: 311). Through this account I find myself saying that the number of paid hours of work is a fundamental constraint in terms of sustaining the practice of academic writing. But, furthermore, fulltime dedication is materialised through the relationships in which researchers are engaged, the institutional affiliations and the expectations that mobilise them. The ‘mental disposition’ is sustained through those connections, which constitute the academic subject and, more importantly, its production.

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I have mentioned before how two circuits can be distinguished within the field of Argentine academia, one that is connected with an international field and another that is largely detached from it (Beigel 2017). I have also mentioned how I had acquired enough cultural capital to be able to play the game of international research but barely enough to be able to play the game of Argentine academia. In Bloemfontein, I am also part of an international circuit of postdoctoral fellows, the majority of which are non-South African. Marginson (2008) argues that these circuits are best understood as ‘fields of power’ that exclude each other. Beigel’s (2017) account can be thought to support that kind of thesis, from the perspective of Argentine academia, but can it be supported from a South African perspective? According to Sehoole and Ojo (2015) there are two main ways of access to a job in South African faculty. One is through ‘internal inbreeding’, by which young faculty members with a record of outstanding performance in their educational institutions are ‘sponsored’ by a mentor and are supported for teaching and postgraduate funding. Another is external, by which young faculty members access a job by applying to an open call and going through a formal recruitment procedure. They also show that in 2012 only a 5.5 per cent of young faculty members had doctorates in South Africa, and argue that academics without doctorates or a publication record have weak bargaining positions for better salaries. To sustain a middle-class lifestyle, individuals in lower academic ranks may need to complement their academic income with other sources. On this basis, it can be posed that the hegemony of an international field of power is being played in external pathways into universities, where having a PhD and a record of publications is highly valued. Postdoctoral fellows are expected to publish in high-ranking international journals, signalling a clear engagement with the hegemonic field of higher education. My arrival in the research centre at UFS was also a return to an international circuit in the field of higher education. From my conversations with peers and the director of the programme, I understand the programme as being a global institution, located in the Global South; it is funded by South African as well as UK agencies. While the studies conducted at the programme are generally on African contexts, most of its books were published in international publishing houses like Routledge or Palgrave, and it can be said that there is a constant flow of journal publication in established international journals. Also, there are frequent visits by academics who are affiliated to Global North institutions; some of which have strong leadership in international rankings and thus could be considered to be international institutions. My incorporation into the programme is also a sign of its international dimension, and shows its capacity to attract aspirants from all over the world. In my first weeks of participation in the academic life of the centre I found myself speaking in English and performing forms of speech and gestures that I had incorporated during my studies in the UK, where I had been formed as an academic. I felt like I was now a ‘fish in water’.

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First impressions Before moving to Bloemfontein, Anita and I spent a lot of time using Google Maps to look at the city through the street view tool. Our intention had been to rent a family unit on campus, but these were very scarce, and none were available. We went through several neighbourhoods, trying to figure out in advance where it would be best to live. We were expecting a second child soon after our arrival in South Africa and needed accommodation for four. We also exchanged emails with the director and had Skype conversations with a Spanish-speaking doctoral student who generously helped us. In Buenos Aires we dealt with perceptions of insecurity on an everyday basis, accompanied with episodes of theft taking place in our neighbourhood. As we were unfamiliar with Bloemfontein, our priority was to be in a secure environment. Another aspect that was important for me in terms of choosing the neighbourhood was proximity to the university. Having looked at the extensive campus, its sports facilities, café and food court, I reckoned that the most convenient lifestyle would be to participate in university life as much as possible. I had a fantasy to cycle to the university, but this was strongly discouraged as being a dangerous pursuit. Within the first two weeks after our arrival, we rented a house in a neighbourhood near the university, where I then found that many postdoctoral students live. We also bought a used car. We were advised that public transport was not reliable, and we never got to know how it functioned. There were two forms of public transport available, minibus taxis and interstate buses. I then began to find that the only people walking on the streets of my neighbourhood were workers going to and from work, and joggers in the evenings. But I did not see anyone walking to buy groceries, for example. I also saw that parks and children’s play areas were empty. Since starting to write this chapter, I began reading more about the geography of the city because I became aware that my own geography was reduced to a few places: our house, the university, the supermarket, the childbirth clinic. I then realised that my whole life took place on one side of a city that had, to a great extent, not desegregated after apartheid (Marais & Visser 2008). The most diverse space that I would transit in my everyday life was the university campus. I live in a gated complex, and drive by car with my wife and children to the university, which is also gated and only accessible with a card through the security checkpoint. On the weekends we might go to the shopping mall at the city centre, or to a café or gated parks such as the botanical gardens or a nature reserve. I also jog every now and then on the street. And we have now started to walk to the supermarket to buy groceries. The city of Bloemfontein, then, is to a great extent absent in this account, partly because of the detachment of the writer, a ‘fish’ that swims through a liminal space between the local and the global. Although it is true that I have written some of these words in a café at the shopping mall, most of the production takes place in an office within the boundaries of the university. But, while possibilities of doing fieldwork in the city are being explored, this chapter is the first event in which Bloemfontein and my academic author-function come together. I will not say more about the

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city because my experience is yet too young, and exploring it further falls from the narrative scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, writing this chapter has made visible the absence of the city in my story.

Final reflections This account has been mobilised by at least two drivers: on one hand, the exploration of how the academic author-function has operated in my professional and personal trajectory; on the other hand, the attempt to problematise its operations and to ‘become’ differently. The academic author-function, therefore, has shaped this text very directly: as the conditions of possibility of the text, and also as the narrative space of the text. This chapter is another product of my academic trajectory that sustains me as an academic: it is being published by a science publisher, for an academic audience, and it is going to be part of my output measurement. I understand this to be what Foucault calls the ‘murmur’ of discourse, and it is operating in the very conditions of this text. On the other hand, I have used and interrogated the ‘authorfunction’ as a theoretical tool to understand my own trajectory. In this sense, it has set the narrative space of my story and has also been a method of inquiry into my own conditions of production. However, this account has opened itself to other stories and to writing myself differently. I have attempted to do this by analysing the power relations in which I am engaged in the pursuit of an academic subjectivity, putting myself into question, and eliciting moments of discomfort. One of Foucault’s claims in 'What is an Author'? (1984) is that the author is dead. The individual, rational, creative source of a text is an interpretive construct that is used in the way that the text is handled. Foucault’s question, then, is ‘what’ is the author, rather than ‘who’ is the author, looking at the ways in which the author is pronounced by discourse. This dismissal has received criticism in later critical literary studies, arguing that the author has always been present, even in the work of Foucault (Burke 1989). William Gass (1984) argues the announcement should be that the ‘single author’ is dead, rather than ‘the author’. This life story has illustrated how the life of the writer is intricately related to the work, as well as exposed the ways in which the author is other to the writer, and a larger set of interconnected social processes. Borges (1998/1960: 18) wrote it masterfully: Yo vivo, yo me dejo vivir, para que Borges pueda tramar su literatura y esa literatura me justifica. (I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me). The academic author-function has mobilised me and my family across national borders, in such a way that it has sustained us between borders. When I was a young single aspirant, my PhD was enabled by the contradictions of coming from a developing country with European citizenship. This particular story is certainly unusual, as shown by the bewilderment of the agent at the UK border, his several consultations and my long wait. But it is also another story of bordering (Szary & Giraut 2015), saying that ‘borders can be mobile to the same extent as those who seek to cross them’ (Perkins & Rumford 2013: 268). My PhD was funded on the

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basis that I was applying from a developing country, that my research project was on educational disadvantage, and that I aspired to return to my country of origin. The scholarship reasserted my Global South position and seems to have been effective in bringing me back to Argentina, since without it I would have attempted to do my PhD on a part-time basis, staying longer in the UK, and would have not been able to do an extended field work in the shanty towns of Buenos Aires. Borders, as well as my identities, were being shifted in my transition into the PhD. I have daydreams of my Argentine neighbourhood. We listen to Argentine folk music on Sunday mornings while making breakfast. But then again, I also feel a comforting kind of nostalgia when I have an English breakfast or a pint of Guinness. And my wife and I often say to each other ‘we will miss Bloemfontein’ while driving in the leafy streets of our neighbourhood. As if knowing that we will leave, even though we would be happy to stay. I began this piece saying that in many ways it is an account of social advantage. Having the opportunity to pursue a PhD, being awarded the degree, becoming European, writing in English, and getting a position of ‘postdoc’ in South Africa are all conditions of (varying degrees of) advantage in the field of higher education. However, this is also a story of ontological insecurity, a story of occupying the limits of being an academic. Laing, who coined the term, defined the ontological insecurity as follows: The individual in the ordinary circumstances of living may feel more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive; precariously differentiated from the rest of the world, so that his identity and autonomy are always in question. He may lack the experience of his own temporal continuity. (Laing 1990: 42) This account is a sequence of breaks in affiliation, which in the case of our relocation to Bloemfontein was only mediated by an internet search. A call for applications found on the web mobilised my family across continents, amidst the instability of working conditions that affected us. It is an account of an academic being that is always at the verge of disappearance, and that is craved in its absence. It is about the emergence of another academic author that publishes and perishes. This account is also the story of a family bordering, and the author is in between family and self. I have struggled in this account between whether to narrate in ‘I’ (singular) or ‘we’ (plural). The individual author construct certainly is at play there. It seemed drifting to tell about the uncertainties that we faced planning the birth of our younger daughter in South Africa. The absence of a student medical plan that fully covers for pregnancy and birth could have sent us back to Argentina. I say ‘student’ because that is my status as a ‘postdoc’ in South Africa. Also, our Bloemfontein-born daughter did not have a nationality for a few months, since we are temporary residents and we do not have a consulate in town. I have mentioned, however, how our desires as a family clashed with the academic possibilities that I have found. It is, then, a story of academic mobility accumulation, as well as a story

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of ‘brain drain’. But, as Carrozza et al. (2017) argue, brain drain is also the drain of families, with bodies and affect. The author is also the writer’s spouse and children, who live and struggle with the academic author-function at the borders. This account exposes the conditions of production of another academic author. ‘Another’ because there are many. ‘Another’ because it is other than me. And, although the ‘who’ of the writer has been put at the centre of the account, that ‘who’ has become even more elusive and polyphonic. The professional and research narrative of the writer is broken, and the author could best be represented as a bricolage rather than as the story of a self. It is ‘becoming’ in between academic, spouse, father, advantaged and precarious, author and writer, researcher and object of research. As the text unfolds, the writer is exposed, discomforted. And as ‘the subject becomes an object for itself, it also misses something of itself ’ (Butler 2005: 120). In the case of this chapter, he writes attempting responses to become himself, not knowing who writes these pages, himself or the other Del Monte. It is writing itself as it is being written by the author.

Afterword I write the last amendments to this chapter in Hamilton, New Zealand, where I am working as a lecturer in education. In a room in my house in Hamilton, more precisely, since I arrived one month ago, just before the country went into lockdown due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Articles are slow processes of production, and they come back with reviews months after they have been written. As I read it again and decide to intervene the minimum amount necessary, it starts to crystallise and become archival – unless further review is required. That writer is evidently other to this one as I reread the chapter, and this confirms that institutional affiliation and working conditions produce subjectivities. The presented ontological insecurity is now distant, maybe suspended or in a process of conversion. Also, this tells that, like many other ‘postdocs’, I was to be a temporary migrant in South Africa. This, however, is not planned or an a priori certainty, as it is evident in my account, but a result of the lack of a clear career pathway. The story of unstable academic affiliations is, maybe temporarily, over. Many of the papers that I prepared during that time will be published when I have left South Africa, as per the processes of academic knowledge production. They will pump some other indicator of academic production but continue to stabilise this author. It is still to be seen how my collaborations with friends and colleagues developed during the ‘postdoc’ will unfold, but I expect that the conversations that we have engaged in over the course of two years will convert into international collaborations. We have worked together framing research problems, developing concepts to address them, and problematising our positions as knowledge producers, all of which have the potential to become contributions to fields of knowledge, to enable and constitute our work as professional academics. Some of those later papers may be co-authored, and the single author may become with others, in South Africa or elsewhere. Other questions to my, and our, conditions of possibility within the current geopolitics of

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knowledge production, through internationalising and stratified systems of higher education, will demand responses. Other accounts are now necessary. Endnotes 1

This production was funded by the Republic of South Africa’s National Research Foundation and the University of the Free State’s SARCHI Chair of Higher Education and Human Development.

2

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Anita Almanza, Alfredo Dillon, Luis Escobedo, Jonatan Kurzwelly, an anonymous reviewer, Emily Henderson, Analía Meo, Philippa Kerr, Melanie Walker and Stephen Ball for their kind readings and comments. Their responses have contributed towards shaping the text and helped me think differently.

3

This refers to holders of postdoctoral fellowships, which in this university had the formal status of students, but were also treated as staff in terms of the roles (research and teaching) and use of some spaces, such as the restaurant.

4

Since the right to Italian citizenship is based on jus sanguinis, I was entitled to citizenship on the basis of being the son of an Italian citizen.

5

Informal urban settlements or shanty towns are popularly (but also scholarly) called villas in Argentina.

References Ackers L & Gill B (2008) Moving people and knowledge: Scientific mobility in an enlarging European Union. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Altbach PG (2012) Paying the professoriate: A global comparison of compensation and contracts. New York: Routledge Ball SJ (2015a) Accounting for a sociological life: Influences and experiences on the road from welfarism to neoliberalism. British Journal of Sociology of Education 36(6): 817–831, https:// doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2015.1050087 Ball SJ (2015b) Education, governance and the tyranny of numbers. Journal of Education Policy 30(3): 299–301, https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2015.1013271 Ball SJ (2017) Foucault as educator. London: Springer Beech J, Guevara J & Del Monte P (2018) Diploma programme implementation in public schools in Latin America: The cases of Costa Rica, Argentina (Buenos Aires) and Peru. Accessed September 2020, https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/publications/ib-research/dp/dp-in-latinamerica-full-report-en.pdf Beigel F (2017) Peripheral scientists, between Ariel and Caliban: Institutional know-how and circuits of recognition in Argentina: The publications of the researchers at CONICET Dados 60(3): 825–865, https://doi.org/10.1590/001152582017136 Borges JL (1998/1960) Borges y yo. In M Kodama (Ed.) El hacedor. Madrid: Alianza. Accessed October 2020, http://www.anffos.cl/Descargas/BIBLIOTECA/Jorge%20Luis%20Borges%20 -%20El%20Hacedor.pdf Bourdieu P (2006/1986) The forms of capital. In H Lauder, P Brown J-A Dillabough & AH Halsey (Eds) Education, globalization, and social change. Oxford: Oxford University Press Burke JM (1989) The death and return of the author: Criticism and subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh

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Butler J (2005) Giving an account of oneself. New York: Fordham University Press Byram M & Dervin F (2009) Students, staff and academic mobility in higher education. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing Carrozza C, Giorgi A & Raffini L (2017) Brains and bodies on the move. A research agenda on precarious researchers’ mobility. In T França & B Padilla (Eds) Transnational scientific mobility: Perspectives from the North and the South. Accessed September 2020, https:// repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/14498/5/Ebook.pdf Cloete N, Mouton J & Sheppard C (2015) Doctoral education in South Africa: Policy, discourse and data. Cape Town: African Minds Del Monte P (2015) [Of degrees and villas: Writing and reading testimonios of high school graduates from a shanty town in Buenos Aires in their attempts to access and succeed in post-compulsory education studies.] This is not a thesis. PhD thesis, UCL Institute of Education, London. Accessed September 2020, http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10021842/ DHET (Department of Higher Education and Training) (2013) White paper for post-school education and training: Building an expanded, effective and integrated post-school system. Pretoria: DHET Dosne Pasqualini C (2008) El significado de la Carrera del Investigador del CONICET: Una visión personal. MEDICINA (Buenos Aires) 311–314 Foucault M (1984) What is an author? In P Rabinow (Ed.) The Foucault reader. London: Penguin Foucault M (1988) Technologies of the self. In LH Martin, G Hugh & H Patrick (Eds) Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press Foucault M (1994) For an ethic of discomfort. In JD Faubion (Ed.) Essential works of Foucault, 1954– 1984. New York: The New Press Gannon S (2018) Troubling autoethnography: Critical, creative, and deconstructive approaches to writing. In S Holman Jones & M Pruyn (Eds) Creative selves/creative cultures: Critical autoethnography, performance, and pedagogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47527-1_2 García de Fanelli A & Moguillansky M (2014) La docencia universitaria en Argentina Obstáculos en la carrera académica. Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas 22(47), https://doi. org/10.14507/epaa.v22n47.2014 Gass WH (1984) The death of the author. Salmagundi (65): 3–26 Henderson EF (2019) A PhD in motion: Advancing a critical academic mobilities approach (CAMA) to researching short-term mobility schemes for doctoral students. Teaching in Higher Education 24(5): 678–693, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1552252 Herman C (2011) Expanding doctoral education in South Africa: Pipeline or pipedream? Higher Education Research & Development 30(4): 505–517 Jeppesen C, Goldberg M, Szpeiner A, Gauna MCR, Misiac RN & Silvani JE (2016) La formación de doctores en Argentina: Avances y desafíos desde la perspectiva CONICET. Revista argentina de educación superior (12): 149–173 Jons H, Meusburger P & Heffernan M (Eds) (2017) Mobilities of knowledge. Accessed September 2020, https://oapen.org/search?identifier=1002239 Kahn PE & Misiaszek LI (2019) Educational mobilities and internationalised higher education: Critical perspectives. Teaching in Higher Education 24(5): 587–598, https://doi.org/10.1080/1 3562517.2019.1625120

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Karaganis J (2018) Shadow libraries: Access to knowledge in global higher education. Accessed October 2020, https://idl-bnc-idrc.dspacedirect.org/handle/10625/56942 Kerr P (forthcoming) A parallel pipeline? Bringing the casualisation of academic work into the higher education conversation in South Africa Laing RD (1990) The divided self. London: Penguin Lamarque P (1990) The death of the author: An analytical autopsy. The British Journal of Aesthetics 30(4): 319–331 Marais L & Visser G (2008) Spatialities of urban change: Selected themes from Bloemfontein at the beginning of the 21st century. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media Marginson S (2008) Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and worldwide higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 29(3): 303–315 Mazzei LA (2016) Voice without a subject. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 16(2): 151–161 Mitchell, A, Del Monte, P & Deneulin, S (2018) School completion in urban Latin America: the voices of young people from an informal settlement, Oxford Development Studies, 46(1): 45–56, doi: 10.1080/13600818.2017.1387242 Mouton J, Botha J, Boshoff N, Prozesky H, Swart C, Treptow R, Redelinghuys H, Ford K, Van Niekerk M & Visagie A (2018) A study on building a cadre of emerging scholars for higher education in South Africa. Accessed October 2020, https://www.dst.gov.za/images/2018/ Emerging-Scholars_22.pdf Oliver K (2001) Witnessing: Beyond recognition. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press Perkins C & Rumford C (2013) The politics of (un)fixity and the vernacularisation of borders. Global Society 27(3): 267–282, https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2013.790784 Reay D (2004) Cultural capitalists and academic habitus: Classed and gendered labour in UK higher education. Women’s Studies International Forum 27(1): 31–39, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.wsif.2003.12.006 Reyes MF, Piazza MV, Telesnicki MC, D’Acunto L, Di Bella CE, Spirito F, García-Parisi PA, De Paepe JL & Cavagnaro RA (2018) Certezas e incertidumbres en la etapa posdoctoral de la carrera científca en la Argentina. Ecología Austral 28(3): 537–542 Sehoole C & Ojo EO (2015) Challenges and opportunities for new faculty in South African higher education. In M Yudkevich, PG Altbach, LE Rumbley (Eds) Young faculty in the twenty-first century: International perspectives. Albany: State University of New York Press Szary A-L A, & Giraut F (2015) Borderities: The politics of contemporary mobile borders. In A-L A Szary & F Giraut (Eds) Borderities and the politics of contemporary mobile borders. Accessed September 2020, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137468857_1 UFS (University of the Free State) (n.d.) Integrated Transformation Plan. Accessed September 2020, https://www.ufs.ac.za/docs/default-source/all-documents/the-ufs-integratedtransformation-plan.pdf?sfvrsn=9752a521_0 Wilson A (2004) Foucault on the ‘question of the author’: A critical exegesis. The Modern Language Review 99: 339–363 Yudkevich M, Altbach PG & Rumbley LE (2015) Young faculty in the twenty-first century: International perspectives. Albany: State University of New York Press

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9

Transitioning capitals in international student mobility Faith Mkwananzi

The 2009 Human Development Report (HDR) on migration defined human development as the ‘expansion of people’s freedoms to live their lives as they choose’ as well as ‘putting people and their freedom at the centre of development and realising their potential, increasing their choices and enjoying the freedom to lead the lives they value’ (HDR 2009: 14–16). This chapter positions the ‘development’ discussion within this frame. Migration research that is informed by human development has been emerging globally, particularly within higher education (see Mkwananzi 2019; Zeus 2011). A significant strand of this research has looked at factors influencing access to, experiences in, and aspirations for higher education among different groups of young people. In South Africa, several education and migration studies have looked at experiences of schooling, social integration, identity and inclusion in host communities (see Crush & Tawodzera 2011; Palmary & Landau 2011). However, there remains a gap in education and migration research that focuses on international student mobility and what this means for the human development of migrant students. This kind of research is important considering that education – more so a higher education qualification – is a part of the process of human development contributing to diverse aspects of an individual’s life (Collins 2007; Mkwananzi 2019; Walker 2010). For international students, access to, and successful completion of university education, has the potential to prepare them for life (for example, leading to decent employment and social and economic integration) either in the host country or the country of origin. Therefore, a focus on higher education and migration becomes significant, especially the shifting facets of an individual’s social and career trajectory. Drawing on the narrative of Rene Tlou, a Zimbabwean migrant, the chapter looks at how higher education, in the context of international migration, is instrumental in individual development. The key focus is on the shifting economic, social, cultural and academic capitals resulting from both immigration and higher education. Engaging with transiting capitals as I conceptualise them in this chapter provides a detailed perspective on the correlation between migration and higher education. In doing so, the chapter also illustrates the interrelationship between diverse aspects of a person’s life, thus highlighting the multiple effects of migration. Such an understanding is pivotal in drawing attention to some of the salient ways in which migration contributes to broader human development. A key motive for focusing on university education in relation to migration in South Africa is that the country’s government has recently amended its migration policy

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in favour of international students. The policy allows international students seen to possess scarce skills obtained from South African universities to apply for a critical skills visa,1 in an endeavour to retain the skills acquired by international students. With limited academic discussions taking place on this subject, it is therefore timely to deliberate on what this may mean for human development going forward. The chapter also draws specific attention to non-academic experiences faced by international students, essential for understanding how they fare in a foreign university. Finally, as the story is located within Bloemfontein, attention is drawn to opportunities that exist for international students in parts of South Africa that have received less attention in migration studies. The chapter begins by providing the context of migration in South Africa and the increasing international student population over the years and provides a rationale for the importance of focusing on international student migration and how it contributes to human development. After that, a brief discussion on the theoretical framing and methodology is provided. Subsequently, Rene, the Zimbabwean migrant whose life story this chapter is based on, is introduced. Her story illustrates her trajectory of migrating as an international student and transitioning into the South African academic sector. Lastly, the chapter discusses the different transitioning capitals, as demonstrated by Rene’s story, and these are analysed from a human development point of view, in terms of what they mean, going forward.

