A contextualisation of the 2008 and 2015 xenophobic attacks: Tracing South African necropolitics

Abstract

Spanish

French

It has been a decade since the 2008 xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Reflecting on these, this article rethinks xenophobia in the country by positioning it as an inevitable and unavoidable symptom of the nation-building project. By connecting the 2008 attacks to similar violence in 2015, it traces socially and politically embedded attitudes that contribute to an environment of hostility and intolerance. The article suggests that these perspectives and policies are fundamentally connected to the necropower that defines South Africanness. It links the violence to historical trends and decisions, and shows that discourses of denialism and exceptionalism are necropolitical in that they render certain bodies as worthy of life in the country, and relegate migrant bodies to zones of figurative and literal death. As such, the article implies that a perspective beyond the confines of nationhood is needed to effect change. In this, a necropolitical lens provides intersectional insight into the last decade of violence and works towards a critique of a simple binary of inclusion/exclusion.

Keywords

Africa intersectionality migration nation necropolitics South Africa xenophobia

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Agamben

(1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (trans. Heller-Roazen

). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Agamben

(2005) State of Exception (trans. Attell

). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

ANC (African National Congress) (2011) The Freedom Charter. Available at: www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=72 (accessed November 2014).

Anthias

Yuval-Davis

(1992) Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. New York and London: Routledge.

Barber

(1994) South Africa: The search for identity. International Affairs 70(1): 67–82.

Beetar

(2017) Transcontinental lives: Intersections of homophobia and xenophobia in South Africa. Doctoral thesis (PhD), University of Sussex.

Brown

(2013) Bonhoeffer, Schmitt, and the state of exception. Pacifica 26(3): 246–264.

Campbell

Sitze

(2013) Biopolitics: An encounter. In: Campbell

Sitze

(eds) Biopolitics: A Reader. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, pp. 1–40.

Crush

(2000) The dark side of democracy: Migration, xenophobia and human rights in South Africa. International Migration 38(6): 103–133.

10.

Crush

Ramachandran

Pendeleton

(2013) Soft Targets: Xenophobia, Public Violence and Changing Attitudes to Migrants in South Africa After May 2008. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP). Available at: www.africaportal.org/dspace/articles/soft-targets-xenophobia-public-violence-and-changing-attitudes-migrants-south-africa (accessed November 2014).

11.

Eliseev

Mkhize

(2015) KZN xenophobia: 14-year-old boy shot dead. Eyewitness News. Available at: http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/15/KZN-Xenophobia-14-year-old-boy-shot-dead (accessed April 2015).

12.

Estévez

(2014) The politics of death and asylum discourse: Constituting migration biopolitics from the periphery. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 39(2): 75–89.

13.

Everatt

(2011) Xenophobia, state and society in South Africa, 2008–2010. Politikon 38(1): 7–36.

14.

Flockermann

Ngara

Roberts

Castle

(2010) The everyday experience of xenophobia: Performing the crossing from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 24(2): 245–259.

15.

Gerber

(2015) Stop waiting for a messiah, act – Haffajee. Available at: www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Stop-waiting-for-a-Messiah-act-Haffajee-20150218 (accessed February 2015).

16.

Giroux

(2006) Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, class and the biopolitics of disposability. College Literature 33(3): 171–196.

17.

Haritaworn

Kuntsman

Posocco

(2014) Introduction. In: Haritaworn

Kuntsman

Posocco

(eds) Queer Necropolitics. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1–27.

18.

Human Rights Watch (1998) ‘Prohibited persons’: Abuse of undocumented migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees in South Africa. Available at: www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/s/safrica/safri983.pdf (accessed November 2014).

19.

Humphreys

(2006) Legalizing lawlessness: On Giorgio Agamben’s state of exception. The European Journal of International Law 17(3): 677–687.

20.

Inglehart

Haerpfer

Moreno

et al . (eds) (2014) World Values Survey: Round Five – Country-Pooled Datafile Version. Madrid: JD Systems Institute. Available at: www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV5.jsp

21.

Internet Archive (2008) President Mbeki approves request for SANDF involvement to stop attacks on foreign nationals. Available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080610181937/http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/show.asp?type=pr&include=president/pr/2008/pr05211746.htm (accessed April 2015).

22.

Ismael

(2015) Foreign attacks ‘shameful’ – ANC. Available at: http://news.iafrica.com/sa/990232.html (accessed April 2015).

23.

Khoza

(2015) Zuma’s son wants foreigners out of the country. News24. Available at: www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Zumas-son-wants-foreigners-out-of-the-country-20150331 (accessed April 2015).

24.

Magubane

(2015) Reveal trade secrets, minister tells foreigners. Business Day Live. Available at: www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/01/28/reveal-trade-secrets-minister-tells-foreigners (accessed January 2015).

25.

Marinovich

(2015) A South African murder through the lens. The Mail & Guardian. Available at: http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-23-a-south-african-murder-through-the-lens (accessed April 2015).

26.

Martin-Baron

(2014) ‘Hyper/in)visibility and the military corps(e). In: Haritaworn

Kuntsman

Posocco

(eds) Queer Necropolitics. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 51–71.

27.

Mashele

(2015) Jacob Zuma: Fit to be a herdsman, not a president. Available at: www.rdm.co.za/politics/2015/02/23/jacob-zuma-fit-to-be-a-herdsman-not-a-president (accessed February 2015).

28.

Mbeki

(2008) Address of the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, at the national tribute in remembrance of the victims of attacks on foreign nationals, Tshwane. The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa. Available at: www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=3330 (accessed November 2014).