Migration context in South Africa For a long time, Africa has been portrayed as a continent of people who are on the move, seeking to expand their livelihoods in various ways (Van Dijk et al. 2001). Recent decades have seen a considerable increase in South-to-South migration (Ratha & Shaw 2007) and despite its growing significance and global scope, Southto-South movement has been neglected in the global policy debate on immigration and development (Crush & Ramachandran 2010). In sub-Saharan Africa, migration has been an intrinsic component of the developmental process since the colonial era, notably in Southern Africa. Mines, such as in the Copperbelt in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), drew thousands of labourers from within the region (Crush et al. 2015). Wentzel and Tlabela (2006: 74) note that at the beginning of the 20th century, extensive migration patterns had emerged across Southern Africa based on labour possibilities around the industrial sector. Changes in migration patterns were evident in the 1980s, which saw increasing numbers of skilled migrants migrating within the Southern African region (Wentzel & Tlabela 2006). Although there are still those who aspire to migrate to the North, the change in migration patterns signals that the days are long gone when developed countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia were viewed as the only countries of immigration (Richmond 2010). South Africa has become one of the countries that have seen significant flows of migration over the years. The ‘negotiated transition’ from apartheid and the wars, disasters and famine elsewhere in Africa have been crucial factors in the rise of

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the numbers of migrants to South Africa (Trimikliniotis et al. 2009). The surge of migration to South Africa reflects how much such movement is the product of a historical relationship between South Africa and its neighbouring countries (Crush & James 1995) and shows that historical labour migration patterns are still evident in the present day. Trimikliniotis et al. (2009) argue that even before the gold rush of the 19th century, there was an established system of labour migration. The colonialists used migrant labour from the entire region for multiple purposes; development and wealth were products of various types of black labour (Trimikliniotis et al. 2009). For example, during the 1990s, farmers of eastern Free State became increasingly reliant on seasonal migrant labour, particularly from Lesotho (Ulicki & Crush 2010). Also, the bilateral agreement between South Africa and Lesotho, which is still in force, allows South African employers to recruit temporary labour in Lesotho on legal contracts (Crush & Tshitereke 2001). Consequently, although Johannesburg has become South Africa’s most populous city in recent years because of its financial and manufacturing activities (Peberdy et al. 2004) attracting both local and international migrants, there is significant migration to other parts of South Africa. One of these destinations is Bloemfontein, the provincial capital of the Free State Province. After the demise of apartheid in 1994, South Africa’s universities became open to students from all races, and a significant population of international students found their way to the University of the Free State (UFS), among many others in the country. Thus, the intensity in migration in the Free State province is not only because of agri-labour treaties, but also because of a significantly growing student population at two of the city’s universities. Complementing the ethnically and racially diverse population in the province – largely Afrikaans and Sesotho speaking people – is an internationally diverse group of migrants. According to online sources, as of 2011, Afrikaans ranked as the first language (42.5 per cent), followed by Sotho (33.4 per cent), English (7.5 per cent), Xhosa (7.1 per cent) and other (9.5 per cent). UFS and the Central University of Technology (CUT) are the two universities in the city, with UFS being one of the country’s oldest universities; it celebrated its centenary in 2004 (UFS 2019). Over the years, both the postgraduate school and the international office at the university have been placing the university on the global world map by strategically carrying out student recruitment campaigns in countries such as Zimbabwe, Namibia and Lesotho. The six faculties at the university offer a full range of under- and postgraduate programmes to more than 25 000 students (40 per cent of whom are post-graduates), including more than 2 400 international students as of 2018 (SARUA 2018). In addition to labour migration, there is growing international student migration, and this may be attributed to the growing field of higher education. As the world globalises, there is a shift in patterns of movement. As Castles and Miller (2009) asserted, a vital dimension of the globalisation process is the increase in crossborder flows encompassing diverse aspects of human interaction, such as trade

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and exchange of ideologies and knowledge. This knowledge sharing is exhibited in multiple ways, including access to education, whose one aspect has been represented by the internationalisation of higher education (Arshad-Ayaz 2008; Banya 2008; Naidoo 2011). There has, however, been mounting cynicism of internationalisation, particularly in migration and higher education debates. According to Van der Wende (2017), part of the cynicism has been expressed through xenophobic and discriminatory practices towards international students in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and South Africa. The political arguments have often been around the costs and benefits of international students and worrying about reduced opportunities and access for domestic students (Van der Wende 2017). Further arguments have been on the internationalisation of higher education as an elite cosmopolitan project, focusing on global rankings and the resulting reputation race with its annual tables of losers and winners, and with the aim of recruiting international students for institutional income. These arguments express frustration about the potential neglect of local students and focus on the social project of the university, that of building communities (Van der Wende 2017). However, all universities are exposed to globalisation, partly as objects (victims), but also – especially research universities – as subjects or critical agents of globalisation. Murray et al. (2012: 2) attribute part of the rise of international student migration to the strong growth in the global demand for education, training and research. Also, the emergence of the knowledge economy (Banya 2008; Marginson 2010; Unger 2019) and attitudes to higher education have changed considerably, thereby impacting significantly on the movement of international students. The impact of a globalising higher education landscape and the need to fit into the international arena was evidenced by the former South African Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Malusi Gigaba,2 when he noted during one of his addresses to international students that South Africa values international students and contributions they make to the country (Intergate Immigration 2015). A significant contribution of the international students was viewed to be the way they connect South Africa with the rest of Africa and the world (Intergate Immigration 2015). As a result, higher education institutions can no longer exempt themselves from the changing world. This argument is similar to the one that no country can entirely disassociate itself from the current migration landscape, as all countries are either directly or indirectly affected. Yet, in this same vein, it is important to understand that the benefits of migration, and the relationship between a host country and the migrant student, are reciprocal. From a human development perspective, the chapter highlights that migration and internationalisation of higher education have an impact on the individual and the rest of the world. While universities may gain international recognition and financial income in form of university fees paid by students, international students also obtain knowledge and exposure, which could have been different had they remained in their home countries. If students remain in the host country to take up employment, they become part of the remittance

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process by sending money back home. Although these effects of migration are often measurable from an instrumental point of view, equally often they are not, as they have to do with concealed individual values. In South Africa, internationalisation of higher education began in the early 1990s when the education sector was aligning to political reforms. According to ICEF Monitor, in 2013, South African universities saw close to 74 000 international student undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments, which accounted for nearly 8 per cent of the student body; of these, 15 per cent of postgraduate students were international, with international students comprising only 6 per cent of the undergraduate cohort (ICEF Monitor 2013). In comparison, in 1994, international enrolments were 12 600 (MacGregor 2014). Some of the reasons South Africa attracts an increasingly international student body may be associated with the language of instruction, which is English, especially for students coming from English-speaking countries; proximity, especially for those from sub-Saharan Africa; and affordable tuition fees, particularly for students from within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Many of the students come from Zimbabwe due to proximity, as well as to the political and economic crisis in their country, which affects their access to higher education back home. Maringe and Gibbs (2009) note that political and economic instability in Zimbabwe are vital factors that propel aspiring graduates to study in South Africa. Like most of the SADC students, Zimbabwean students benefit from paying university fees, which is the same as local students. Through availing these learning opportunities to students from within the continent, South Africa contributes to the development of much-needed human resources in Africa. As such, South African higher education institutions are key role players in the globalisation, migration and education nexus. The International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) reports that the anticipation has always been that African students studying in South Africa would remain and take up employment within the continent, which would have been different if they had studied abroad (in the Global North) and took up opportunities to remain outside of Africa (IEASA 2010). The approach of keeping African graduates within the continent would retain the acquired skills, thereby contributing to various facets of Africa’s development. Because of this nexus, the internationalisation of higher education has paved the way for diversified labour migration. While in earlier years migrant labourers – at least in South Africa – were commonly found in manual labour industries such as the farming and mining sectors, access to higher education in the country by international migrants has provided a shift in the labour landscape. More and more international students find themselves in various industries, including academia. John Salt argued in the early 1990s that the modern-day characteristics of labour migration reflect the globalisation of the world economy and labour markets. In this way, many countries are becoming players in the globalisation of migration (Salt 1992). Regarding this foreseen value of labour migration, Gigaba noted, ‘We want to

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make it easy and straightforward for those students who are interested in staying in South Africa after graduating to do so’ (Intergate Immigration 2015). The rationale behind this sentiment is that South Africa, like any other country in the world, cannot produce all the skills it needs and would benefit from international student skills (Intergate Immigration 2015). Consequently, one of the key benefits for the country in retaining qualified international students is their contribution to the skills required by the country. Also, as a matter of reciprocity, such opportunities not only provide the country with skills, but they also provide international students with opportunities to transition into their chosen careers with ease. Therefore, in 2014 the government made a provision in the migration policy that allows a particular category of student graduating from the country’s universities to apply for a critical skills visa,3 which would ultimately grant them permanent residency in the country. While some may argue against such a policy in a country where youth graduate unemployment contributes 31 per cent to the total 55.2 per cent unemployed young people (15–24 years old) (StatsSA 2019); for international students, this may be an opportunity to tap into other skills such as starting up consultancies, while legally in the country.

Understanding international students’ capitals through narrative storytelling I adopt the HDR’s (2009) position on development to interpret how the different capitals (academic, economic, social and cultural) are converted into resources within structural arrangements (Bourdieu 1986). These various forms of capital accumulate within fields where agents and their social positions are located. Bourdieu (1986) argued that people from different social positions differ from one another concerning their possession of capitals. Each of these capitals can be instrumental in shaping migrant experiences. Often originating within the university, academic capital is a form of power that accrues in response to various practices that take place within the university system (Bourdieu 1988). For international students, the university may provide knowledge, skills and exposure to new opportunities, all of which may be necessary to develop their capabilities. According to Sen (1992), capabilities constitute the freedoms and opportunities for individuals to live the lives that they have reason to value. As such, the different forms of capital may be seen to profoundly influence what individuals can and are able to do or become. In terms of social capital, Bourdieu (1986) noted that this is connected to groups and networks and enables individuals to exert power on the group. Putnam (2000) highlighted that social capital results from shared experiences, cultural norms or shared purposes. For international students, social capital may be derived from family background, home community and influences, academic achievement, or aspirations. In addition to social capital, cultural capital in the form of a migrant’s values, skills, knowledge and tastes has an impact on educational attainment. This

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is in addition to the non-material and material assets necessary for students to migrate to South Africa and fare while in the country. Part of these material assets are to do with financial resources that inform economic capital and can be used to acquire or fund university education. These resources, pulled together, provide migrant students with the academic capital necessary to function in a foreign land. This capital may further develop as a result of the successful completion of a degree and the intellectual capability advanced or acquired during the process. Thus, academic capital may be viewed in two ways. One view may be based on St John et al.’s (2011) definition of academic capital as a set of social processes that aid students in acquiring the knowledge and support necessary to access and navigate higher education (in this case, the social, cultural and economic factors). Often, these opportunities allow students from underrepresented backgrounds to access and navigate systems of higher education successfully. Another view may be based on Bourdieu’s (1988) definition of academic capital as accumulated in the form of the skills and knowledge acquired during the learning process and related to research achievement and expertise and an intellectual or scholarly reputation. International students can then use their academic capital (through their education and related academic experience) to gain a place in society. Thus, as other capitals are influenced by diverse factors, academic capital is also made up of various elements, such as the academic institution attended, publications produced, and networks created by the individual. Although not easily quantifiable (which anyway is not the intention of this chapter) the social, economic and cultural capitals may be seen to represent a set of capabilities necessary to advance other opportunities in one’s life, including academic progression. This is further demonstrated by Rene’s narrative. From this theoretical backing, what the chapter hopes to achieve is to illustrate a multi-dimensionality of migrant experiences and how these may be reproduced in society. To make a theoretical analysis, as discussed above, the chapter draws on a single case narrative. By using a narrative storytelling technique, Rene’s story offers a different way of knowing and discovering a migrant’s lived experiences. According to Clandinin and Connelly (2000), the knowledge created through real stories of individuals provides valuable insights into the multidimensionality of human lives. Such a technique views the storyteller as the expert and is an opportunity to provide an in-depth focus on lives, experiences, socio-cultural conditions and desires (Clandinin & Connelly 2000). As affirmed by Byrne-Armstrong (2001: 112), the purpose of narratives is not to find a generalisable truth but rather to ‘tell different types of truths’. Based on this position, this chapter does not seek to provide representativity, but to share a unique story that exists among many other stories of migrants in South Africa. In consequence, the story is illuminative rather than generalisable.

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Rene Tlou’s story When I was younger, I had never imagined myself doing the kind of work that I am doing today. I had wanted to be in business management; then, I wanted to be in media and then later, I wanted to do a programme on youth and community development work. All I had were dreams and visions of being a better person, to have better than I had, in terms of resources. My career path started to take shape when I migrated to Bloemfontein 12 years ago, and this has influenced other dimensions of my life socially and my general view of the world. I migrated to Bloemfontein in 2006 to undertake undergraduate studies in public administration, again this time I had a different aspiration. I wanted to be a politician back home and this was motivated by the different challenges that Zimbabwe was experiencing at the time. Before arriving in Bloemfontein, I had mistaken the city for Braamfontein, a suburb in Johannesburg. So, while still back in Zimbabwe, I had always thought I would be moving to Johannesburg, at the University of the Free State, in Braamfontein. Little did I know that Bloemfontein was four hours away. I was surprised when one day I called the university, the day before travelling, to arrange transportation from the station and learned that I would have to catch a bus and that the journey would be a five-hour drive. I was disappointed. Not because of the long journey, but because I would not be in Johannesburg. I had wanted to study in Johannesburg because that was the city that I had always heard about back home. Everybody who came home from South Africa always spoke about ‘eGoli’.4 Every young person wanted to be in this place. The impression we had growing up had always been that Joburg – as they also call Johannesburg – was where the life was at, it was the heart of South Africa and because of that, I could not imagine anywhere else that was not Johannesburg. I had never heard about Bloemfontein, so migrating to Bloemfontein was by default, and never a choice I intentionally thought about. I am not sure what I would have decided had I known that Bloemfontein was not a part of Johannesburg. One of the primary reasons I applied to the University of the Free State, or UFS, was that it was the only university I was aware of at the time that offered my programme of choice starting the second semester. With the other universities, I would have had to apply in August/September for the following year’s intake of students. The second reason was that upon comparing costs online, UFS seemed to be one of the affordable universities, which fit well with the funds that were available for my study. So, I packed my bags and headed for Bloemfontein, South Africa. Prior to moving to Bloemfontein, I was an ordinary home young girl, known around the community as most young people were, but with no

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significance. Daily life was mundane, doing chores in the morning [as a school leaver] and spending time with friends for the rest of the day, sometimes volunteering. I had tried to find work at some point but had not got anything, and I think the problem may have been that I was looking for any work, maybe if I had been more specific...But also, it is at that time that the economic and political situation back home was unstable. Oh! It is also at the same time that my friends and I were part of a youth initiative driven to create youth employment. We started a bicycle courier business, but again, because of the unstable economy, it dwindled. This was followed by an attempt at catering services, providing lunches around working professionals in the city. This is the time when I left for Bloemfontein. The opportunity to study at the University of the Free State was an unanticipated breakthrough in my life. While the thought of leaving my friends, family and community behind was scary, the economic instability in Zimbabwe at the time had pushed out many of the youth that I knew, including some of my friends. Most of my friends had migrated to Johannesburg and are still there; hence I always knew Johannesburg to be where everyone was going to and where I would eventually go to someday. None of my friends had migrated to study; all had been job seekers and had found jobs in the hospitality sector doing waitressing. They all seemed to be doing well. They could afford to send groceries back home once in a while; they would help their families in any way they could. So, based on that, my peers who had migrated to South Africa seemed to be doing pretty well than all those who had stayed behind, including myself. So, I did not have the privilege of peer-to-peer advice or mentorship concerning education or how studying in South Africa would be like. I had to figure it all out when I got to Bloemfontein. When I migrated to Bloemfontein, I also had hopes of a similar, better life for myself and my family. Although I was migrating as a student, I knew I would have to help my family back home. That was the unsaid expectation that came with migration for anyone migrating, not only me. As long as you are outside the country, you would give something to the upkeep of the family. This was difficult at first; my studies were sponsored and there was never excess funds. Also, upon arriving here, I had to adjust to the environment first before I was even able to think of searching for parttime work. But when I had settled in, I managed to balance my studies with extra work and save a little for home but as a student, I was not as successfully doing this compared to my peers who were working full time. When I arrived in Bloemfontein, almost all the black people were speaking a language that I did not understand at all. This fascinated me, and I wanted to learn the language. One of the reasons I wanted to

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learn the language was so that I could speak it upon returning home and reinforce my newfound culture and identity. Although I had always thought that white people spoke English all the time, I was surprised to hear another language, a language that I did not understand either, and this was Afrikaans. It would have been impossible for me to learn all these new languages, but I did learn the basics. Meeting fellow students at registration halls and people in the buses to town had been my first points of exposure. In Johannesburg, almost everyone that I came across spoke a language that I could identify with, isiXhosa and isiZulu, which are similar to my home language, isiNdebele. Being in Bloemfontein did feel that indeed I had arrived in another country outside my comfort zone. Every time a fellow student spoke to me, I would always have to respond in English with ‘sorry, I don’t understand what you are saying’. This prompted the question ‘where are you from?’ and all the time I had to explain that I was from Zimbabwe. This was worse every time I was on the bus to town, an elderly woman next to me would always want to chat about the hot sun or the news on the radio. Tired of explaining that I cannot understand, I would always respond with a smile and look aside out of the window. And sometimes, respond with one of the local languages, isiZulu, a language that some of the ‘Bloemfonteiners’ do not understand. That would be the end of the conversation. Well, as time progressed, I started to understand Sesotho. Sometimes the conversation would go on in two languages, and till today the conversations still happen in two languages. Although socially and culturally adjusting was difficult at first, I managed to slowly integrate with the help of fellow students. Most of the students would also get surprised when they heard me speaking in isiZulu because they were not aware that one of their local languages was spoken in Zimbabwe. What brought the different students from diverse backgrounds together was the desire to achieve the same goal at university, obtaining our qualifications. When I arrived in Bloemfontein in 2006, there were not a lot of international students from Zimbabwe as there are currently. Most of my friends were South Africans, a few from Namibia and Lesotho. So, when I first arrived here, I had to learn Sesotho and in the process made many Sotho friends from within and outside Bloemfontein, most of whom I have maintained ties with to date. I had a friend from the township here in Bloem [short for Bloemfontein] who would invite me for sleepovers at her home every weekend and her mother would cook for us. Being away from home, being part of a family was important for me. It made me feel comfortable in a foreign land. Some of my friends invited me to church, and slowly I integrated into the local society. As time progressed I got to know about the Zimbabwean student association where Zimbabwean

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students would have braais5 and celebrations every independence day (18 April). It is during these gatherings that I met a number of Zimbabwean students. I also stayed in shared university residences where I met a lot of people from different backgrounds, young and old. Since being here, there has been a noticeable shift in the number of migrant students on campus. Over the years the number of international students, including Zimbabwean students, on campus has grown and almost half of the people in my social circle are from Zimbabwe and a few from other African countries other than Namibia and Lesotho. Based on my experiences of visiting friends and family in Johannesburg, it is almost difficult to compare the two cities. Bloemfontein is calm and less congested as it is a fairly small city and easy to get around from one place to another. I would not really be sure in terms of economic opportunities. That would largely depend on the sector or field that one is in. Since my first year here at the university, I have always been doing extra work to supplement my finances. During Bachelor's study, a few friends and I did in-store promotions for various products and we would make additional pocket money. I also did a lot of online writing [for an advertising agency] as extra work and saved this money to buy groceries when it was time to go back home during the December holidays. While this was not an expectation, it has always been a responsibility that I took upon myself providing for those at home in any way that I could. So the opportunity to supplement pocket money has always been there. Since graduating from the first degree, I have been able to increase my financial contribution back home, doing more than I previously could. Now, with a decent income through the research that I do and more opportunities for additional income such as assisting in departmental projects there certainly has been financial progression. This makes it much easier to financially support my family back home and I am now also able to help students in high schools with what I can. Because of the opportunity to get an education, I have steadily grown professionally, socially, and financially. I have had the opportunities to progress in the different levels of education at UFS. While this has made my stay in Bloemfontein longer than I had expected, the academic opportunities have made me discover various potentials that I was not aware of. Other than the chances of academic progression being available, although often competitive, I appreciate that UFS provides an environment that is conducive for me to be part of the kind of research that defines my future goals. My friends, colleagues and mentors have been very helpful in terms of supporting me up to where I am. The opportunity to do a PhD carved a career path that I had not anticipated, even years ago when I had been contemplating about different

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professions, that of research. I must say that since taking up university education, I have developed an interest in what is happening in the world, how people respond to it and think about alternatives to how other people think the problems of the world should be addressed. Before this, I was naïve, maybe it was lack of exposure, but now I don’t take anything at face value. I have to apply my mind to anything I am dealing with and weigh the pros and cons and what it would mean for the kind of work that I am interested in, which is research in higher education and social justice. I have been exposed to various academic opportunities, which I think in addition to the qualifications I possess, are instrumental for future research opportunities in and outside the academy. The opportunity to attend and present at local and national conferences during my tenure here has created networks with peers. I have been involved in collaborative work, which has been instrumental for exposure to the world and to knowledge, as well as for experience. This exposure has also led me to accept each and every individual that I come across, their values, beliefs, and way of doing things. In Zim [short for Zimbabwe], I was used to doing things independently, never really teamwork. But now, having to work in teams has taught me to understand that I exist in an ecosystem that is interconnected, people who ought to be respected and structures, systems and processes that need to be followed. Since I obtained my PhD two years ago, I have been working towards establishing stronger networks with fellow researchers both locally and globally. Being in Bloemfontein has allowed me to grow my academic profile, which before coming to the university, I had never imagined would be the way my career trajectory unfolded. Being here has exposed me to different possibilities. (Rene Tlou, aged 34, researcher at UFS, November 2018)

Understanding the transitioning of capitals Rene’s story provides an example of how different capitals work interchangeably and simultaneously at particular points of one’s life experiences, and in the process, the elements influencing the capitals may change to adopt another capital’s nature. For example, while the ability to borrow money from a friend may be seen as social capital, it may well transition to economic capital once the payment is acquired. At the same time, borrowing money from a friend might be seen as drawing on social capital to address a lack of economic capital. The story further illustrates certain advancements in social, cultural and economic capitals as a result of migration and access to higher education. The story depicts Hazelkorn’s (2011) observation of higher education’s interaction with multiple factors. In Rene’s narrative, it is evident that the social, economic and cultural capitals that were advanced through access to university education constituted the academic capital that was necessary for her to acquire the knowledge and skills

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she possesses. Although the social and cultural capitals were limited while still in Zimbabwe, these were advanced upon arrival in South Africa. While the social, cultural and economic factors constituted the academic capital Rene required to succeed as an international student, these factors also resulted in the advancement of other educational abilities in her life discussed below. Figure 9.1 summarises the interrelationship of these capitals. Figure 9.1 Interrelationship between academic and other capitals

Economic capital

Cultural capital

Academic capital

Social capital

Source: The author

Figure 9.1 illustrates the points I raised earlier, how different capitals are interlinked, with elements of each capital taking place simultaneously, and with a possibility of one capital mirroring another.

Economic capital Economic capital constituted the essential material resources necessary for Rene to migrate to South Africa and fare while doing her studies. Part of these material assets had to do with financial resources that Rene could use to acquire or fund her university education. Drawing on St John et al. (2011) such assets, collectively combined, provide international students with the capital necessary to function in a foreign land. Economic capital may further develop as a result of the successful completion of a degree and the intellectual capabilities advanced or acquired during the process. Rene notes that when she arrived in Bloemfontein, she had just enough money to study – with no additional income. Her limited financial resources necessitated her to find extra work. However, the opportunity to work part time as a student strengthened this capital and allowed her to send money back home. This highlights the major impact of economic capital in contexts of migration, regardless of the purpose of immigration. Also, the limited availability of financial resources

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determined the things that Rene was able to do combined with her other obligations. For example, because of responsibilities back home, she had to forego other activities she may have been part of so that she could do additional work. Economic capital also includes several social factors, such as the standard of living in the host country. This entails making decisions on the type of accommodation, whether it is located on or off campus, and whether it is shared or individually rented. Such decisions influence other factors such as safety, mobility to university and flexibility to attend afternoon or evening classes, among other things. While having little economic capital may be seen to cause stress and feelings of powerlessness, with the potential of ultimately having a negative influence on academic achievement, Rene exercised agency throughout her experience as an international student. Her exercise of agency is, therefore, not only seen in her decision to migrate to South Africa but also by being engaged in extra income-generating activities as a student. Rene’s agency was also supported by her peers (supporting her in collegial ways) and the university (for example, when she worked at a university department). This is evidence that agency can be collective, through the support of those around us as well as the institutions in which we operate. The successful balancing of these activities has yielded positive outcomes for Rene. She now has opportunities for decent employment compared to when she first arrived. Even when she decides to return home, she will be in a position to apply for various jobs because of her educational attainment. Access to decent employment has the potential to increase economic spending for Rene, her family and community, contributing to broader development.

Social capital Social capital emerged to be necessary for transitioning into higher education, particularly for international students, as they do so outside their comfort zone and away from the help and support of family and friends. Bensimon (2007) and Scanlon et al. (2007) assert that generally, students inherit social capital from being in the academic environment and having social interactions with their fellow students. For Rene, new support structures, including friends, lecturers and university systems (for example, access to resources such as a library and computer laboratory) were instrumental for her transition and subsequent university life and experience as an international student. Although it may have been a challenge for Rene to get used to the new language and culture, the discomfort of being culturally isolated motivated her to interact with people from different backgrounds. This was important for learning new languages, values and practices, as well as instrumental for a cosmopolitan experience. While fellow international students from Zimbabwe may have helped to orient Rene, reliance on familiar networks would have perhaps isolated her from a diversified international experience (Lin & Erickson 2008). So, one may argue that the absence of supportive structures poses an unequal experience for international students, yet students have the potential to learn a lot outside their comfort zone. Thus, while inequality of social capital among diverse student groups

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is well documented (Lin & Erickson 2008), it is important to account for individual agency in navigating university experiences and in so doing acquiring new capabilities. Another dimension worth highlighting is that while the common social capital deficit in South Africa tends to focus on social class, race and gender, this is different for international migrants. As in Rene’s story, the social capital deficit may be attributed to nationality before the rest of the factors come into play, particularly the fact that she could not identify with fellow Zimbabweans upon arrival. A significant reason Rene could not identify with Zimbabweans was that she had not met anyone who came from her hometown and therefore spoke a similar language. The importance of language to experience illustrates that cultural and social capitals intersect. Thus, even as higher education institutions continue to host international students as part of the internationalisation process, it is essential to consider the dynamic and different needs that inform an international student experience. On the other hand, as a result of the social and cultural capital that Rene has acquired, she has the potential to access diverse opportunities. This is mainly due to the collaborations that she is part of. Lua et al. (2013) assert that the value of such social resources depends on the strength of the relationship, which often requires trust. If the collaborations that Rene is part of are successful, this may strengthen these relationships and widen her collaborative networks. The potential benefits of such links based on successful partnership may be respect and recognition in society, within the family, peers and seniors in the field. It is these long-lasting social connections and relationships that make Rene feel part of the social and academic community. Therefore, these affiliations go beyond her kinship to include the local South African students who are her peers, most of whom have become part of her family. She reports that she has often travelled with local friends back to Zimbabwe and her family has always accepted and been welcoming to what she calls her newfound family. Such social exchanges have not only strengthened her social capital but have been instrumental in strengthening cultural relations, which often have the potential to reproduce sustained social relationships, making individuals feel that they belong to the same network.

Cultural capital According to Gang and Zimmerman (2000), a student’s cultural capital depends heavily on their family, and because this capital depends on the immediate context, it is often not easily transferrable between contexts. As a result, valuable familial, cultural capital would be devaluated in the process of migration. This capital is in the form of competencies, skills, knowledge and values that, because of context specificity, have to be learned upon arrival in a new country. For migrants, cultural capital would, therefore, encompass differences between and within countries, as well as systems in institutions of learning (Dustmann et al. 2012). This is exhibited in Rene’s story and is intertwined with social capital – learning new and different social values, norms and practices. Concerning the university system, UFS was the first

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university that Rene was exposed to and she had no prior capital in relation to this aspect. Although Rene struggled with language upon arriving in Bloemfontein, over the years, she adapted and learned Sesotho, which has enabled her to converse with the local citizens. This highlights Bourdieu’s (1986) assertion that cultural capital is not acquired instantly and cannot be passed from one individual to another but must be acquired slowly, over time, and in person. Accordingly, being in an environment for long enough to learn, as in Rene’s case, is essential. It is the immersion in the host society, with its different social and cultural environments, which underlies the value inherent in the international student experience.

Academic capital As noted earlier, academic capital constituted two facets: the processes that aided Rene to acquire knowledge at university, and the scholarly achievements in the form of skills and knowledge she obtained, which she may use as current or future capital within the academy. The economic, social and cultural capitals helped Rene transition successfully into university. The ability to pay tuition, interact with peers in and away from the classroom, and function within a university culture that was not hers became the key resources that aided Rene to navigate the higher education system in an unfamiliar national context. Returning to Bourdieu’s (1988) view of academic capital, the skills and knowledge that Rene obtained through her studies have been instrumental in her current involvement as a researcher and have also clarified her aspirations for the future. The networks and collaborations she is involved in are important for future opportunities. Rene highlights that she has been studying over the years, acquiring new knowledge, which exposes her to the world. Presentations at national and international conferences come with skills such as presentation techniques, confidence and eloquence, which get developed over time through practice. The knowledge that she has acquired has inculcated self-awareness in her. The fact that Rene is not passive when it comes to development around the world and thinks about how she could push for changes in her most immediate environment, while taking other peoples’ values and structures into consideration, is vital. From Nussbaum’s (2006: 388) perspective, Rene’s self-examination would mean that she refuses to accept knowledge and systems passively but instead acquires the capability to ‘reason logically’ and challenge what she hears, sees, or reads. Rene highlights that she never knew she had the potential necessary for being in academia, yet throughout her studies, she has identified that she has the potential to do what she had not aspired to in earlier years. As a researcher, she has also formed an academic identity defined by Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) as the extent to which one feels one belongs to the greater academic community, one’s experience of personal academic worth and one’s visibility in the academic environment. Through networking and collaborations, Rene is visible to the broader local, national and international scholarly community. This visibility is necessary for Rene if she decides to stay in academia permanently.

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The academic identity that she possesses will, therefore, become her professional identity (Scanlon et al. 2007; Trede et al. 2012). While developing an ‘academic’ and professional identity may not have been something Rene had anticipated before migrating, this development highlights the fluid nature of individual aspirations based on several opportunities, such as exposure, social support and availability of networks, as well as the various kinds of activities that one takes to achieve one’s goals. This agency may also be characterised by Rene’s ability to integrate socially and culturally to accomplish this academic capital. This is despite her not having had prior exposure or any association with academics from a variety of cultural backgrounds. The fact that she can function well and succeed in such a space may be seen as a sign of agency, motivation and willingness to learn, which may be unexpressed capabilities that Rene possesses. As Appadurai (1996) notes, while moving to a new environment has important consequences, individuals retain and develop new agencies in new environments that are related to their imaginations, thoughts and ability to aspire. Academic capital has, from Rene’s story, impacted on the economic, social and cultural aspects of her life. Such knowledge may be seen as a foundation to economic, social and political power and this can impact individual and broader development.

What this may mean for migration and education Through migration and accessing higher education Rene was able to complete her studies and progress to postgraduate education, which she had not initially intended to. Within this space, she was exposed to other educational opportunities related to research, which have made her develop an interest in a field that she had not been aware of. Throughout her stay in South Africa, Rene has developed economic, social, cultural and academic capitals, and these different capitals influenced each other. For example, Rene’s cultural capital, which enables her to interact with diverse groups at times in their languages, strengthened her social capital. It is through this social capital that she can know about other opportunities such as, for instance, part-time work, which subsequently influences her economic capital. Academic capital for Rene emerges to be the pivot of all other forms of capital. She believes that without the knowledge she has acquired over the years, she may not have been in a similar position. Her decision to remain in South Africa to establish a career is in line with research that shows how international student mobility is an essential channel through which high-skilled immigrants arrive (Suter & Jandl 2006). The view that immigration can expand the production possibilities in the host country and thus increase the overall demand for labour is therefore valid, making international student mobility a vital channel of high-skilled immigration. Illustrated by the South African Department of Home Affairs’ flexing of migration policies for international student graduates to remain in the country, international students are increasingly considered a valued contribution to the hosts’ labour market. Their awareness and familiarity with the host community and the capitals they have developed while integrating into society become advantageous for both the students and the host community. Based on these

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opportunities for integration, international students to likely stay in the host country after having completed their studies (see Dreher & Poutvaara 2011; Tremblay 2001). It is, therefore, safe to postulate that interactions are generally influenced by norms and values, which influence reciprocity in networks leading to instrumental and intrinsic benefits. The capitals highlighted above have both intrinsic and instrumental benefits, which may be considered important as they contribute to the wellbeing of international students. The intrinsic values may be deduced from Rene’s assertion of the new perceptions that her community has about her, particularly the view that she is a role model, which highlights social recognition and respect. Her ability to make decisions about her career and the activities that she is part of indicates a sense of autonomy in decision-making, which may be seen as a social achievement. Instrumentally, although migration often raises the question of brain drain, the ability for Rene to take up various economic opportunities within the university is a necessary capability for her to be able to live a decent life. However, in the South African context, it is essential to take into account the impact of socio-economic inequality on Rene’s potential progression, which has a hierarchical social class system that is captured in the literature (Gelb 2003; Leibbrandt et al. 2011; Van der Berg 2009). Considerations of gender and race are central to the transformations necessitated by South Africa’s complex colonial and postcolonial history (Rehbein 2018). Although Rene reported experiencing neither racial nor gender segregation as a black migrant woman, the immigrant status is not considered in South African transformation policies and often may be a barrier to progression. Therefore, although she may be a black woman – often seen to benefit from gender equality redistribution and affirmative action policies, her nationality may limit opportunities for progression, especially in contexts where gender and race constitute influencing factors. Generally, there is a dearth of literature on how gender, race and nationality intersect with each other. Figure 9.2 illustrates the potential interaction of gender, race and nationality with the four capitals as Rene progresses within the formal labour system. Although there may be competition for already scarce jobs, resulting in economic uncertainty among migrants, as found by Blaauw et al. (2015), a higher education equips one with skills that others in the competitive field may not possess.

Conclusion This chapter demonstrates that the relationship between migration and higher education operates in different ways that cannot be overlooked. It further highlights the interrelationship of the capitals discussed. While economic capital may seem to be the most important, as it determines whether or not the international students can migrate to South Africa, social and cultural capitals are also important as they influence the emotional and psychosocial wellbeing of international students,

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Figure 9.2 Labour market influencers for international students

Gender

Race

Economic capital Cultural capital

Academic capital

Social capital

Source: The author

particularly considering that they are often far from supportive families. An imbalance in the availability of these capitals may lead to undesirable consequences. For example, a lack of financial capital may lead to deregistration from the university system; lack of social and cultural capital may lead to one being homesick, at times leading to conditions such as depression. These challenges have a negative effect on the outcomes of academic capital, as opportunities that come through being part of the academy may be missed. As they are acquired and maintained by international students, these capitals become critical factors in directing the future of the students – whether they remain in the host country or return home. It is these capitals that migrants often take back home, giving the returning graduates the confidence to participate in public and political discussions. With the new knowledge at hand, international students can directly or indirectly inform policy-makers and provide directions for development. It has also been this chapters’ goal to contribute to the literature on international migration by focusing on the international student experience. This contribution mainly adds to work in Southern Africa, where some authors have written extensively about the various strands of mobility, but often looking at refugees and labour migrants, as noted at the beginning of the chapter.

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Endnotes 1

See https://www.vfsglobal.com/dha/southafrica/pdf/immigration_critical_skills_160416.pdf.

2

In office 25 May 2014 to 31 March 2017, and again 27 February 2018 to 13 November 2018.

3 See Immigration Act 13 of 2002 (as amended). Also see https://www.vfsglobal.com/dha/ southafrica/pdf/immigration_critical_skills_160416.pdf. 4

This is a name used to refer to Johannesburg and at times the province where it is located.

5

Also known as barbeque.

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Trede F, Macklin R & Bridges D (2012) Professional identity development: A review of the higher education literature. Studies in Higher Education (37): 365–384 Tremblay K (2001) Student mobility between and towards OECD countries in 2001: A comparative analysis. In OECD (Ed.) International mobility of the highly skilled. Paris: OECD-SOPEMI Trimikliniotis N, Gordon S & Zondo B (2009) Globalisation and migrant labour in a rainbow nation: A fortress South Africa? In R Munck (Ed.) Globalization and migration: New issues, new politics. London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group UFS (University of the Free State) (2019) Then and now. Accessed May 2019, https://www.ufs. ac.za/about-the-ufs/ufs-in-focus/brief-history Ulicki T & Crush J (2010) Poverty, gender and migrancy: Lesotho’s migrant farmworkers in South Africa. In J Crush & B Frayne (Eds) Surviving on the move: Migration, poverty, and development in Southern Africa. Cape Town: Logo Print Unger R (2019) The knowledge economy. OECD. Accessed April 2019, https://www.oecd.org/ naec/THE-KNOWLEDGE-ECONOMY.pdf Van der Berg S (2009) The persistence of inequalities in education. In J Aron, B Kahn & G Kingdon (Eds) South African economic policy under democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press Van der Wende M (2017) How do globalisation forces affect higher education systems? University World News, Issue No: 465. Accessed October 2020, http://www.universityworldnews.com/ article.php?story=20170620114312877 Van Dijk H, Foeken D & Van Til, K (2001) Population mobility in Africa: An overview. In M de Bruijn, R van Dijk & D Foeken. Mobile Africa: Changing patterns of movement in Africa and beyond. Volume 1. Leiden: Brill Walker M (2010) Critical capability pedagogies and university education. Educational Philosophy and Theory 42(8): 898–917 Wentzel M & Tlabela K (2006) Historical background to South African migration. In P Kok, D Gelderblom, JO Oucho & J van Zyl (Eds) Migration in South and southern Africa: Dynamics and determinants. Cape Town: HSRC Press Zeus B (2011) Exploring barriers to higher education in protracted refugee situations: The case of Burmese refugees in Thailand. Journal of Refugee Studies 24(2): 256–276

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10

Migration change processes of a migrant couple: A social morphogenetic approach Adesuwa Vanessa Agbedahin

This chapter presents the stories of a Zimbabwean migrant couple in Bloemfontein, South Africa. As an overview of the social environment where migrants experience Bloemfontein has been given in the first chapters of this book, I begin by paying attention to Zimbabwe, the couple’s country of origin. The couple is composed of a male and a female; the male being ‘he’, ‘man’ and ‘husband’, and the female being ‘she’, ‘woman’ and ‘wife’. They are both highly skilled academic migrants, permanently resident and employed in Bloemfontein. This chapter aims to present an analysis of the social morphogenesis of the couple’s migration experience from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Migration experience can be researched, understood, explained and documented using various theoretical, methodological and analytical tools, approaches and perspectives. This chapter aims to operationalise Archer’s (1995; 1998) morphogenesis social theory of change by describing migration change processes empirically. There is a lack of empirical application of this social learning theory to migration studies, and particularly with individuals and families in higher education. This is primarily because there is a common knowledge that social learning theories can only be used to analyse and understand dialogues and systems. However, I provide empirical evidence that a social learning and change theory can also be used to understand the multidimensional learning processes of individuals concerning their interaction with other individuals, social spaces, contexts and systems. This novel approach to exploring individual and family migration change processes is both viable and effective. I further argue that a lack of objective self-reflective individual learning and change is one of the reasons for the collective and systemic continuous reproduction of unhealthy practices in our world. Moreover, this chapter demonstrates that social learning techniques can be used not only to make sense of dialogues, but also of monologues with other monologues1 or dialogues within institutions and societies. This chapter thus provides an unconventional but intellectual way of understanding the migration dynamics of individuals – and not just of a group of people – with inherently peculiar individual personalities, identities and status. The chapter also highlights the possibility of simplifying the complex relations that exist between individual agency, collective agency, institutional and national cultures and structures. Drawing on the narrated life story of a Zimbabwean couple, this chapter analytically distinguishes the cycles of socio-structural/agential conditioning,

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social-cultural interaction and structural/agential elaboration or reproduction. It implicitly and explicitly demonstrates how social class positionalities of this couple are entangled with their other identity formations, including gender, race, nationality, background, marital status, motherhood and fatherhood. The chapter highlights the efficacy of the couple’s human capitals (expertise, high level of education, experience, work ethics, agency and relational agency), and how these pragmatically shape, to a large extent, their migration experience. The morphogenetic methodology and cycle structurally help to understand the migration phases of socialisation, assimilation, integration, belonging, social cohesion, development and transformation. The morphogenetic society (micro-political space) where the couple operates (higher education) is also empirically foregrounded.