29.

Mbembe

(2003) Necropolitics. Public Culture 15(1): 11–40.

30.

Montenegro

Pujol

Posocco

(2017) Bordering, exclusions and necropolitics. Qualitative Research Journal 17(3): 142–154.

31.

Ndluvo-Gatsheni

(2012) Bringing identity into international relations: Reflections on nationalism, nativism and xenophobia in Africa. In: Cornelissen

Cheru

Shaw

(eds) Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 69–86.

32.

Neocosmos

(2008) The politics of fear and the fear of politics. Available at: http://abahlali.org/node/3616 (accessed November 2014).

33.

Neocosmos

(2010) From ‘Foreign Natives’ to ‘Native Foreigners’: Explaining Xenophobia in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Citizenship and Nationalism, Identity and Politics. Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa.

34.

News24 (2015) Thousands mob KwaMashu police as xenophobic attacks continue. The Mail & Guardian. Available at: http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-13-thousands-mob-kwamashu-police-as-xenophobic-attacks-continue (accessed April 2015).

35.

Nkosi

(2015) South Africa’s xenophobic attacks: Fear and shame. BBC News. Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-32299548 (accessed April 2015).

36.

Nyar

(2011) ‘Business as usual’: The response of the corporate sector to the May 2008 xenophobic violence. Politikon 38(1): 149–167.

37.

Nyar

(n.d.) Synthesis Report: ‘What Happened?’: A Narrative of the May 2008 Xenophobic Violence. Available at: www.gcro.ac.za/sites/default/files/News_items/Xeno_reports_July2010/synthesis/4_What_happened.pdf (accessed April 2015).

38.

Nyembezi

(2015) SAHRC receives death threats due to xenophobia investigation. 702FM. Available at: www.702.co.za/articles/2640/xenophobia-sahrc-recieves-death-threats (accessed April 2015).

39.

Paelo

(2014) Listen to immigrant stories. Available at: www.thoughtleader.co.za/mandelarhodesscholars/2014/10/15/listen-to-immigrant-stories (accessed October 2014).

40.

Peberdy

Jara

(2011) Humanitarian and social mobilization in Cape Town: Civil society and the May 2008 xenophobic violence. Politikon 38(1): 37–57.

41.

Puar

(2007) Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

42.

Ramutsindela

(1997) National identity in South Africa: The search for harmony. GeoJournal 43(1): 99–110.

43.

Sanchez-Mazas

Licata

(2015) Xenophobia: Social psychological aspects. In: Wright

(ed.) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 25, 2nd edn. Amsterdam and Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 802–807.

44.

Scott

(2012) Die Antwoord and a delegitimised South African whiteness: A potential counter-narrative? Critical Arts 26(5): 745–761.

45.

Sinwell

(2011) Obtaining ‘peace’, searching for justice: Evaluating civil society and local government responses to xenophobia in Alexandra. Politikon 38(1): 131–148.

46.

Sithole

(2015) South Africans united against xenophobia on social media. The Mail & Guardian. Available at: http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-15-south-africans-united-against-xenophobia-on-social-media (accessed April 2015).

47.

Smith

(2011) Violence, xenophobia and the media: A review of the South African media’s coverage of xenophobia and the xenophobic violence prior to and including the events of 2008. Politikon 38(1): 111–129.

48.

Steinberg

(2012) Security and disappointment: Policing, freedom and xenophobia in South Africa. British Journal of Criminology 52(2): 345–360.

49.

Stobie

(2007) Somewhere in the Double Rainbow: Representations of Bisexuality in Post-Apartheid Novels. Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.

50.

The World Post (2015) Why the deadly attacks against foreigners in South Africa come as no surprise. Available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/26/south-africa-xenophobic-attacks_n_7119816.html (accessed April 2015).

51.

TimesLive (2015) Listen to exactly what King Goodwill Zwelithini said about foreigners. Available at: www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/04/16/listen-to-exactly-what-king-goodwill-zwelithini-said-about-foreigners (accessed April 2015).

52.

Unterhalter

(1995) Constructing race, class, gender and ethnicity: State and oppression strategies in South Africa. In: Stasiulis

Yuval-Davis

(eds) Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class. Sage Series on Race and Ethnic Relations Vol. 11. London: Sage, pp. 207–240.

53.

Vigneswaran

Landau

(2012) The transformation of sovereign territoriality: A case study of South African immigration control. In: Cornelissen

Cheru

Shaw

(eds) Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 121–143.

54.

Viljoen

(2015) Press statement: Government, ANC should make words matter to combat xenophobia. Centre for Human Rights. Available at: www.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/centre-news-a-events-2015/1460-press-statement-government-anc-should-make-words-matter-to-combat-xenophobia.html (accessed April 2015).

55.

Voice of America (2009) Proposed pledge of allegiance for South African children sparks intense debate. Available at: www.voanews.com/content/a-13-2008-03-03-voa28-66744432/562227.html (accessed November 2014).

56.

Wahab

(2016) ‘Homosexuality/homophobia is un-African’? Un-mappng transnational discourses in the context of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill/Act. Journal of Homosexuality 63(5): 685–718.

57.

Watson

(2015) Police and army lock Hillbrow down. Available at: http://citizen.co.za/371109/police-and-army-lock-hillbrow-down (accessed April 2015).

58.

Wilson

(2001) The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

59.

Zuma

(2015) Open letter from President Jacob Zuma to Mia Couto, Mozambican writer and poet. The Presidency. Available at: www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=19558 (accessed April 2015).