Brief methodology Using the morphogenesis social theory of change, and corresponding methodology and cycle by Archer (1995; 1998), the research aimed to investigate the change processes of the migrant couple. The three questions that guided this research are: (1) What were the socio-cultural and agential conditioning factors in the couple’s lives before migrating to Bloemfontein, and how did these shape their migration change processes? (2) After migrating, what forms of social-cultural interaction occurred and contributed to their settlement process? (3) After the settlement process, what forms of socio-cultural and agential elaborations (or reproduction) occurred? Data was collected through individual face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with the research participants. Individual interviews were preferred to avoid interference, effects of possible power relations, and triangulation of individual data, and to ensure that every interview question was responded to by each person (and not one person concurring with what the other has rightly/wrongly and adequately/inadequately said). The research process was designed, interviews conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed solely by the author. It is worth noting that some potential interviewees, after being accepted as participants, declined – either immediately or after some time. Reasons for this included the required depth of information, institutional affiliation and the fear of being persecuted for divulging certain truthful information that can bring institutions and countries to disrepute, spousal refusal and other personal undisclosed reasons. The data collection and processing stage of the research also marked a pre-determined commencement of the process of data analysis. The data analysis commenced using the theoretical framework and corresponding research questions as analytical frameworks. Inductive narrative data analysis was done by the classification of relevant interview thematic data into the respective cycle of the morphogenesis framework (T1-T2 structural/agential conditioning, T2–T3 social-cultural interaction and T3–T4 structural/agential elaboration). Research rigour, data validity and data reliability were affirmed, inter alia, through continuous verification of the data and findings with both participants. They preferred anonymity; therefore, two drafts

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of this chapter were sent to them for careful verification and approval. This is also to ensure research ethics, such as freedom, trust, confidence and the avoidance of harm.2 In this narrative, especially in the presentation of verbatim thick descriptive data, Zimbabwe is sometimes referred to as ‘Zim’ and Johannesburg as ‘Joburg’.

Theoretical framework – The morphogenetic approach Morphogenesis in the hard sciences is the set of processes that generate shape and form in the embryo, which is a significant area within developmental biology (Bonner 1963; Davies 2005, 2013; Gilbert 2009; Jean 1994; Thomson 1988). However, the use of the concept and principle of morphogenesis in the soft sciences is different. The principles of morphogenesis in social sciences originated from Buckley’s 1967 book entitled Sociology and Modern Systems Theory. According to Buckley (1967: 58), morphogenesis is ‘those processes which tend to elaborate or change a system’s given form, structure, or state’. Morphostasis, on the other hand, involves those ‘processes that tend to preserve or maintain a system’s form, organization, or state’ (Buckley 1967: 58). Buckley’s work was further elaborated in Archer’s Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (1995) and in her 1998, 2010 and 2013 publications. Morphogenesis in this context helps to analyse change over time by focusing on emergent properties: Personal Emergent Properties (PEPs), Structural Emergent Properties (SEPs) and Cultural Emergent Properties (CEPs). By so doing, social realists can examine the generative mechanism of ‘social morphogenesis’, to account for the increasing rapidity of social change – individual or collective. In Social Morphogenesis (2013), Archer with other scholars, including Porpora, Maccarini, Lawson, Wight, Lazega, Al-Amoudi and Donati shed light on this phenomenon and its operationalisation. For example, in the Global North, the morphogenetic approach has been applied to a longitudinal case study of information systems development and organisational change in British local government (Horrocks 2009). In the Global South, particularly in the Southern African region, the morphogenetic theory of change has been applied to provide insight into empirical research on concrete social phenomena, such as those in the fields of education, environmental education, global change or environmental sustainability (Agbedahin 2016a, 2016b; Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2015; Olvitt 2012). The application of the morphogenetic approach to the migration of an individual or a couple is novel. This approach is useful in this field because it allows for a systematic and structural analysis of the stages of migratory experience and the implicit and explicit mechanisms and change processes involved. Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic realist social theory and approach (1995, 1998, 2013) is used here to describe the processes that shape agency, culture and structure by either changing or maintaining their form or state. The concept of analytical dualism (explained in the next paragraph) is employed to acknowledge the separability of the interrelated concepts of structure, agency and culture. According to Archer (1995, 1998, 2010), morphogenesis consists of a three-part cycle, which occurs over time. The T is used to represent ‘time’ and the time difference is

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indicated by the use of numbers 1 to 4. Hence, ‘Time 1’ (T1) signifies the beginning of the investigated issue or event in history, including related factors and actions known as agential/socio-structural conditioning and ‘Time 2’ (T2) stipulates the end. ‘Time 2’ (T2) to ‘Time 3’ (T3) connotes the social-cultural interactions that have occurred or are occurring after ‘Time 1’ (T1) to ‘Time 2’ (T2). This timeline features the mediating factors or mechanisms that often emerge from the interaction with people and, in the context of this paper, migration from one location to another and the various experiences. ‘Time 4’ (T4) indicates the outcome of the social-cultural interactions that have occurred or are occurring between T2 and T3. This is known as the agential/structural elaboration or reproduction. There is elaboration when there are changes and there is reproduction when nothing significant changes. Figure 10.1 Basic morphogenetic/static cycle with its three phases T1

Agential/socio-structural conditioning

T2

Before migrating to South Africa T2

Socio-cultural interaction

T3

Migration and settlement experience in South Africa T3

Agential/socio-cultural reproduction or elaboration

T4

After settling in South Africa: outcomes and implications

Source: Adapted from Archer (1998: 375)

Integral to the morphogenetic approach is the concept of analytical dualism. This is referred to as the analysis of the interplay between structure and agency. Analytical dualism, one of Archer’s key methodologies, has its roots in Lockwood’s combination of conflict theory and general functionalism (Zeuner 1999). This helps to fight against the error of individualist and collectivist methodologies, which conflate and collapse social processes that are separable. In analytical dualism, there is a possibility of analytically distinguishing the cycles of structural conditioning from the cycle of social interaction and the cycle of structural elaboration due to temporality (Archer 1995, 1998). This is beneficial in the sense that it helps to understand, analyse and document change processes of people and systems in term of times and moments. This methodology is made possible by focusing on emergent properties that one is interested in and that exist within the flow of activities or cycles T1– T4.

Narrative social morphogenetic analysis of a migrant couple The section below encapsulates the narrative of the social morphogenesis of the migrant couple. It distinctly presents and analyses the social morphogenesis of the migrant couple using the aforementioned three phases namely: socio-structural/ agential conditioning (T1), social-cultural interaction (T2–T3) and structural/ agential elaboration or reproduction (T4). The theoretical description of each phase is followed by the empirical description through the presentation of interview excerpts that provide evidence. Further analysis and discussion of meaning and implication are done.

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Socio-structural/agential conditioning (T1) Within the morphogenetic cycle, socio-structural/agential conditioning (T1) represents the usual properties of systems that are emergent of past actions or the aggregate consequences of past actions of agents (Archer 1995). These emergent consequences of human agency elaborate or reproduce the structure over time, and also exert a causal influence on subsequent interaction in the cycle. Therefore, the social interaction of agents in a system shapes the structure and also determines the situation in which other incoming agents will operate or inherit what has been constructed within the system (Agbedahin 2016b; Archer 1995; Mutch 2004). Agential and socio-structural conditioning (T1) always precedes social interaction. The following section describes the socio-structural condition (T1) of the research participants and sheds light on the historicity of agential and structural conditioning. This section is about the situated context of the couple before their consideration to leave Zimbabwe and migrate to South Africa. Both partners were born in Zimbabwe, have valid passports and still visit home annually. The wife and husband migrated permanently to South Africa at different times and for different reasons. Before their migration, they both studied in their home country. The wife obtained her bachelor’s (honours) degree and the husband completed his master’s degree in Zimbabwean universities. Thereafter the husband studied towards his doctorate in North America. The following narratives by the couple allude to this and also describe their national socio-cultural conditions before they migrated to South Africa. These social events and milestones are essential in understanding and analysing change and personal, cultural or structural emerging properties over time. I got my education there. I was born and raised there. The same way I am still a Zimbabwean and how I am today is how I came to be...So the economic hardships were an eye-opener to me because growing up I would never have thought I would stay in a foreign country; that was not the picture I saw growing up. I would have never imagined...so it is the economic situation that has pushed me to where I am right now. I am quite grateful that I had the opportunity to actually come and work here instead of staying with the frustrations of home...I did not have a job, no, I came to look for it, that’s why I started as a waitress even though I had an honours degree in human resource management. – Wife Zimbabwe is a very strange country...in the sense that unlike other countries where there is significant civil strife and in the process you have massive economic problems, it is not the case. It is a country that is not at war but has serious challenges, serious economic challenges. But if you look at it in terms of infrastructure, Zimbabwe still has very good infrastructure but I think it’s more of a lack of opportunities...if you sit down and say ‘OK this is what I have achieved in the past seven years, it

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should be worth something in terms of remuneration of what I should get. I am worth more than what I am getting’. It is a matter of your salary, your qualification vis-à-vis your quality of life; there is a mismatch. A PhD holder is supposed to live in a particular way. I’m not saying I should be rich but...you realise that it’s even expensive on your salary to rent accommodation and you don’t have accommodation. You begin to say, ‘Is it worth it? Why did I go to the US?’ [to study towards a PhD] Your other colleagues who are not as educated as you, are doing very well because they are in the informal sector. So I would say I feel that my life won’t be fulfilled remaining in Zim...but we are not at war...but the economy has not been performing at the level which we expect it to perform. I know some say...'you still have a lot of very good infrastructure in comparison to other countries’ and I say ‘yeah but this is now worse than it used to be’...30 years after independence we should be somewhere better than where we are today. – Husband These unpleasant conditions emanating from their structure and culture have shaped their aspirations and agency, but fortunately not all negatively. Although they no longer reside in Zimbabwe, the society, people and culture of Zimbabwe they grew up in have shaped them in a particular manner. They narrated some life lessons, principles and values shared by the society that has contributed to their agential conditioning before and after they relocated to South Africa. I think, first of all, hard work. This is what I have learnt, at least for my times in two universities in Zimbabwe, as a student and as a lecturer and also in North America...I would say this pays. Secondly, I would say discipline, we need to be disciplined, otherwise if you are not then it’ll be very difficult to achieve your tasks...That has kept me, irrespective of a situation, I think so. I don’t want to talk of luck sometimes, because I honestly don’t believe in luck. If you have your tasks, do them and try to do them in time and try your best. – Husband I will say first keep an open mind. Sometimes it pays to be humble. Imagine if I said ‘no I’m too good to be a PA’ [personal assistant] or ‘I’m too good to be a secretary’ and that’s the mistake most people make. They want to start on the top. I mean I told you I started as a waitress. I used to clean people’s clothes. I’ve worked as a maid. So you need to realise that sometimes all you need is humble beginnings and you never know why you’re exactly positioned there. It could be a strategic position. So it’s being humble, not being greedy. Honesty will take you far...and don’t be afraid to try new things...I came here and I didn’t know anyone. I started from scratch. Being brave and bold, know what you want, be a goal getter, I think I’m exactly that. I set my mind to it then I’ll do it. – Wife

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The wife came to Johannesburg as a single woman to reside and search for a job and a better life. The husband visited her during his PhD in the United States and after its completion. They got married during this time but still resided in different cities in Gauteng province. He completed his PhD and decided to return to take up a lecturing job offer at a Zimbabwean university, although he had been offered a research fellowship in an institution in Bloemfontein. I first came to South Africa in 2009. By the time I left Zimbabwe in 2009, the economy had crashed and there were no jobs. Moreover, I was just a fresh graduate by then and things like applying for a job was difficult because the email was not working, technology was not as advanced as it was now, systems like email were not easy to come by. So that’s why I just decided to hop out and come and look for a job in South Africa instead, in Joburg. I was single for the most time I was in Joburg. My husband would visit because he was still doing his PhD then. I think we only stayed six months in Joburg when he came back after his PhD. – Wife I wasn’t so keen to take up the research position in Bloemfontein in that I already had a job in Zimbabwe after my PhD. So I had a permanent position as a lecturer. So after having stayed in the US for some time, somehow I felt I needed to go back to Zimbabwe. – Husband He was a lecturer in a university in Zimbabwe for some time and became disgruntled with the institutional and national situation. This made him consider leaving Zimbabwe for a more promising country and South Africa was the clear option because of the fellowship he had previously been offered. I went back to Zimbabwe, I taught for a semester but then realised that the situation was becoming untenable in terms of mainly economic. Then the research fellowship became an easy way out. Economically, I think by 2012 the economic situation in Zimbabwe was beginning to turn again towards the worst. – Husband

Social-cultural interaction (T2–T3) Social interaction (T2–T3) within the morphogenetic cycle is viewed as ‘being structurally conditioned, but never structurally determined’ (Archer 1995: 90). This is because ‘agents possess their own irreducible emergent powers’, referred to as Personal Emergent Powers (Archer 1995: 90). The experiences of human actors in a structure can either be frustrating or rewarding, depending on the positions actors occupy and this, in turn, influences the kind of interaction and action pattern they display, that is, practices (Agbedahin 2016b; Archer 1995). Human action or practices evolving from social interaction, which tends either to pursue structural change (morphogenesis) in an attempt to eradicate the frustrations, or to defend structural stability/status quo (morphostasis) to retain existing interest and rewards. Investigation and analysis at and

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of this time (T2–T3) need to be discriminating, depending on the activities of those participating in the social interaction (Mutch 2004). This cycle encapsulates experienced frustrations and rewards people get in their work, institutions, family or ‘new country’ contexts that warrant certain forms of social-cultural interaction with others. Examples of some related theoretical concepts (beyond the scope of this paper) that encapsulate and give understanding to people’s responses to obstacles, frustrations, rewards, and comforts during social interaction include ultimate concern, internal conversation, personal identity, motivation, agency, aspiration and social identity, intention, motive and intentionality. I will touch briefly upon the concepts of ultimate concern, internal conversation, and personal and social identity (Archer 2003; Eteläpelto et al. 2013). In internal conversation ‘courses of action are produced through the reflexive deliberations of agents who subjectively determine their practical projects in relation to their objective circumstances’ (Archer 2003: 141). The wife described her experience of securing and doing several seemingly demeaning jobs to sustain herself in South Africa. Although she arrived in South Africa with an honours degree, she had to take up the only available menial jobs. She saved money to get a South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) accreditation of her Zimbabwean certificates, which then paved the way for better job opportunities. Like every other legal migrant or foreigner in South Africa, she needed a permit, which she ultimately got after a frustrating application process, while residing in Johannesburg and before relocating to Bloemfontein because of the research fellowship granted to her husband. There have been lots of frustrations...it’s the language, it is the Home Affairs (permit issuing office in South Africa), it’s you penetrating the work market. I have never felt so little, it was like for the first time. I worked as a waitress, which means I had to pack away my qualification... and then the application to Home Affairs has not been a work in the breeze as well. '[it has not been easy]'. It has been a nightmare and most especially because both of my children were born here. You know in other countries that would put us at an advantage, like you get automatic citizenship but that’s not the case here. You still have to struggle, like I had to go to Johannesburg to get them passports. It was not easy; it was not easy at all because I faced the language barrier. I realised that you know things then that I didn’t know before I came to South Africa...I applied I think for asylum before I applied for the work permit because I could not get a work permit whilst I was employed. So yeah first, I had to legalise myself and then get money to start which is what I did...I started working first as a waitress, and that was how I managed to raise my SAQA money as a waitress...It was after I obtained my SAQA that I started applying for jobs. I got a job at a Non-Governmental Organisation. – Wife

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The husband took up the research fellowship in Bloemfontein, but before this he had visited his wife in Johannesburg several times. He already had some South African experience. He explained that his experience in South Africa has been ‘mixed’. He noted ‘it’s very difficult when you move from your comfort zone to another life. I will say Zimbabwe was a comfort zone because it’s home, right? It is home, of course, no matter so many difficult problems, home is still home absolutely’. On arrival in Bloemfontein, he established new forms of relations and found new colleagues and friends. Although his family joined a couple of weeks later, he still needed other people to help him find ways of navigating this new environment. One of his first experiences was with acquiring accommodation in the institution for himself and off-campus for his family. His wife also shared her experiences with securing accommodation when she joined him in Bloemfontein. They had to stay with a family friend after moving out of the singles-only institutional accommodation. My family came three or four weeks after I settled in Bloemfontein. I stayed briefly at a residence and as soon as the family came, we moved out. We moved somewhere in town. We did not stay on campus because there was no accommodation for families. For me, this was, if I may say strange, absolutely because at least with my US experience I know that with graduate students they are provided with family accommodation because you don’t expect graduate students to be single (laughing). I’m not saying that there are no graduate students who are single but most of them are married. So the institution should have made that accommodation available...it makes it easy for people to bring their families. – Husband Concerning accommodation, in Bloemfontein it seems everything is still a bit politicised. Because when we came first we stayed with friends and I think my husband had gone for research when I started looking for a place where we are staying now. Oh, it was terrible. Firstly, they charged me double deposit and rent which is not something we were anticipating and they wanted it all upfront. That means we had to find rent money for three months so to speak, and then they made the process so terrible but I was a bit persistent because I wanted a place of our own. Oh, they didn’t make it easy. The paperwork was nasty and you will almost think that they don’t want you there but I pushed on. And that’s where we have been since until now but it was not easy. My institution did not offer and it does not offer any accommodation for families. – Wife After some time in Bloemfontein, with her husband’s temporary position in the institution, she got a job as an assistant officer in the same institution. This was first as a part-time staff member and later as a full-time staff member. She is responsible for administrative work related to students’ registration, finances and project management. She described her experience of working part time and working full time now and what her job entails. She also disclosed that she is paid less than she

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ought to be paid based on her qualification, and every effort to break even has been to no avail. She noted that this should be sorted out soon, however. Obviously, the money was less as part time, but it gave me more time to be at home and attend to my children, which I appreciated. Now it is quite a challenge because I have to be at work...I resume work at 7:45 am and close at 4:30 pm. I have an office manager...I assist her...I do all the administrative work and all the financial and organising of the project... My boss, my line manager, is from here in South Africa, it also has to do with the system, not that I am a foreigner. So there are people in the system with the same qualification as I have and are paid more...so that’s why it’s been a frustration. I mean I am underpaid, not as someone who has even seen the door of a university, yet I am busy with a second degree. It has just been a constant three-year-old battle which is entering the fourth year but we’re hoping it is resolved now. We’ve been getting the indication that the salary is sorted but when the salary comes it is the same...It is HR[Human Resources], it is everyone, HR is the just the final place it lands, so I don’t know where exactly or who but all I can tell you is that it is not from my bosses’ end because they are trying to push and knock on every door. – Wife For some time, the husband maintained the position of a research fellow. Although he had not envisaged that he would stay this long, he needed his contract to be renewed. The situation in Zimbabwe worsened and, due to his satisfactory progress at work, he was able to persevere in South Africa. Initially, I thought I’ll be here for two to three years but with the deteriorating economic situation in Zimbabwe, it became like I don’t think I can still go back and here I am. I ended up holding the research fellowship for about five years. The fellowship was initially a three-year contract dependent on productivity and then extended to five years. – Husband The first experience of being a research fellow in South Africa is getting a visa from the Department of Home Affairs. When this visa is issued, it states that the individual is ‘to take up studies’. This implicitly and explicitly suggests that these PhD holders are students; however, some visas state that the individual is ‘to conduct academic research’. As the fellowship or visa connotes, researchers with doctorate degrees are registered as students and not according to their exact status as staff members or researchers. Only a few institutions can register them as staff members. The reason often given by the university management for this compulsory student status is the non-taxable stipend or bursary that research fellows receive (like students), in line with policy from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the South African Immigration Law. Ironically, despite this compulsory student status, they are given staff email addresses, but little or no access to any other staff privileges. This, therefore, constitutes a source of pain and reproach for research

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fellows because they lack access to some basic amenities and benefits in institutions, despite their acquisition of the highest level of academic qualification. Examples of such deprived benefits include access to staff parking discs and spaces, staff online networks, and staff toilets and kitchens in some cases. The temporality of the position and lack of certainty about the renewal of contracts are other shared points of concern. The husband explained: Being a research fellow is more or less like being an honorary PhD student in the sense that it is not something permanent and it’s something that always keeps you on the edge. What’s going to happen after or ‘if someone does not renew my contract what’s going to happen?’...In other words, you are fighting to maintain your status because that’s what you survive on but also you want to move out of that. So your mind is always restless, restless because it’s not something permanent or you cannot say, ‘Hey, I really like this place and I would like to stay for the next five, six years’...So from day one, you’re a research fellow and you realise that this is a temporary fling and you apply for jobs. I don’t know how many times every year towards this time that I apply for jobs...an average of 10 to 12 applications (laughing)...And if you get an interview – I have had several – again you’re nervous and anxious. Your hopes are raised because there’s a possibility...but then again...it crashes you down and you still have to maintain the research fellow status. – Husband In South Africa, the primary duty and expected output of research fellows are publications. Although it depends on the institution, unit, university, faculty, department or research unit, the number of publications is often not less than two or three per annum. The stipend also varies from fellowship to fellowship, depending on the source of the funding. Some disciplines, especially in the hard sciences, are easily able to surpass this minimum requirement and publish more, which results in more subsidies from the DHET. However, this is less likely for research fellows in social sciences and humanities because of the nature of their research methodology, process and design. The hosts, supervisors or mentors in charge of each fellow also play a great role in determining their work or publishing experiences and certainly the renewal of their contracts. Some intellectually and emotionally support the researchers in the tedious publication process, while others do not. Some display their understanding of the political economy of knowledge production and some do not, and the latter tend to frustrate fellows when or if the research outputs are not forthcoming. The husband explained his situation; he has written articles but has not been pressurised to publish, although he has worked on a book based on his PhD for the past five years: To be honest I did not publish in those three years...Probably it is there in my contract but I never read it. I know that I should publish...for me, with my mentor, we agreed that we need to publish the book, a book from my PhD...I’ve never been pressurised to publish. – Husband

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His case could perhaps be considered as an outlier or unusual academic privilege because after five years of being a research fellow in the institution, he applied, was shortlisted, interviewed and appointed as a permanent senior staff member. The process of getting this permanent position was not easy for the couple, as is the case for most skilled migrants in South Africa. They explained: When the opening came, I applied like everyone else and I went for the interview and it was an extremely frustrating two or so months of waiting for the outcome of the interview. I don’t know what happened. It was more than two months. I was interviewed sometime in the second semester. I heard nothing; there was no communication. Then in December, I received a phone call from HR saying that the decision has not yet been made...and then mid-February, that’s when I got the information that I got the job. Then they expected me to start in April but because of my status, I had to apply for a work permit. I had a research fellow status. I applied for a work permit that took four months to come, so I couldn’t start the job without the work permit. They could not give the job to anybody else until I had failed to produce a work permit. It was part of the process that the institution would wait for three months for you to get a work permit and I got the work permit in the fourth month and by that time they were kind of saying that ‘if you don’t get the work permit we will have to re-advertise the post’. The permit came and it was a huge relief in the sense that I was in my fifth year of the research fellowship. – Husband It has been a roller coaster; I don’t know how much he told you but the actual applying for jobs has been a roller coaster. We have had two distinct offers almost even with his current job. So it’s been a terrible roller coaster. It has shaken us a lot, of course, because all I want in the end is just stability. – Wife They now both have permanent jobs in South Africa with full staff entitlements and fringe benefits. She detailed, ‘I get medical aid, I get study benefits, I get a housing allowance, I get all the benefits that the institution offers its permanent staff, including pension, life policy as well, and for the spouse as well’. The couple described what their jobs entail and expressed the benefits they have brought to South Africa and the institution they work for: I pay my tax, faithfully and religiously (laughing). I have made good friends who are South Africans who have made very good comradeship. I think my contribution towards work, I work hard or I try. I plan to use whatever I am studying for in South Africa as I continue to work here not just for the money but also just giving back. In our department, for example, there are things I am solely responsible for...It’s a system and it’s nothing that I’ve worked on before but I found a way to make it work for our department and so it’s a system that I’ve introduced and I know best how it works because it is sort of my responsibility. I am capturing

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everyone’s output; I mean what everybody is doing...They say that the administrator is the oil of the company so without the oil, the company will rust and crumble. So I believe that is my relevance and yeah I feel that’s where I am needed most. – Wife My country would have benefitted from my presence but because they do not offer the conditions I need for me to live without struggling we move on to other places that allow us to explore these opportunities. And I think I have brought my expertise to South Africa, I have brought diversity... unfortunately, I have not done any research on South Africa but of course, I’ve done research and presented it in some places where I was the only one from South Africa, like huge international conferences but I think the most is the teaching. – Husband I asked about the couple’s best moments in South Africa and Bloemfontein, what they like about the place and their most positive experiences. She compared her experience in Johannesburg with her experience in Bloemfontein. Oh well, it will be getting all our papers obviously (laughing). Yes, that is a huge relief, and a sense of peace and you know the earlier hassle I have explained of Home Affairs, so getting your legal documents, no that is the ultimate highlight in South Africa, yeah. I do have a work permit now, yeah...I like Bloemfontein. When I was in Joburg I never thought I’ll be able to stay anywhere else. I thought I loved Joburg but now I can’t even stand it. Driving through Joburg frightens me, so I like the atmosphere in Bloemfontein and safety. Now that I think about it, I can’t imagine how I would have raised my children in Joburg, I just can’t. So I like the atmosphere in Bloemfontein. It’s safe and everything is there that I think I would want in Joburg...everything is central. Now my school is right next to my place of work, my son’s crèche is around my place of work, I only stay five minutes away from my place of work. All activities are convenient for us here in Bloemfontein...because everything is central so that works for me. – Wife The husband, on the other hand, has doubts about what his highlights so far might be. I don’t think I do have highlights in South Africa. I don’t know but I think seeing my daughter going to preschool, I think, that’s what I can say is the highlight at the family level. Professionally, I think I am just doing what is expected so probably getting the job; a permanent job is a highlight. I think a highlight is something which you feel that you have done so much and you are like, ‘This is it!’... Maybe you can put the job thing as a highlight but I do have my mixed feelings towards that because it is something that one would expect in their transition from a PhD student you should expect to get, under normal circumstances... If and when I leave South Africa, I will miss the convenience of really

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accessing whatever you want as long as you have the money (laughing). In South Africa, you can get whatever you want and it does not matter if it is coming from overseas. For instance, there are certain books I have bought online and after three weeks the book is in the mail, I can’t do that in Zim. As long as I have the money I can access unlimited internet access at home. I can go to a shop and buy good quality stuff as I can buy in the US...South Africa caters for almost everyone...You don’t have to stand in the queue to access anything; you can even order online. For me that is the convenience, not having to worry that I will spend my time in the fuel queue or bank queue; for me, that is the thing I will really miss in South Africa. Although they don’t have a good transport system, I mean if you don’t have a car you are in trouble, especially here in Bloemfontein...it is extremely inconvenient...which is different in Zim. – Husband Immigrants often have sad and pleasant stories arising from the settlement process and socio-cultural interaction. When asked about their worst moments in South Africa and Bloemfontein, they explained: There was a time when I was waiting for my work permit, and I couldn’t work because I had to renew my work permit. My first work permit was in Joburg and to work somewhere else you need another permit, so whilst I was waiting for the work permit to be approved I couldn’t work. So I was not paid for about two months...I could only start after I bring the papers. – Wife The worst moment at least for me was after our son was born here in Bloemfontein then they said he has jaundice...he stayed for three weeks or so in the hospital. I’ve never stayed in a hospital for that long. – Husband The couple has not experienced xenophobia in South Africa. The wife noted that this may be because they work in an academic community and live in a majority white suburb. Her interactions even in the black populated area in Bloemfontein, prone to xenophobic attacks, have been peaceful. The husband has had a different experience with racial segregation and affiliation. This shared experience also pertains to being foreigners, in general coupled with issues that include race, social cohesion and transformation. They explained: I don’t know maybe because I am in the academic field, I would not see people who think like that. I mean, it will be foolish to think like that here, so no! I do go downtown, I do my hair downtown, and no, I can’t say I felt that. Like I said about the security and safety thing, even when they’ve been cases of xenophobia in South Africa that has been very nominal here in Bloemfontein. So no I can’t imagine people here in an institution having that line of thinking yeah. I think there is sympathy on like for those who know my situation it’s actually on me to say ‘it’s unfortunate that you’re sitting with a degree that’s just on the wall’. You know you can’t even use that to present your case. – Wife

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You find whites in their zones and blacks in their zones. For me, I think that was the thing that struck me the very first time. I remember I went to a pub in the white-dominated suburb and I entered and I realised that am the only black person in there but I stayed. I felt like I wasn't in Africa...South Africa has been a bit challenging in the sense that you are there in the middle, you are a foreigner in the middle, you have to try and make it work. You are in the middle of the structure of this society here in South Africa and you are in the middle between the blacks here and the whites there...I take a very liberal idea of blackness and whiteness here. And South Africa is a country that is going through its transformation and you are caught in between and you have to navigate this transformation together with them. Blacks here expect you to act in a certain way because of your skin colour but you don’t and I’m talking in the sense of being in my research group and an academic community because that is more or less my community. They expect you to act in a certain way because you have been part of the system and everything and you don’t and so again you find yourself navigating this. I will borrow the concept of some of us being middles, where sometimes it is very difficult to know where we belong. I think what makes it worse if you don’t know for how long you’re going to stay here. Sometimes you think you are here for a year, then you find the three, five years already elapsed. – Husband

Structural/agential elaboration or reproduction (T4) Structural elaboration is viewed as a ‘largely unintended consequence’ that occurs as a result of the simultaneous modification of existing structural properties and the introduction of new properties by various social groups (Archer 1995: 91). It is referred to as ‘unintended’ because of the involvement of various social groups and the possibility of concession and conflicts, which means that the consequential elaboration is often what no one sought or wanted, that is, non-predictability of change in an open system (Archer 1995). However, previous research (Agbedahin 2016a, 2016b) and this chapter provide evidence of the possibility of ‘largely intended consequences’ of structural and agential elaboration instigated by an agent and based on the frustrations of the social conditioning. This happens when humans are aware of the constraints and frustrations of structural conditioning and proactively engage in activities that help them gain the necessary knowledge, capabilities and skills needed to overcome the frustrations they are faced with in their families, institutions and societies. However, no matter the good intentions for change by human agents, resultant events in open systems cannot be pre-determined, largely because of generative mechanisms that may play out. In a similar vein, Tàbara (2005: 16) argued that ‘indeed, unintended consequences and even structural constraints resulting from the aggregation of side effects of collective action can occur’ in a social learning process.

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Regarding the structural elaboration or reproduction of Zimbabwe, it has been noted that, currently, the cost of living in Zimbabwe remains higher than the cost of living in South Africa. The husband explained: ‘You find many Zimbabweans coming to South Africa to buy commodities and they can take them home by road as long as they pay their duty. So you find Zimbabweans who live at Beitbridge, the border, but cross the South African border to buy bread’. This is because bread and other basic food items are cheaper in South Africa. Hence the cost of living in Zimbabwe is much more expensive than in South Africa. Zimbabwe as it is today was extensively highlighted and described in terms of education, health, road, water and security by the husband. Concerning the educational system, he mentioned that ‘the government does not invest in education but...the education system is still very good...not just in terms of a curriculum but the quality of students we produce...it doesn’t matter whether the student is coming from a private school or a government school’. Concerning the health sector, he noted that ‘there are very poor services...the government is not investing so much in the health sector...There has been massive disinvestment from the state and we have relied so much on donor funding and the moment the donor funding dries up that’s the end’. About the roads, he says the following: ‘it’s a mismatch...we do have some areas with very good roads and we have some areas where the roads have not been repaired and the maintenance has been very poor’. Similarly, his position concerning water infrastructure is that ‘we do have some towns with very good water infrastructure and we do have places like Harare where there is a difference in terms of access to such services. For example, those people staying in high-density suburbs...the water reticulation system has not been upgraded for a very long time’. Finally, concerning security, he stated: I think the biggest threat to security comes from the state...two levels: first, if you want to think of violence and the forms of violence that have taken place, it is usually state-instigated violence, especially on the opposition. So generally people are peaceful but again the other form of securities that, because the state has not invested in any social security, the majority of people are living a makeshift existence. But generally, if you want to think of it and if we go back to the violence, it has always come from the state or for the ZANU PF, the ruling party and its agents. Towards election, they have deployed their youths to terrorise people, especially in rural areas. – Husband In line with investigating agential elaboration, the wife reflected on changes in herself from 2011, when she migrated to South Africa, until today. She described these changes based on her position and status as a worker, mother, wife to a research fellow and new senior lecturer. The husband also reflected on what South Africa has meant to him. His description of himself now is related to his new permanent position and the future. These narratives consist of evidence of multidimensional agential elaboration that has occurred as a result of the couple migrating to South Africa and inherent socio-cultural interactions. Archer (1995: 247) refers to agential

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elaboration as the ‘Morphogenesis of Agency’ and a ‘double morphogenesis’, because the elaboration of agency leads to structural and cultural elaboration. The evidence of the presence or occurrence of agential elaboration automatically confirms the absence of reproduction. Living in South Africa has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Things I would not have dreamed of. I know we always joke about it with my boss. Simple things like food, you know we have such a boring menu in Zimbabwe but here are the rainbow colours in a plate...So it is everything from the food that has also inspired me to be a better cook. There is that and then working with the diverse type of people that have opened my eyes to a lot of ignorance in a way that I would not have imagined...And then learning to be flexible, you just have to dance to whatever tune is being played. You can’t remain in your cocoon or way that you used to do things and think you’ll survive. You need to have a different mindset and an open mindset and be willing to be universal, so to speak. So that has shaped me. The pressure, the pressure to produce as a mum, as a worker, as a student, that has changed me and that is something that only the South African experience will do. I mean I was in the university in Zimbabwe, there was nothing like what I am experiencing now from the education system, from you know how we learn simple test and stuff. It has been an eye-opener, whether we agree with it or not, the exposure has been very crucial. And it put me in an advantage because my notion is if you can survive in Johannesburg, you can survive anywhere in the world (laughing)...Oh my gosh, I’ve been challenged as a mum because of my studies...I think I have grown. In terms of pressure, I have learnt to manage, literarily I was writing exams on Friday, Saturday and Monday. In between was my son’s birthday; in between was my daughter’s hockey festival; in between was my daughter’s graduation...So, I cannot believe how well I have grown...So for growth, I have definitely have grown. As a wife, it’s hard with my husband publications. His book is near completion now...I just have to bring food [to the office for him] (laughing), so yeah it’s been a journey; it’s really been a journey. It requires lots of maturity and patience, of course, and resilience. Because we’re talking late nights for me as well, reading in between night coughs and nightmares, yeah (laughing). – Wife I think South Africa has provided me with the opportunity that comes with being a research fellow...I don’t think I would have had the opportunity in Zimbabwe, probably somewhere else but being a research fellow gave me that opportunity to start building my career...I’m pretty much satisfied by being here, not that bad after all...I think for the time being I’m okay, I’m satisfied because I know that I can make long-term plans because of the permanent job. It is not the pinnacle of my career

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but is a job and a significant step. I’m very much, for the time being, satisfied...I don’t know whether I’ll be here for the next ten years...because as an academic if you don’t move a step higher then you’re not developing as an academic. Once in a while, you may think that you need a new challenge. – Husband

Conclusion In this chapter, the morphogenetic social theory of change has been presented and empirically used to discuss the change processes that occurred and are occurring in the life of a Zimbabwean migrant couple. This has been done using the analytical framework encapsulating the agential/socio-structural conditioning T1-T2, sociocultural interaction T2–T3, and the agential/socio-structural reproduction or elaboration T3-T4. This chapter theoretically and analytically presents the couple’s agential and socio-cultural conditions before they decided to migrate to South Africa. It discusses the socio-cultural interactions in which they were involved and which have shaped their lives after they arrived in South Africa, particularly in Bloemfontein. It then presents the agential/socio-cultural elaboration (if any) or reproduction (if nothing has changed) that emerged at the time of this research. The couple relocated to South Africa primarily because of the economic situation and lack of opportunities needed for the satisfactory flourishing of their human agency and wellbeing in their home country, Zimbabwe. Their stories reflect the reality that they have faced and experienced in South Africa – both pleasant and unpleasant – at the different stages of the process of social-cultural interaction needed for their resettlement. The findings also show significant levels of agential elaboration, evident in the increase of their knowledge base, work experience, legal standing, permanent employment, and access to long-awaited institutional and national benefits. Unfortunately, there has been little or no structural elaboration of Zimbabwe because there has been significant reproduction of the conditioning in T1-T2 (before migrating); perhaps a deterioration of the state of affairs. However, structural elaboration has been experienced in South Africa, hence they prefer to remain in South Africa until their retirement, despite some of the challenges they faced during social-cultural interactions in T2–T3. The chapter also shows that the couple has experienced frustrations, but they have been able to navigate and overcome them. Apart from these frustrations, there are also quite distinct signs of privileges they have enjoyed during their stay in South Africa that may not have been the case with another, similar couple, with the same qualifications or status. In an attempt to present the scenario of the futuristic unending social morphogenetic cycle of life, and particularly that of the couple’s two children, this chapter ends with a possible starting point of analysis of a new emerging agential/socio-structural conditioning T1-T2. This is based on the current status of the couple after residing in South Africa for over seven years and now having comfortable, permanent jobs.

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Moreover, the wife is pursuing a postgraduate study that will afford her an even better standard of living in the future. She reflected on these realities and shared her aspirations and opinions of the future. What has also pushed me is the study benefits, the benefits we were talking about earlier. Well, I never thought I would advance my studies because I thought I will just be happy as a working mum. But I thought why not, I don’t even have to pay...also my children will study for free and if my husband was not in the same institution, he could study using my benefits because it is for spouse and children and sisters and brothers... Now what we are yearning for is the ideals, obviously, it has to do with the systems and papers, so yes. Then since Bloemfontein is going to be home for us now for a very long time because of the permanent positions, the children are in good schools so I wouldn’t even imagine moving them. So yeah getting a house and settling here with what we have, and where we are. I think that that’s my biggest yearning right now. – Wife When asked if they plan to return to Zimbabwe and when this might be, they responded: When we retire. I want to die at home not in a foreign land. Whether I get the ideal here or not, the home will always be Zimbabwe, which is not what my children will say, unfortunately. So, I will want to go but this will always be home for them. We plan to go when we retire. Retirement age is 60 or 65. Hopefully, we will not be in this institution by then and I would have studied enough to leave. I don’t plan to die as a secretary (laughing). That’s why I am studying. That’s the plan. – Wife Absolutely! Probably after I have retired (laughing)...I think the retirement age is 60. If I stay here in South Africa, I still have X more years. I can’t see myself getting old here, I just can’t...even if I don’t stay here and go and work somewhere else, definitely I want to retire in Zim. I am not so sure where exactly in Zim but if I can retire where I grew up, that will be good. I don’t know where the kids will be. That’s their own life. If they are here it is fine; if they are somewhere else that’s fine. But, I can't see myself 70 and go to the old people’s home somewhere, no way! I don’t want to (laugh) but of course, this is what I want. But, you don’t know what life has in store for you and what your spouse thinks but as for me, absolutely! – Husband Endnotes 1

Monologues with other monologues imply that the monologues  of various people or the monologue of a person can be analysed with that of others to make further meaning or shed light on related experiences.

2

See Chapter 2 in this book for more details.

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References Agbedahin AV (2016a) Emergent properties and the position-practice system of university educators in mainstreaming of education for sustainable development. In H Lotz-Sisitka & L Price (Eds) Critical realism, environmental learning and social-ecological change. Oxon: Routledge Agbedahin AV (2016b) A morphogenic and laminated system explanation of position-practice system and professional development training in mainstreaming ESD in African universities. PhD thesis, Rhodes University, Grahamstown Archer M (1995) Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. New York: Cambridge University Press Archer M (1998) Realism and morphogenesis. In M Archer, R Bhaskar, A Collier, T Lawson & N Alan (Eds) Critical realism: Essential readings. London: Routledge Archer M (2003) Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Archer M (2010) Morphogenesis versus structuration: On combining structure and action. The British Journal of Sociology 61(s1): 225–252 Archer M (Ed.) (2013) Social morphogenesis. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York, London: Springer Bonner JT (1963) Morphogenesis: An essay on development. Princeton, NJ: Atheneum Buckley WF (1967) Sociology and modern systems theory. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Davies J (2005) Branching morphogenesis (2nd edition). New York: Springer Davies J (2013) Mechanisms of morphogenesis: The creation of biological form (2nd edition). Cambridge: Elsevier Academic Press Eteläpelto A, Vähäsantanen K, Hökkä P & Paloniemi S (2013) What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research Review 10: 45–65 Gilbert L (2009) Insect development: Morphogenesis, molting and metamorphosis. Cambridge: Academic Press Horrocks I (2009) Applying the morphogenetic approach: Outcomes and issues from a case study of information systems development and organisational change in British local government. Journal of Critical Realism 8(1): 35–62 Jean RV (1994) Phyllotaxis: A systemic study in plant morphogenesis. New York: Cambridge University Press Lotz-Sisitka H, Agbedahin AV & Hlengwa A (2015) ‘Seeding change’: Developing a changeoriented model for professional learning and ESD in higher education institutions in Africa. In H Lotz-Sisitka, G Naituli, A Hlengwa, M Ward, A Salami, A Ogbuigwe, M Pradhan, M Neeser & S Lauriks (Eds) Mainstreaming environment and sustainability in African universities: Stories of change. Grahamstown: Rhodes University Environmental Learning Research Centre Mutch A (2004) Constraints on the internal conversation: Margaret Archer and the structural shaping of thought. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 34(4): 429–445

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Olvitt LL (2012) Deciding and doing what’s right for people and planet: An investigation of the ethics-oriented learning of novice environmental educators. PhD thesis, Rhodes University, Grahamstown Tàbara DJ (2005) Sustainability learning for river basin management and planning in Europe: HarmoniCOP integrated report. Barcelona: European Commission Thomson KS (1988) Morphogenesis and evolution. New York: Oxford University Press Zeuner L (1999) Margaret Archer on structural and cultural morphogenesis. ACTA Sociologica 42: 79–86

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The migrant as architect of his own comfort Komlan Agbedahin and Benyam Tesfaye Akalu

The buzzword ‘desperate journeys’, which has flooded migration reports since 2015, is symptomatic of a new wave of multidimensional migration complexities for sending countries, transit countries and receiving countries in both the Global North and the Global South. The war in Syria, which started in 2011, has triggered an unprecedented refugee flow to Europe. Concomitantly, the perennial movement of migrants from the South to the North has gained momentum. From January 2015 to September 2017, more than 9 600 refugees and irregular migrants died in the process of reaching Europe, while over 1.5 million made it to Europe (Borton & Collinson 2017). Most migrants and refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Eritrea, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Mali, Senegal and Sudan (Borton & Collinson 2017). Owing to the overwhelming nature of this wave of migration and the unpreparedness and unwillingness of European nations to welcome migrants, the international protection of migrants has become a daunting task. Anti-immigrant sentiment is widespread and growing across Europe, suggesting in some cases an ‘immigrant fatigue’ (Michta 2016),1 a situation fuelled in some instances by terrorist attacks, which were used by the media to perpetuate Islamophobic sentiments (Birnbaum 2016).2 Accordingly, most European countries have tightened their migration policies. These anti-migration measures have resulted in the death of refugees and migrants, as well as an increase in sexual violence and migrant smuggling and trafficking (Borton & Collinson 2017; Michta 2016; Reitano & Micallef 2016; UNHCR Bureau for Europe 2017). In countries such as Germany, the migration problem has become a major political issue (Michta 2016). In some cases, migrants have experienced eviction or forceful relocation. The forceful evacuation of 5 596 people from an informal refugee camp in Calais, known as ‘the jungle’ by the French police, epitomises such dehumanising treatment of migrants.3 The Americas are also affected by recent waves of migration. In the United States of America, President Trump’s desire to build a wall between his country and Mexico, and repeal pro-migration laws, constitutes another example of the global migration crisis.4 The South American region is also experiencing migration challenges. For instance, there is mass migration from Venezuela to Colombia, Brazil, Peru, the Unites States of America, Chile, Argentina and Spain (Labrador 2019). While this wave of migration continues – to Europe, the United States, and increasingly also to other destinations, as in the case of South America – countries within Africa also experience migration crises. Negotiating migration difficulties is

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thus also becoming an issue in Africa, where ethnic conflicts and political instability accompanied by economic predicaments have forced many people to leave their countries of origin for safe havens in other more stable countries on the continent. South Africa is one of the ‘migrant receiving’ countries. South Africa, in fact, plays a ‘triple role’ in migration: it is concomitantly a receiving, sending and transit country for migrants from Africa and other regions of the globe. Recent statistics from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS 2018) position the country as the second highest receiving nation of migrants on the African continent, behind Côte d’Ivoire (refugees and asylum seekers excluded). The intricacies of the influx of migrants into South Africa are not new and the number of migrants has ballooned in the wake of the collapse of apartheid regime. As Malan pointed out: A trickle of migrants turned into a flood, and by 2003, even the directorgeneral of the Department of Home Affairs was willing to acknowledge that border control had become ‘a joke’. Planeloads of foreigners were flying into Johannesburg, buying new identities from bent Home Affairs officials and flying on to the UK, where a South African passport enabled visa-free entry. (Malan 2017: 4) To those in quest of economic opportunities, South Africa appears to be a greener pasture; to those fleeing armed conflicts, political persecution and other human or natural disasters, the country is deemed an ideal safe-haven. For the purposes of this chapter, the concept ‘migrant’ encompasses both forced and voluntary migrants, that is, mixed migrants. On a global scale, migration issues have been topical and scholars have delved into various dimensions of this phenomenon, ranging from causes to consequences, mostly centred on the multifaceted discourse of push and pull factors. The study of the complexities of the phenomenon locally, regionally or globally is also receiving growing scholarly coverage. One major aspect has been migrants’ narratives. Evidence is available that recent literature on migration in South Africa tends to emphasise xenophobia (Hadland 2008; Misago 2015; Misago et al. 2009; Parsley 2000; Sharp 2008; Smith-Cunnien 2013; Solomon & Kosaka 2014).5 But one distinctive feature of this scholarship is the dearth of explicit analyses of the fate of migrants, especially the way they frame their perspectives on encounters with other individuals and institutions, particularly in narrative research. This chapter sets out to initiate this debate by focusing on experiential processes that generate comfort or discomfort for migrants. In the third chapter ‘Migrant encounters in ethnic neighbourhoods’ of his book Experience and Representation: Contemporary Perspectives on Migration in Australia, Jacobs argued that ‘individual experiences and feelings are always emplaced in a locality, such as a home, a work setting or neighbourhood. This means, of course, that our understandings of – and practices enacted within – these localities are a constitutive component of our experience’ (Jacobs 2011: 33, emphasis in original); accordingly, our discussion in this chapter will focus on an Ethiopian refugee in Bloemfontein.

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A systematic inquiry into the comforts or discomforts of migrants, particularly their generative mechanisms, is needed. The chapter joins this conversation from a different perspective, that is an analysis of the perception of migrants of their fate in receiving countries, with particular focus on the weight and relevance of encounters in shaping their comforts or discomforts. The general belief is that the vulnerability attached to the situation of migrants from underdeveloped countries may lead to discomfort. To a certain degree, this has been evidenced in the writing of migrants themselves. But investigations into knowing whether there is any lived comfort or discomfort perceived by migrants themselves seemingly has not been adequately described in the literature. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how, from a single case, in phenomenological terms, the migrant processes involve multifaceted encounters that shape or influence a migrant’s ‘lifeworld’ (Jackson 2013, 2017). These place the migrant in a position of comfort or discomfort, in his opinion, which is not necessarily what others consider to be comfortable or uncomfortable, usually from a purely materialistic point of view. While external macro factors may contribute to the perceived or lived comfort or discomfort of a migrant, these may not directly determine the migrant’s comfort; the migrant’s role in processing them and making final choices shapes his own lived comfort or discomfort. This ‘comfort and discomfort’ framework hinges on the migrant’s interpretation of both material and non-material things. For the purposes of this chapter, the word ‘migrant’ is synonymous with transmigrant. Transmigrants develop and maintain multiple relations – familial, economic, social, organizational, religious, and political – that span borders. Transmigrants take actions, make decisions, feel concerns, and develop identities within social networks that connect them to two or more societies simultaneously. (Glick-Schiller et al. 1992: 1–2)

Research journey This chapter focuses on a male Ethiopian migrant residing in Bloemfontein. He arrived in Durban, South Africa, in 2010, with the help of his elder brother who was already an established businessman in South Africa. He got a visitor’s visa (a type of legal relative visa) from the South African Embassy in Ethiopia. However, a bribe of R45 000 was paid in South Africa for the visa to be issued in Ethiopia. He is a Muslim and is married to an Ethiopian woman. His wife, who stayed in Dubai for almost four years, joined him in South Africa in 2014, also on a visitor’s visa, also gained by means of a bribe, worth R70 000. Currently the family owns two grocery shops, two clothing shops and one restaurant. The research participant was selected using convenience sampling strategy (Etikan et al. 2016) on the strength that he is an international migrant who was amenable to being interviewed. Data was collected from in-depth interviews and observations in 2018 and 2019. The main research participant was interviewed three

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times. The first interview took place at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, on the Bloemfontein campus of the University of the Free State (UFS). The second and the third interviews took place in the restaurant owned by the participant. The observation sessions aimed to examine the research participant’s relationship with his employees, customers, relatives and friends. The goal was to uncover how these interactions and encounters shaped his perspective on comfort or discomfort. Data was analysed using Saldaña’s (2010) first and second coding cycles. Synthesised Member Checking (SMC) was also used; SMC ‘addresses the co-constructed nature of knowledge by providing participants with the opportunity to engage with, and add to, interview and interpreted data, several months after their semi-structured interview’ (Birt et al. 2016: 1802). Beyond ensuring the usual trustworthiness, SMC was used to ensure effective involvement of the informant in all stages of the research. It is worth mentioning that the notion of comfort discussed in this chapter percolates through various aspects of the research process. For instance, the research participant was given the opportunity to choose interview venues and times; peak business periods had to be avoided. The research participant was also willing to be more than an interviewee and agreed to co-author this chapter. However, due to the sensitivity of the information he provided, researchers deemed it best to conceal his identity and rather acknowledge his meaningful contributions instead. Consequently, the research participant is henceforth referred to as ‘Gwadegna’, the equivalent of ‘our friend’ in Amharic. The research team comprised two categories of people: two from the university community and one from the business world. Such a collaborative piece of work requires peculiar strategies to ensure belonging and agency on all levels. The objective was to find ways to ensure closeness and balanced power relations. Sharing meals together after interview sessions worked well. Eating a plate of Ethiopian food together was meaningful for all. The Ethiopian meal, which is always communal, plays a central role in togetherness for Ethiopians. The unique aspect of a meal in Gwadegna’s Ethiopian region is that a number of people eat from one plate at the same time, without the use of cutlery. Eating together from the same plate is a significant expression of friendship, closeness and love in the Ethiopian context. Accordingly, by eating together, the primary researchers became friends, or rather ‘brothers’, to Gwadegna. It is worth indicating that the notion of brotherhood used in this chapter is beyond biological relationship; it hinges on the degree of closeness with other human beings. Thus, for the interview sessions, we gathered around the table and ate from the same plate and had coffee together; the aim was to create a conducive atmosphere and to establish friendly collaboration for joint knowledge production between the world of academia and the business world. One of the research team acted as an interpreter when Amharic was used, as one team member had only English in common with the other two members.

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Comfort conundrum in migration discourse According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, the word ‘comfort’, as a noun, means The state of being physically relaxed and free from pain; the state of having a pleasurable life, with everything that you need...a feeling of not suffering or worrying so much; a feeling of being less unhappy...a person or thing that helps you when you are suffering, worried or unhappy...a thing that makes your life easier or more comfortable. (Hornby 2010: 285) From this dictionary definition, ‘comfort’ can be a state, a feeling, a thing and even a person. The concept of comfort has been studied most often in the field of nursing. Kolcaba and Kolcaba (1991: 1309) pointed out that ‘comfort is a concept venerable in nursing history’. The concept does not feature in non-medical fields and appears to have been neglected in research on migration. Even in the field of nursing, discussions on comfort have been amorphous and inconsistent (Kolcaba & Kolcaba 1991; Siefert 2002). According to Siefert (2002:18), ‘inconsistencies and lack of information about [comfort’s] specific characteristics contribute to the vague nature of how it is used and discussed in nursing’. Siefert (2002:22) added that the concept of comfort is ‘multidimensional, very individualised, and has been a central focus and desired outcome of nursing care throughout history, yet it is still a vaguely defined concept’. Some dimensions of comfort include basic needs like rest, sleep, food, companionship, understanding, physical and mental comfort, to mention a few (Kolcaba & Kolcaba 1991; Siefert 2002). Comfort occurs or exists ‘within the physical, psychospiritual, social, and environmental contexts’, and is never a ‘complete absence of discomforts but rather, a sense of ease’ (Kolcaba 1993 cited in Siefert 2002:19). Comfort is considered a ‘state’ and ‘a process’ at the same time (Siefert 2002:16). Others have argued that comfort seems to be an aspect of quality of life, control, hope, reconciliation and decision-making (Larson 1987; Cameron 1993). According to Kolcaba (1991 cited in Siefert 2002), comfort suggests an intervention to ensure relief from discomfort as well as to ensure contentment, sometimes through things that make life easier. A central feature seems to be that comfort does not necessarily mean or imply total absence of discomfort, suggesting levels of comfort; it is a scale rather than a binary. The implication is that what makes one individual comfortable may not necessarily make another person comfortable. Its ‘individualised’ attribute, as argued by Siefert (2002: 22), seems pivotal. In the field of nursing, patients’ comfort differs according to diseases; in addition, patients suffering from the same disease may not experience the same comfort or discomfort. We argue that, as pain may have different effects on people, the same condition may have different impacts on different migrants. There are differing kinds of individual resilience (and therefore different levels of comfort or discomfort) regarding pain, discomfort and difficulties.

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According to Siefert (2002: 18), ‘comfort is achieved through the management of pain and other discomforts consistent with the patient’s desires’, implying that individual patients’ desires define or determine what comfort is to them. It therefore becomes difficult to conclude that other people are comfortable or uncomfortable, without proper knowledge of their desires. This discussion about comfort in the field of nursing may seem narrow and medically focused, but one definition that goes beyond the medical can contribute to our discussion on the comfort and discomfort of migration. According to Siefert (2002: 21), comfort is: ‘a state and/or process that is individually defined, multidimensional, and dynamic; it may be temporary or permanent and requires that one’s needs be satisfied in the physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and/or environmental domains within a specific context’. The concept of comfort, as defined by Siefert, raises some questions: What is the difference between an individual’s perceived needs and the actual need? Who can tell an individual that his or her needs have been met? This conceptual confusion makes the definition of comfort very difficult. Even attributes suggested by scholars to measure an individual’s comfort remain problematic, and often such attributes are politically contested. For instance, forced migrants (such as refugees) have been caught in this definitional crossfire. The fate of refugees generated by the ethnic conflicts and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to a great extent illustrates this confusion around what being comfortable or uncomfortable could really mean in the case of forced migrants. In his book The Comfort of Strangers: The Impact of Rwanda Refugees on Neighbouring Countries, Adisa (1996) alluded to forms of comfort of refugees triggered by interethnic conflict and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, as perceived by community members of host countries. In Tanzania, host communities perceived refugees to be living comfortably and diversely expressed their dissatisfaction and ensuing disaffection. The following illustrative account describes the perceived comfort of refugees to the detriment of local people: The mzungus [Swahili word, as are other non-English words in this quote, meaning white men – a reference in this context to foreign relief workers] are here to cater for refugee needs and as a consequence we suffer. Tunawahadumia wakimbizi katika mazingira magumuzane (we render difficult service to the refugees). How can anyone impress on us the need for kindness to strangers when these strangers put fire under our own houses. We now pay 20–30,000 shillings [between 33 and 50 US dollars] for rooms that used to be given free for lodgings. We see light and suffer the noise of generators used by the refugees while our houses are without light [electricity] in the night. Just as the mzungus are pushing up house rents by their extravagant nature, the refugees are pushing up food prices. We used to buy eggs for 5 shillings, now a fresh egg costs 100 shillings and we pay 130 shillings for fried eggs. The refugees eat superior cow meat while we eat goat meat. How did they get the money? They rustle, steal

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and commit robberies. What have we gained by being nice to others except penury? Enough is enough. They should go away. (Adisa 1996: 33–34) Local people found the presence of foreigners, refugees in this case, detrimental to their peace, cost of living and security, compounded by the complicity of foreign aid workers. This perceived comfort of refugees was not limited to communities; the leadership of Tanzania was also affected. The following is the reaction of a Tanzanian official towards the constant refugee flows from Rwanda to neighbouring countries: ‘These are funny people’, a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office argued, ‘How can a government be indifferent to a situation in which over three million of its people live in exile as refugees? There is more to this than meets the eye. When you go there ask them why. We think that from time to time they deem it necessary to generate turmoil and conflict and throw some people out to stabilize the ratio of population to land’. (Adisa 1996: 35) Tanzanian officials believed that there was a conspiracy on the part of the Rwandan government to deliberately engineer civil unrest, in order to cause trouble in the neighbouring country. After the 1994 genocide, and with the change of regime in Rwanda, former Rwandan refugees who settled in Uganda voluntarily repatriated. Contrary to the complaints of other contiguous countries about the negative impact of refugees on host communities, some Ugandan officials perceived the return of refugees to be a big loss. The following account of a councillor in Uganda attests to this: About 6 000 people or 70 per cent of the population were Banyarwanda [people from Rwanda]. During all the years of their stay they have become part and parcel of the economic and social activity of the community. A lot of revenue, in terms of taxes, has been collected from the Banyarwanda. Such money has been used to develop infrastructures such as roads, health units and schools. Many of them had herds and cattle and were taxed according to their wealth. (Adisa 1996: 44) The presence of Rwandan refugees, as described in this interview excerpt, describes the symbolic comfort refugees could represent for host countries. Refugees can contribute significantly to improvement of living conditions in host countries. This raises another question: are refugees comfort providers or comfort earners? The example of the interpretation of Rwandan refugees in Uganda and Tanzania clearly suggests that there may be shared comfort and shared discomfort, for instance in the case of Uganda, where the presence of Rwandan refugees to a great extent contributed to the socio-economic development of host communities. In sharp contrast, in the case of Tanzania, there are perceived comforts and experienced discomforts. What seems to be missing in this debate on comfort and discomfort is the experienced comfort or discomfort; this is what this chapter seeks to explore.

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Thus, some consider refugees to be the source or aggravators of their plight, as in the case of Tanzania, while others consider refugees an asset – as solutions to certain problems – as in the case of Uganda. This diversity in the perception of migrants by host communities is not peculiar to Rwanda’s contiguous countries. In South Africa, for instance, such perceived comfort of both voluntary and forced migrants has been prevalent and, in many instances, accounts for xenophobic attacks. But research has not explored the comfort or discomfort of migrants through their own narratives. Generally, African migrants move because of political, economic, environmental and social hardship, and in some cases because of complex emergencies, particularly in war-torn countries. It seems illogical to consider forms of comfort they may enjoy, if one considers the macro factors that tend to dictate their fate. This suggests two types of comfort: the comfort or discomfort as social construct, and the lived comfort or discomfort, which has to do with an individual’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction, without necessarily referring to others. All these are part of the forced migrants’ ‘comfort conundrum’. It therefore behoves us to consider, from the migrants’ perspective, what comfort means, and their interpretation and involvement in generating such comfort. This suggests wearing the migrant’s conceptual lenses to see how this notion weaves through their narratives. In order to do this, the chapter tries to answer the following questions: What does comfort mean to migrants or how do migrants define comfort? How do migrants’ interpretation of encounters shape their definition of comfort or discomfort? Is comfort created or given to migrants? In the context of this chapter, since Gwadegna’s comfort is assumed to be determined by the symbolic meaning of his encounters with other individuals, including fellow Ethiopians, customers, employees, friends and officials of various law enforcement agencies, it is appropriate to briefly discuss the relevant dimensions of symbolic interactionism and show how Gwadegna becomes the architect of his own comfort.

Creating comfort or discomfort through symbolic interactionism From a symbolic interactionist perspective, human beings generally act towards things on the strength of the meanings such things have for them, unlike animals whose acts are dictated by their instinct or conditioning (Blumer 1969; Charon 2001; Denzin 1992; Jacob 1988; Rock 1979). While trying to expatiate on the meanings, Blumer (1969: 5) pointed out that ‘the actor [migrant] selects, checks, suspends, regroups, and transforms the meanings in the light of the situation in which he [or she] is placed and the direction of his [or her] action’. The informant’s understanding of what comfort could be is a good illustration. Blumer’s argument suggests the plurality and multidimensionality of human beings’ action in a given society (Blumer 1969; Jacob 1988). Migrants’ actions and reactions to the behaviours of others in host countries are mediated by many factors, which they process to reach a given perception, decision, action, attitude and behaviour.

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Comfort or discomfort emerges from such complex processes and procedures. The migrants’ pre-migration situation will definitely inform the way they consider a situation to be a source of comfort or discomfort. The daily life of migrants is characterised by a mixture of comforts and discomforts, depending on individual migrants’ desires and expectations. For instance, Gwadegna illustrates what comfort and discomfort in a foreign land represent for him in the following way: Comfort for me comprises two things. Firstly, mental freedom; secondly, financial freedom. However, sometimes it is hard to exercise these things in South Africa because of limitations that are put up on migrants. For example, I want to expand my business and want to pay VAT [value added tax], but our business are not VAT registered, that is, not recognised. For you to be able to run VAT registered business, you have to have exclusively South African ID. It is all linked to the kind of paper you have. So that is not really comfortable for me. The other issue, when you own businesses like this, you want to insure things, you want to pay for some insurance premium so that you can insure certain things...your business or whatever, but again you can’t do that if you are a foreigner. Insurance companies do not allow you to insure anything unless you have a South African ID. With that being said, I am not completely uncomfortable in South Africa. To an extent I go on and do my business which brings me basic need and slightly more but it is not to the extent I want to do it. Gwadegna sees comfort first of all from a freedom perspective: the freedom to do business and achieve one’s financial goals, and the psychological ability to act or do that business. There is limited freedom if there are impediments to doing business and to the necessary mental freedom. The freedom to do business involves having one’s business registered and this is dependent on being in possession of a South African ID document issued to permanent residents, which he does not have. A business that is not registered cannot be insured, resulting in a state of vulnerability. During times of social unrest, such as xenophobic attacks, businesses can easily collapse. A stay in the Republic of South Africa is dependent on a dysfunctional migration system, rather than on an individual’s efforts. Not being able to operate a business fully leads to discomfort. The desired financial and mental freedom is dependent on immigration documents. As presented later in this chapter, in most cases lack of these documents is not necessarily the fault of migrants, but the result of a dysfunctional immigration system. This robs migrants of the opportunity to contribute to the economy of the country, prevents them from protecting their businesses with insurance, and denies the state economic opportunities. What is evident here is discomfort created by a dysfunctional immigration system that is characterised by corruption, inefficiency and complicities. Obviously, comfort or discomfort is defined through the activities and expectations of the migrant. If specific expectations are met, such as being able to register a business properly, the migrant will feel more comfortable.

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The comfort of a migrant is also built on push and pull factors. In the case of Gwadegna, the prospect of making money was behind his migration: So the business doesn’t give us any comfort, it is the prospect of making it [making money] that gives us the comfort because our business is not guaranteed [insured]. For instance, if xenophobia arises we know we don’t have security, so you might have money today and tomorrow you might be completely zero. But there is still that aspect that you can start from scratch and build up again. ‘Financial security’ is an aspect of what makes him comfortable, as well as being at ‘home’, having knowledge of people, understanding the culture, being able to speak the language, and living without fear. Until a migrant considers his or her host country as home, he or she continues to live in discomfort. In this case, the notion of comfort is tied to the idea of home, and the notion of home is tied to many attributes, depending on the migrant’s understanding. Gwadegna put this into perspective: There (Ethiopia) if I have financial security I will be perfectly comfortable because the rest of the issues will not bother me. That is my home, I know everybody I grew up with and understand the culture in which I grew up; that is my own language that is being spoken...so I do not have to live in a constant fear of being a foreigner or live with a consciousness of being an immigrant. Generally, if I am at home and financially secure, I am pretty much comfortable...So, if I am back at home, mentally I am free and comfortable except the economic challenge which creates discomfort. But the moment you cross the border to South Africa, mentally you are not that comfortable because you are in a foreign land. However, the comfort in South Africa is the prospect of making a living and beyond. So, the prospect of having to change your financial (economic) situation has its own comfort but the fact that you are in a foreign land is a bit uncomfortable. Migrants’ perception of the roles played by organisations that are ostensibly tasked to protect them also affects them positively or negatively. For instance, according to Gwadegna, there is no visible presence of the African Union (AU) to protect migrants. Despite this, he acknowledges the active involvement of certain organisations advocating for the rights of migrants. Gwadegna’s words illustrate the roles of such advocacy bodies: Where is African Union? What are they even doing? Hahahah...they don’t protect African people...Even though, African Union is nowhere to be seen to protect African migrants, there are some local and international organisations also within South Africa that are fighting to protect the rights of immigrants, specifically asylum seekers and refugees, and the reason why I am saying that is because in the recent court case [Ahmed and others vs Home Affairs and others, 9 October 2018], there were organisations such as People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty;

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Lawyers for Human Rights; and De Saude Attorneys Inc. fighting the case on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees. Another concern is the nature of the involvement of the United Nations in migration issues, particularly those linked to xenophobic attacks – their involvement seems unsatisfactory. As Gwadegna points out, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is a typical example: There is no organisation I know of on regional level. Usually UNHCR hire you a lawyer, if your application is rejected after staying in SA for so long, so that you will be able to follow up your case. In 2013, there were big xenophobic attacks in Botshabelo, during that time we fled to mosques and church and I remember some guys from UNHCR brought us some food and clothes and took pictures and our names. But we never heard from them since. The help from UNHCR or even others is not usually extended at a regional level, they all reside either in Pretoria (UNHCR) or Cape Town. Generally, you can see UN here and there but we are not aware of others. Protection by law enforcement agencies, to a great extent, remains the sine qua non of the safety of migrants. When migrants’ businesses are protected and their life and property appropriately insured, they can feel comfortable. This is not happening, thus there is no real comfort. So, in other words, my understanding of comfort is if South African police provide us with security, if insurance have been provided [life and property], if xenophobia and all negative stereotypes of immigrants are changed etc. I will definitely feel comfortable. The absence of those things makes me uncomfortable. Even if the government allows us to pay VAT, by law that means they [government] will have to protect our business. But we don’t pay VAT unless we have a South African ID and the government don’t take any responsibilities for any damages on our business. This means our business is in the air, something could happen to it at any time...actually it is left to a chance of 50/50. You can have today and not have anything tomorrow. Symbolic interactionism also suggests that individuals ‘can routinely, and even habitually, manipulate symbols and orient their own actions towards other objects’ (Denzin 1969: 923). For migrants, once their discomfort is known and interpreted, they can intentionally take actions to transform such discomfort into comfort and of course this depends on the level of resilience of the migrant. For instance, the fact that Gwadegna has had goods stolen several times by some of his employees, despite his trust in them, has not stopped him from continuing his business. His agency and decisiveness allowed him to forge ahead. Not allowing disappointment to affect his progress has resulted in increasing resilience and a sense of comfort.

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Another dimension of symbolic interactionism is the attempt to unveil how the past influences the present (Denzin 1992). This historiographical dimension of symbolic interactionism is also relevant to understanding issues related to the comfort of migrants vis-à-vis their relationships with host communities. As Denzin (1992: 23) argued, human beings through their interactions and encounters produce for themselves ‘situated versions of society’. The implication is that, depending on their interpretation of such mentally created atypical societies, migrants may build for themselves satisfaction or dissatisfaction, sources of comfort or discomfort respectively, regardless of external factors. It is worth mentioning that migrants’ level of resilience and knowledge may have some bearing on the level of comfort or dissatisfaction. Face-to-face interactions ‘here and now’ (Denzin 1992: 22) also constitute an aspect of the interactionist perspective. Accordingly, biographies and lived experience of individuals interacting are accorded primacy by symbolic interactions (Sartre n.d. cited in Denzin 1992: 24). As Denzin (1992: 24) pointed out, ‘sociologies which ignore the stories people tell one another about their life experiences’ are not the domain of symbolic interactionism; emphasis should mostly be on the ‘lifeworld’ (Jackson 2013, 2017; Wagner 1973) of migrants as their comfort or discomfort hinges on their experiences and interpretations from interactions and encounters with others. The migrant’s encounters with law enforcement institutions and the justice system are very complex and tend to revolve around money. Money can ‘transform’ injustice into justice, offenses into non-offenses. In his work From Control to Parasitism: Interrogating the Roles of Border Control Agencies on the Ghana–Togo Border, Agbedahin (2014: 374), referring to the impact of money on the management of and control of borders in West Africa, proposed that ‘when money speaks, borders vanish’; similarly one may conclude in the case of some law enforcement agencies in South Africa, that when money speaks, law, justice, offenses and fairness disappear. As Gwadegna opined: Say you are at a wedding or at mosque or church etcetera, the police don’t show up there and bother you but if you are at a shop or at your business they always come and check if you are documented immigrant. In fact, Ethiopians are tight-knit community. Our point of exposure to the South African society is when we dealing our businesses. Rarely do we engage in romantic relationships and further marriage with South Africans. In terms of social justice and fairness, there is a convergence of paradoxes. While some state institutions are lauded for the credibility emanating from their duties performed in compliance with required decency, others have sacrificed their work ethics on the altar of ‘money’ through bribery and corruption. Instead of being enforced, many laws have been left unenforced for pecuniary purposes. Gwadegna, rating the involvement of the court of law and the police, pointed out the following:

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The court is always 100 per cent fair. Police and Home Affairs want money; without money you will be nothing; but court 100 per cent fair; if you are a foreigner or you are a local it is the same, the same justice. But police, if you are a foreigner, first money...talk money. They say first talk money, leave if you are right or wrong talk first money they can negotiate with you how much. Home Affairs also want money, but court 100 per cent fair. One area which makes migrants uncomfortable, at least according to Gwadegna, is the phenomenon of ‘forced complicities’ or ‘involuntary complicities’; migrants have no choice but to comply with unlawful demands pressed on them by ‘law enforcement agents’ and this has been identified as a real source of discomfort. The following interview excerpt attests to this: It doesn’t matter if you trespass the law or if you are innocent as long as you have money to spare to the police or Home Affairs. But if you are a South African, they will either mediate the situation or they open a case because the locals don’t give them money. But if you are foreigner whether you are right or wrong, it doesn’t matter as long as you have money. Especially Home Affairs, it is not about your human rights or constitutional rights or your application is right, it is all about negotiating, having money and bribing the right people. Even sometimes when you don’t have the right papers, sometimes Home Affairs pushes people out when they can’t cope with the volume of work or sometimes deliberately to make you feel desperate enough to give them more money, you will be with expired paper or without one and you get caught by the police and they will ask you money that you pay and get on with your life. But what they were supposed to do is to arrest you and present you to court, I assume within 48 hours, and the court will order you to pay fines and go back to Home Affairs to renew your permit. If you happen to have no money and you get caught, they will make you suffer. So when it comes to police and Home Affairs, I don’t think there is fairness or justice. But when it comes to court, I actually like South African court because it is fair regardless whether you are foreigner or local...Most foreigners, it is not that we want to be complicit but we don’t have a choice. We don’t want to bribe them but we are forced to do that. Sometimes you will be treated as if you have no rights. For instance, some time ago Home Affairs officers came to my shop and asked for my papers; I presented a certified copy stamped and signed by police because I left the original at home. However, they insisted that I show them the original paper, the reason being they wanted money, then I offered to go fetch the original paper from my home because I didn’t want to pay them anything but they said no and proceeded to arrest me. So, they arrested me in the Home Affairs cell, but then my brother brought me the original

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paper to the Home Affairs, however the officer who had made the arrest disappeared so that I felt desperate enough to give him money. Imagine, I have the right paper, but I had to bribe my way out, it is not that I want to bribe but I didn’t have any choice. Because of all that, my shops were closed the entire time which is a loss in my business...Yes. Yes...the situation sometime force you. It is not that you are complicit but having no option makes you one. Repeated cases of xenophobic attacks are suggestive of the downstream effects of receiving foreign nationals and are only one aspect of migration challenges. The perceived apathy of the government towards the root causes of the problem is sad; migrants therefore question the seriousness of the government and human dignity is undermined. As Misago (2015: 1) pointed out: Violent attacks on foreign nationals in May 2008 were followed by public and official condemnation and promises of ‘never-again’. Realizing that these pronouncements were not followed by concrete preventive measures, our research evidence suggested such violence was likely to reoccur. We, together with those who shared our predictions, were branded ‘prophets of doom’, hell-bent on tarnishing the image of the beautiful rainbow nation. How we wished our predictions were false! Despite many areas of experienced discomfort, in South Africa migrants are ‘comfortable’ in the freedom to practise their own cultures and religions. Places of worship similar to those in migrants’ countries of origin can be found in South Africa and are experienced as ‘home away from home’. This is an aspect of Gwadegna’s life which provides him some comfort. As he noted: Actually, one of the positive aspects of South Africa is that you can practise whatever religion or culture you want and however you want. We have mosques, churches and in fact Ethiopian Orthodox Church has the biggest monastery in South Africa which they bought the land from a farmer. The South African government or the people are not disrespectful for practising your culture or religion. The stereotypes and some of the hatred usually happens in and around business which is mainly the point of contact with the locals. Another relevant pivotal legacy of symbolic interactionism is the concept of pragmatism (Denzin 1992). According to James’s seminal work on pragmatism, human beings are ‘active, creative beings who could play a conscious role in the control of their own destinies’ (James n.d. cited in Meltzer et al. 1975: 6). Mead echoed this: What is real for [us] human beings...always depends on our own active intervention, our own interpretation or definition...Knowledge is judged by how useful it is in defining the situations we enter...things in situations

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are defined according to the use they have for us at the time...It is what human beings do in real situations that matters. (Mead n.d. cited in Charon 2001: 29–30) The onus is on migrants to interpret their situations and intervene, to change situations that are not in their favour, thus building for themselves relational fortresses to ensure their comfort. The joy of seeing one’s business succeed brings comfort. On the other hand, discomfort sets in when the migrant is a victim of theft by customers, and when customers stereotype migrants as illiterate and unable to speak English; the label ‘my friendo’ foisted on migrants is a typical example. This is experienced as demeaning and dehumanising, and leads to frustration and discomfort, as noted by Gwadegna: The comfort I feel about this business which is clothing shop is more likely to succeed than many other business that foreigners are trying out. But business is business, you always take risks. However, some of the discomforts are like I mentioned before, is lack of insurance, sometimes customers stealing your products, et cetera, but mostly it makes me uncomfortable when some customers, especially the youth call you stereotypical names like ‘my friendo’ referring to us as stupid because we can’t speak English fluently. That makes us uncomfortable because we can’t say anything to the customers otherwise we lose our business. This puts us in an awkward position and often forces us to swallow our pride because there is no point arguing and let your business die. Customers are always right...haha...it is a problem because customers are not always right. Host-migrant relations vary and are based on the interpretation the migrant gives to these encounters, whether focused or unfocused (Goffman 1972: 18–22). Some key elements of these relationships revolve around respect and disrespect from members of host communities. As Gwadegna indicated: My relationship with the locals is hard to generalise it and say good or bad because there are well mannered and respecting South Africans and good customers to my business. On the other hand, there are ill mannered and disrespectful South Africans who also steal from you. In addition, the fact that community members consider migrants to have money makes him uncomfortable: In addition, their assumption of foreigners having money is discomforting. For instance, if you are driving on the road and accidentally scratched a foreign-owned car, you can just simply apologise and move on. But if it is a South African-owned car, they will drag you until they get money out of you even if it is their mistake. I guess their entitlement makes me feel uncomfortable. Most relationships with the locals are based on benefit.

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The shock, created at times by migrants’ expectations, leads to discomfort. For instance, the expectation that educated people should behave courteously towards migrants, and the expectation to be protected by law enforcement agencies, has not been met in many cases. Othering is another painful aspect of the host-migrant relationship (Anderson & Reimer-Kirkham 1998; Johnson et al. 2004; Karraker 2013). Othering suggests some difference from the self; it leads to the reinforcement or reproduction of ‘positions of domination and subordination’ (Johnson et al. 2004: 253), a form of social exclusion, and hinders communication between migrants and receiving communities. Gwadegna expressed this in the following way: The senior citizens, some of whom did not even attend school, are very respectful towards foreigners but the youth who have gone to schools and universities are the ones who are arrogant and show bad attitude towards foreigners. The South African police also have negative attitude towards foreigners. For instance, during December they were targeting foreigners’ cars just to extort some money but when we report to them or call them when crime is committed against us, they don’t bother to show up. The police and youth hate foreigners. I am not perfect but I can understand and speak Sotho, not in advanced level, but basic. But one thing that is not, um, that is not really uh, still, sitting well with me is the fact that the locals, they call us by all sorts of bad names [derogatory appellations]. Comfort or discomfort can also be located in the area of employer-employee relations. Gwadegna described his experience as belonging to a ‘family without trust’. By law he is compelled to (and does) employ a certain number of South African citizens but his relationship with employees has gone beyond employer-employee relationships to the development of a ‘family’. Family relationships can provide comfort, but unfortunately when trust is eroded, there is discomfort. It is complex, we have good approach and we look close family and I treat them as well. I give them bonuses, I give them new clothes from the shop but I can’t trust them because they steal from me. As recent as Christmas Eve one of my best employee had stolen clothes from me which I found out when I checked the camera footages, even though I gave them bonus and clothes already. Imagine that employee of mine is the one I trust the most, but I have no option I have to hire South Africans. I have caught my other employees red-handed and they resume work. Generally, the relationship is awkward because we like family without trust which is really uncomfortable. The relationship between the migrant and his employees has a veneer of friendliness or family life. In a real family, problems like theft should not be an issue. Gwadegna has created for himself a cycle of comfort and discomfort. At the beginning, when his relationship with employees was considered and accepted as a ‘family relationship’, he was comfortable; but when issues of theft arose, he found himself in a situation

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of discomfort due to distrust. Accepting the reality that some of the items in his shop are stolen by his ‘family’ employees, meant there was no shock or surprise and a certain degree of comfort. So, depending on situations and the interpretation and positionality of the migrant, he can be either comfortable or uncomfortable. A plethora of factors coalesce to determine and shape comfort or discomfort experienced by an individual. As demonstrated, a chain of events, and their symbolic meanings, leads to decisions that form the basis for Gwadegna’s comfort or discomfort. In the case of a migrant, one way or the other, push and pull factors tend to be the main drivers of the migratory project. Usually the decision to move from one’s country of birth is made without full knowledge of conditions and circumstances in the receiving country. Such conditions to a great extent determine the actual fulfilment of the ‘greener pasture’ dream. In order to see the materialisation of such dreams and ensure their comfort, migrants need to negotiate obstacles. They do this by getting involved in a chain of interpretation and reinterpretation of encounters with other human beings and institutions – including migrant protection agencies, host-migrant relations, law enforcement agencies or institutions and employer-employee relationships – thus ensuring a degree of comfort.

Conclusion This chapter has argued within a symbolic interactionist framework that migrants, to a great extent, are the architects of their own comfort or discomfort. The symbolic meanings attached to the various focused and unfocused encounters with individuals (including friends, customers, employees or other host community members) and institutions (including law enforcement agencies such as the police, Home Affairs department and the justice system) shape migrants’ perspectives on fairness, justice, social justice and complicities. The interpretation of the encounters generates interpretive mechanisms and processes that coalesce to contribute to the comfort or discomfort experienced by the migrant. The following are sources of frustration leading to possible discomfort: force or involuntary complicities, the strong influence of money on fairness and corruption, employer-employee relations, the apathy or inaction of international organisations and continental bodies such as African Union vis-à-vis the plight of migrants, the shock of unmet expectations, othering, the pain of stereotypes, and the abusive sense of entitlement of locals. But in this study, the migrant’s understanding of his primary goal – that is, to ensure his ‘financial security’ – tends to override these discomforts. As expressed by Gwadegna, financial security is the main reason for leaving his country of origin. While he realised that, as an asylum seeker and later as a refugee, he would be stereotyped, unprotected and exposed to the scourge of xenophobia, these discomforts, although painful and undesired and unpleasant, become stepping stones used to understand the context and create for himself comforts to achieve the primary comfort of gaining financial security. In other words, Gwadegna never gets

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wholly discouraged but uses unfriendly circumstances and conditions to cast and recast his redemptive project. When migrants intentionally and internally normalise discomfort, this can pave the way for comfort. Depending on how behaviours and actions are interpreted, migrants can become easily offended and fall into discomfort or remain indifferent and enjoy comfort. In other words, migrants indirectly become the primary source of their own comfort or discomfort, based on how they interpret encounters with others. This chapter explores how a shift can take place from discomfort to comfort in time and space. For instance, a new migrant may experience some cultural shock, which could be a source of discomfort, but as time goes on, and becoming culturally acclimatised, initial alienating attitudinal incongruences in host-migrant relations may metamorphose into comfort. A shift in perception can affect migrants’ reactions and ensuing experiences of comfort or discomfort. This chapter tries to tease out elements of comfort and discomfort from the opinions and experiences of a single migrant, an Ethiopian refugee, who has been able to transform discomforts and achieve his goals. The chapter is a seminal work on the systematic unveiling of processes and procedures leading to framing the idea of comfort or discomfort in the life of a particular migrant in a particular context. It is hoped it can serve as springboard for further work on the topic. Endnotes 1

See also: Squires N, Violent clashes break out in Rome as Italian opposition to migrants increases, The Telegraph, 17 July 2015. (Accessed March 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/europe/ italy/11747106/Violent-clashes-break-out-in-Rome-as-Italianopposition-to-migrants-increases.html).

2 Birnbaum M, Nice attack propels anti-immigrant sentiments into France’s mainstream. Washington Post, 17 July 2016. (Accessed March 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ world/nice-attack-propels-anti-immigrant-sentiments-into-frances-mainstream/2016/07/17/ fb3e0532-4bb0-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html). 3

Lunde KL & Nacar S, Flames, fear and football as Calais ‘Jungle’ cleared, Al Jazeera, 27 October 2016 (Accessed March 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/10/flames-fearfootball-calais-jungle-cleared-161027102345800.html); Mallinder L, Calais: Moving from the ‘Jungle’ to Stalingrad, Al Jazeera, 30 October 2016 (Accessed March 2017, http://www.aljazeera. com/indepth/features/2016/10/calais-moving-jungle-stalingrad-161030081043211.html).

4

Taylor A, Trump wants America’s migration problem to be like Europe’s, The Washington Post, 25 October 2018. (Accessed September 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ world/2018/10/25/trump-wants-americas-migration-problem-be-like-europes/?utm_ term=.39ba910f5231).

5

See also: Adeoye G, Alagbe J & Dumo E, ‘Xenophobic attacks: Nigerians vow to remain in South Africa’, Punch, 25 February 2017 (Accessed February 2017, http://punchng.com/xenophobicattacks-nigerians-vow-to-remain-in-south-africa/); Davis R, Xenophobia rears its head: Gauteng on a knife-edge once more, Daily Maverick, 21 February 2017 (Accessed March 2017, https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-02-21-xenophobia-rears-its-head-gauteng-on-

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a-knife-edge-once-more/#.WK1FXn_5Xf); Fabricius P, Xenophobia once again jeopardises South Africa’s interests in Africa, Daily Maverick, 2 March 2017 (Accessed March 2017, https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-03-02-iss-today-xenophobia-once-againjeopardises-south-africas-interests-in-africa/#.WL6Fa3_5Xf); Grootes S, Analysis: The awful politics of xenophobia, Daily Maverick, 27 February 2017 (Accessed March 2017, https:// www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-02-27-analysis-the-awful-politics-of-xenophobia/#. WL59c3_5XfY); Mathekga R, ‘There’s no excuse for our xenophobia’, News24, 27 February 2017 (Accessed March 2017, http://www.news24.com/Columnists/Ralph_Mathekga/theres-noexcuse-for-our-xenophobia-20170227); Mbude P, ‘Xenophobia: A plan of action from Gigaba’, City Press, 23 February 2017 (Accessed March 2017, http://city-press.news24.com/News/xenophobiaa-plan-of-action-from-gigaba-20170223); Parsley J, ‘We are not treated like people’: The roll back xenophobia campaign in South Africa, Humanitarian Exchange/Magazine of the Humanitarian Practice Network 17, June 2003 (Accessed September 2020, https://odihpn.org/magazine/we-arenot-treated-like-people-the-roll-back-xenophobia-campaign-in-south-africa/).

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Glick-Schiller N, Basch L & Blanc-Szanton C (1992) Towards a transnational perspective on migration: Race, class, ethnicity, and nationalism reconsidered. New York: New York Academy of Sciences Goffman E (1972) Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Harmondsworth: Penguin University Press Hadland A (2008) Violence and xenophobia in South Africa: Developing consensus, moving to action. Pretoria: HSRC and the High Commission of the United Kingdom Hornby AS (2010) Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current English (8th edition) Oxford: Oxford University Press ISS (Institute for Security Studies) (2018) Migrants and refugees in Africa. Which countries on the continent receive the most migrants and refugees? Institute for Security Studies, 1 February, Accessed September 2020, https://issafrica.org/media-resources/videos-and-infographics/ migrants-and-refugees-in-africa Jackson M (2013) Lifeworlds: Essays in existential anthropology. London: The University of Chicago Press Jackson M (2017) How lifeworlds work: Emotionality, sociality, and the ambiguity of being. London: The University of Chicago Press Jacob E (1988) Clarifying qualitative research: A focus on traditions. Educational Researcher 17(1): 16–24 Jacobs K (2011) Experience and representation: Contemporary perspectives on migration in Australia. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Johnson JL, Bottorff JL, Browne AJ, Grewal S, Hilton BA & Clarke H (2004) Othering and being othered in the context of health care services. Health Communication 16(2): 253–271 Karraker MW (2013) The other people: Interdisciplinary perspectives on migration. New York: Malgrave Macmillan Kolcaba KY & Kolcaba RJ (1991) An analysis of the concept of comfort. Journal of Advanced Nursing 16: 1301–1310 Labrador RC (2019) The Venezuelan exodus. Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed September 2020, https://www.cfr.org/article/venezuelan-exodus Larson PJ (1987) Comparison of cancer patients’ and professional nurses’ perceptions of important nurse caring behaviors. Heart and Lung 16(2): 187–193 Malan R (2017) South Africa’s immigrants: Building a new economy. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Meltzer BN, Petras JW & Reynolds LT (1975) Symbolic interactionism: Genesis, varieties and criticism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Michta AA (2016) Europe’s immigration fatigue. The American Interest. Accessed March 2017, http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/09/27/europes-immigration-fatigue/ Misago JP (2015) Xenophobic violence in South Africa: Reflections on trends, explanations and responses. Keynote address, panel discussion on latest wave of xenophobic violence in South Africa, Mail & Guardian Africa and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 3 March 2015

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About the contributors Jonatan Kurzwelly is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, University of Göttingen. While working on this book, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in anthropology at the University of the Free State, where he is currently an affiliated research fellow. His research and writing explore different aspects of personal and social identities. Jonatan is also interested in the study of nationalism, sensory and bodily perception, experimental and collaborative research methods, and the philosophy of social sciences. He is a nomadic academic migrant who defines himself as having two citizenships and no nationality. ([email protected]) Luis Escobedo is a postdoctoral researcher at the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice, University of the Free State. Formerly a visiting lecturer at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico, he is currently co-conducting fieldwork in Transylvania on the persisting class/ethnicity correlation in Roma/non-Roma relations in Romania. In his next project, he will follow the footprints made by a brave migrant across Central and North America. A citizen of Peru and resident of Romania, Luis has worked and studied in Austria, Germany, Mexico, Poland, South Africa and the United States over the past 20 years. ([email protected]) Komlan Agbedahin is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice at the University of the Free State. He holds an MSc in sociology from the University of Lomé (Togo), an MSc in humanitarian and refugee studies from the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CEPACS) at the University of Ibadan (Nigeria), and a PhD in sociology from Rhodes University (South Africa). Before joining UFS, he taught social science research (qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods), sociology and industrial and economic sociology courses at Rhodes University, and worked with NGOs, research institutes and the United Nations in Togo, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ([email protected]) Ana Rita Amaral is a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Studies Group, University of the Free State. She obtained her PhD in anthropology from the University of Lisbon (Portugal) in 2018, for her dissertation on Catholic missionary ethnography in Angola during the late colonial period. In her current research, she is examining the journals of a Portuguese merchant who lived in Angola during the 19th century. For the past ten years, for both personal and professional reasons, she has travelled and lived in several places, for longer or shorter periods. Presently, she moves between South Africa and Portugal. ([email protected])

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Liezl Dick obtained a BA(Hons) in philosophy and MA in philosophy from the University of Stellenbosch, and holds a PhD in higher education studies from the University of the Free State. Her research focuses on transformation in higher education, critical whiteness studies, and issues of racialisation and racial integration in the broader South African context. Liezl is a South African migrant who has lived in several South African cities and towns. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Free State Centre for Human Rights at the University of the Free State. ([email protected]) Sheikh Hamid Fernana was born in Morocco to an Arab father and a Spanish mother. While in Casablanca, Hamid graduated in Arabic literature, economics and information technology. In 1995, he moved to South Africa to study Islamic jurisprudence under many notable scholars and Sufi Sheikhs. Since 2003, he has served various communities as an imam, an educator, and a social worker. Hamid is currently the imam of Brandwag Mosque in Bloemfontein and a researcher at the University of the Free State faculties of theology and education. He specialises in recorded African literature, especially translating ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu, Andalusia and Persia. ([email protected]) Muhammad Elvis Ngum is a Cameroonian citizen who lives and works in Bloemfontein. He is an entrepreneur, running a small clothes store, and a skilled sculptor. He is committed to both learning and reflecting about Islam and his faith in God. Alba Gómez-Arias is a Spanish PhD candidate in environmental geochemistry and water treatment in a joint project between the Institute for Groundwater Studies, University of the Free State and the Department of Geology, University of Huelva (Spain). After studying volcanology and glaciology for a year in Iceland and completing her master’s degree in geology and environmental management in Spain, Alba moved to Bloemfontein in 2013. As a member of a family with close ties to Germany, Morocco and Peru, multiculturalism is a central part of her life and one of the aspects of her South African experience that she cherishes the most. ([email protected]) Julio Castillo is a Peruvian senior researcher and leader of the Environmental Microbiology Group at the Department of Biotechnology at the University of the Free State. He studies the interaction between bacterial and in-/organic compounds (metals and emerging contaminants), water bioremediation and bio-recovery of precious metals (Cu, Au, and rare earth elements), and biofilm formation and syntrophic interactions in extreme environments (acid mine drainage and subsurface). Julio has worked and studied for 12 years in Germany, Portugal, Spain, South Africa and the United Kingdom, and currently resides with his family in Bloemfontein. ([email protected])

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Marguerite Müller is a senior lecturer in the School of Education Studies, Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State. She holds a BA in fine arts, PGCE, MA in education, and PhD in higher education studies. From 2006 to 2011, she worked as a teacher and lecturer in South Korea. At present, she teaches within the discipline of curriculum studies, with a specific focus on socially just and antioppressive pedagogies. In her research, she employs arts-based methodologies to explore issues of educator identity and subjectivity in the higher education space. ([email protected]) Frans Kruger is a senior lecturer in the School of Education Studies, Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State. He holds a PhD in humanities education from the University of Pretoria. In his current research, he explores the intersections between social justice and ecojustice in the field of education through a critical post-humanist lens. He is also interested in new and emerging methodologies in qualitative inquiry. ([email protected]) Pablo Del Monte wrote his chapter while working as a postdoctoral research fellow in the SARCHI Chair in Higher Education and Human Development Research Programme, University of the Free State. He is currently a lecturer in education, at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He has also worked as a researcher in university-based projects and in the public sector in Argentina. Pablo and his family have migrated across different continents in the pursuit of the academic profession. ([email protected]) Faith Mkwananzi is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Higher Education and Human Development Research Group at the University of the Free State. Her research focuses on education and development, with particular interests in migration, poverty, philanthropy, public policy, participatory methods in research, and the capability approach. ([email protected]) Adesuwa Vanessa Agbedahin is the Programme Manager: Academic Career Path Development at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Programme Development of Sol Plaatje University, South Africa. Prior to this, she was an independent social research consultant and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of the Free State and Rhodes University, South Africa. She holds a PhD, master’s degree, and certificate in environment and sustainability (higher) education from Rhodes University. She holds a diploma and BA (Hons) in education of the hearing impaired from the Federal College of Education (Special) and University of Jos, Nigeria, respectively. She is a reviewer of four academic journals and has supervised two PhD students. She has been an individual specialist and author for the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris. She has also served as an independent lead research consultant for the Institute of International Education (IIE) New York. ([email protected]; [email protected])

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CONTRIBUTORS

Benyam Tesfaye Akalu is a doctoral candidate at the University of the Free State, where he also renders statistical consultancy services for the postgraduate school under Boolean Metric Pvt Ltd. He holds a BSc in food science and post-harvest technology from Hawassa University, Ethiopia, where he worked for three years as a junior lecturer. As an academic migrant, he obtained an MSc in sustainable agriculture from the University of the Free State. In the realm of sustainable agriculture and agricultural extension, he has supervised the mini-dissertations of six MSc students, out of which five have completed. He is also interested in aspects of social sciences, such as migration, conflict management, negotiation and quantitative research methodologies. ([email protected])

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Index

A A Man of Good Hope 24 academia 11, 155–156, 163, 164, 184 academic capital 179, 185, 188–189 academic publication 158–159, 160, 161–162, 169 subsidies 163–164, 206 accommodation 204 adoption 43 African students 177 African Union 226–227 Afrikaner identity 72 agency 10, 104, 107n15, 189, 213, 220, 227 culture and structure 198, 199, 201 individual vs collective 186–187, 196, of migrant women 25 morphogenesis of 212 relational 197 agential conditioning/elaboration 197, 199, 200–201 amakwerekwere see kwerekwere analytical dualism 198, 199 apartheid a crime against humanity 21, 28n7 legacy 4, 21, 68–­69, 138 and Mozambican refugees 49, 53, 59–37 undoing petty 79–80 see also informal segregation appropriation of derogatory terms 2 Argentina 157–158, research council see CONICET assimilation 34 asylum 92, 203 authenticity 54 author-function 154, 155, 160, 162, 167 auto-ethnography 151 B becoming 134, 143, 148 through writing 151, 152, 167, 169 belonging viii, 97–98, 143, 220 in neither new nor old country 147–148 bilingualism 89–90 biographical illusions 37–38 Bloemfontein 166–167, 175, 208 Bourdieu, Pierre 37–38, 65, 72

bribery 219, 229–230 business security 225–227 business success 231 C Cameroon 97 languages 89–90 religion 93–94 capital 12 forms of 178, 184–185 see also cultural; narrative; race; social; white categories of practice vs analysis 26, 28–12 categorisation see classification; othering; violent categorisation Catholic Church 52 cheap labour 73, 74 Christianity 144–145 disillusionment with 94 citizenship 11, 15n12 see also belonging civilisation see assimilation class 116–117, 119, 125 race, gender and nationality 190 South Korea vs South Africa 138–139 classification 2, 114–115 and genocide 3–4, 20–21 racial see race classification co-authorship 26 cohorts 115–116, 117 collective biography 133, 135 colonial childhood 42–43 loss 49, 59n37 Peru 126–127n6 see also decolonisation colour blindness 80–81 comfort/s 221–222 conundrum 221–224 –discomfort cycle 232–233 and discomforts 12, 219 perceived 225–226 communism 66–67 see also socialism community 97–98 complementarity 25, 28n10

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D E V E L O P I N G S U S TA I N A B L E E N E R G Y F O R N AT I O N A L C L I M AT E P O L I C Y

CONICET 158–159 consumerism 84 corruption 92 in Cameroon 90 Peru 110–111 see also bribery cosmopolitanism 119–120 creative nonfiction 133 crime 92 cultural capital 74, 152, 156, 163, 185, 187–188 confusion 141–142 racism 6 D decolonisation 40 crimes against 45, 47 ethnographic 45 depersonalisation/dehumanisation 8, 21 deradicalisation 101 differend 23–24 discomfort 167, 186–187, 226–227 ethics of 153, normalising 234 see also comfort diversity 212 doctorates 155–156 domestic violence 92 dynamising groups see grupos dinamizadores E economic capital 179, 184, 185–186 Eichmann, Adolf 83–84 emergent properties 198, 199 emic and etic 12, 13, 26 employer–employee relations 232, 233 English 159 entrepreneurship fashion 52–53 essentialism 10, 13, 14n3, 20, 88, 96–99, 102–104 and ideology 104 strategic 5, 14n7 Ethiopia/n 12 food 220 migrants 218, 219, 233, 234 nationalism 140 riots 3 ethnic/ethnicity and racism 75–76 ranked 76 nationalism 67, 74, 76, 81, 140,

ethnographies of the particular 13, 25 ethnography see also auto-ethnography Europe/Europeans 119 anti-immigrant 217 difficulty migrating to 90 stereotyping of immigrants 112 see also Portugal; Spain exclusion 232 extermination see genocide extremism 96, 97, 106n4 F farmers’ market 35–37, 36 food Ethiopian 220 Korean 136–137, 143, 144 Peruvian 123–125, 126 Portuguese 53–54, range of in South Africa 212 sharing 220 football 101, 110–111, 123–124, 125 foreign nationals 20 hierarchy of 6, 28n3, 28n5, 118–119 see also kwerekwere Foucault, Michel 153–155, 167 FRELIMO 44–45 fresh contact 112, 115–116, 118, 119 Fulani 93 fundamentalism 88 funerals 92, 93 G García, Alan 110, 126n1 gated communities 166 gender 92 genocide 3, 20–21 gift giving 142 Group Areas Act 4 grupos dinamizadores 45, 47 H habitus 71 academic see academia see also white habitus Holocaust 77 Home Affairs 203 corruption 218, 219, 228–230 homesickness see nostalgia homogenous empty time 120–121 host-migrant relations 231, 232, 233, 234

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I identity 13 Afrikaner see Afrikaner identity and authenticity 54 national see national identity politics 5, 101, 107n10 race and class 98 racial 64 social see social identity white English-speaking South African see WESSA ideological habits 113, 122–123, 124 ignorance see white ignorance immigrant fatigue Africa 222–223 Europe 217 immigration control 157 In My Shoes 25 informal segregation 210 injustice perpetuating 83 insiders viii vs outsiders 143 intersectionality 4, 14n4, 22, 104, 107n14 involuntary complicities 229, 233 Islam conflict between creeds 99–101, 107n8 fundamental 88 neo-fundamental 10, 96­–99, 104–105, practise of 94–95 proselytising 95, 96–97 radical vs compassionate 95–96 Islamophobia 88, 106n2, 217 Italian passport 156–157 J Johannesburg 180–181, 212 K Kenyan migrant women 25 Korea/n 11 chilli paste 136 kwerekwere 1–2, 6, 14n1, 14n8, 97, 104 racial connotations 21 L labelling 6 language/s 39–40, 89–90, 126–127n6, 181–182 barrier 142–143, 145, 146–147 learning from church, TV, books 146 in school 141 and social capital 187 law enforcement see police legal system fairness 229

life story see narrative literacy and non-Roman script 142 Lourenço Marques 43, 57–58n21 Lusaka Accord 44–45 M Machel, Samora 45, 47 magic 93–94 mainland see Portugal making friends 50–52 makwerekwere see kwerekwere media 110, 111, 118, 122, 123, 124 see also newspapers memory 133–134, 148 menial work 203 mental health 39, 49n57, 55, methodology 8–9, 26–27, 197–198 arts-based 132–133, 148 migrant labour 74 migration as death and rebirth 115 and education 173 globalisation 177–178 historical South African 174–175 intra-African 218 privileged vs non-privileged 7 south to north 217 types of 19 see also mobility mobility viii–ix academic 151–152, 169, 173 capability for 163 and family 168–169 and nationality 167–168 social 48–49, 57n13, 127n7 student 175–176, 189 student vs migrant labour vs refugee 191 zero-sum ix morphogenesis 198, 199–200, 202–203, 212 Mozambique 9 colonial infrastructure 41–42, 55 independence 44–45 leaving 47–­48 liberation war 43­–44, 56n22 second colonial occupation 30–42 white exodus 45–46, 58n26, 59n33 whites 45–47 multiculturalism 5, 14n6, 27n2

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INDEX

N narrative 8, 37­–40, 113–114, 154–155 capital 19 gravity 107n13 interview 38–39 of social morphogenesis 199–200 national identity 10, 111–112, 114–115 and class 116–117, 119, 125 losing 119–120 nationalism 111, 120 banal 113, 122 ethnic see ethnic nationalism methodological 26 Romanian see Romanian nationalism natives 34 needs, perceived vs actual 222 neo-fundamentalist Islam see Islam newspapers 120–121 non-racialism 5, 27n2 nostalgia 48, 136–137, 163, 168, 191, 214 O othering 6–7, 14n2, 140, and host-migrant relationship 232, 233 in social sciences 13, 25 in Romania 76, and white blindness 65, 78 outsiders viii P Peru/Peruvian 10–11, 110 in Africa 117–118, 127n9 Consulate 118 diaspora 115–116, 119, 127n7 migration to Spain 112, 115–116 Venezuelan migrants 111 Pidgin English 89 place sense of 157–158 police 227, 228, 229, 232, 233 corruption 228–229 Portugal/Portuguese 9, 39–40 colonialism 33–34 community 53, 54, 55–56 diaspora 54 mainland vs colony vs Madeira 34–35, 37 mainland vs Madeira 50–51, 55, mainland vs Mozambican refugee 50 waves of migration 49–50 positionality 4, 9, 13, 14n4, 39 post-apartheid multiculturalism see multiculturalism post-doc researchers status 205–206 private vs public spaces 138–140

privilege ix–x, 8, 118–119 academia as 11–12 awareness of 10 complexity 12 see also relative privilege Q quality of life 48–49, 68, 201, 221 R race/racial capital 74 categories 68–69 classification 10, 56n5, 68–69, 139 contract 70–71 embedded in post-apartheid era 5 and inequity 4–5 laws 64 literacy 79, 82, 83 mobility 70 post-apartheid 64­ social geography of 4, 5, 14n5 racism colonial legacy 4 intra-black 6 in Romania 70 see also cultural racism; non-racialism; structural racism radicalisation 10, 88, 96, 97, 101, 106n4 rainbow nation 5 re-education camps 45, 47 realism 38 reductionism 10, 13, 20, 103–104, 105, 126 normalising 88 core of radicalism 96–99 refugees 222 deaths 217 Ethiopian 233, 234 paying tax 223 Portuguese Mozambican 9, 35, 48, 50, 55 reification 2, 5, 13 relative privilege 2, 4, 9, 19 religion 144–145 freedom of 230 see also Christianity; Islam research participants roles 38 researchers intervention 39 roles 38 residence permits 203 responsibility for past 84 retornados 33 vs refugees 34, 45–46, 48–49

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Roma 76, 84–85n2 Romania 9–10, 66–67 nationalism and ethnicity 67, 74, 76, 81 political opposition 82–83 Rwanda 222 S sabotage 9, 45, 47, 58n32 scholarships 157 sculptures 89–90, 91 self-exclusion 112–113, 117 sequential thinkers 112, 120 silence 22, 24 simultaneity 113, 120–123, 125 social capital 160–161, 178–179, 185, 186–187 social identity 101–103, 107n13, 120 and class 114–115 social morphogenesis see morphogenesis social-cultural interaction 202–203 socialism 9­–10 somatisation 49, 59n36 South Africa as a receiving country 218 Spain 111, 112, 126n2 stereotyping of immigrants 112 stereotypes 3, 76, Cameroon 90 Peruvian 116 Spain 112 and xenophobia 233 student mobility 175–176, 189, 191 structural elaboration 199, 210–211, 213 structural racism 73–74 subjectivity 38, 134 Sufism 99–100 swimming pools 138 symbolic interactionism 227–228, 230 Syria 217 T Tablighi Jamaat 96–98, 99 tactical humanism 13, 25 Tanzania 222–223, 224 The Last Stop 24 them 78 thesis 155–156 Truth and Reconciliation Commission 21 U Ubuntu ix Uganda 223–224 unemployment 89 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) 227

United States anti-immigrant 217 University Capacity Development and Grant 163–164 us and them 14n2, 20, 122 V violence of classification 2 democratic vs nihilistic 3 types of 3 violent categorisation 4–8, 19, 27n1, 28n9 visas critical skills 174 marrying for 116 student 156, 205 vulnerability 21 W we see us WESSA 72 West Africa 228 white/whiteness 11, 119 becoming 70 capital 9–10 in Europe vs in colonies 70 guilt and empathy 82 habitus 71–72, 74, 79–80 Mozambicans 56n5 performative 64–65 shades of 72 studies 68–69 white ignorance 65–66, 69–70 and privilege 10, 13 and structural racism 74 structural 71 work permits 207 working-class habitus 116–117 writer vs author 154–155 X xenophobia 5–6, 7, 10, 14n9, 88, 107n8, 230 and academia 209 African 140 basis of 20 international students 176 in Peru 111 police 92 Z Zimbabwe 180–181 challenges 200–202, 211, 213 providing for family in 181, 183, 185–186

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