Jean Pierre Misago ACMS-University of the Witwatersrand HSRC Seminar Pretoria, 30 June 2015 Xenophobic Violence in South Africa: Critical Reflections on Current explanations

Graduate degree programmes (Hons, MA, PhD) with students from across Africa, North America, and Europe; Research in 12 African countries on issues related to migration, urbanisation, human rights, development, governance, and social change; Partnerships in 4 continents; Provides research services and support to government, international organizations, local NGOs, and rights advocates. The African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits An internationally engaged; Africa-oriented; and African-based research and teaching centre dedicated to shaping academic and policy debates on migration, development and social transformation

Main Arguments Most current explanations are valuable in describing the socio-economic and political context but they fall short as scientific explanations for the occurrence of the violence Only a multivariate explanatory model can account for all the determinants of the violence

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

Conceptual clarifications Xenophobia =/= Xenophobic violence : Violence is not a quantitative degree of conflict (Blubaker et al. 1999). Attitudes are not a good predictor of behaviour  This discussion about causal explanations of xenophobic violence and not of xenophobia. Xenophobia or just criminality? Not mutually exclusive. Xeno violence is a bias-motivated crime Afrophobia? Does not pass empirical test

Current Causal Explanations: Not these….

Current Causal Explanations: These rather…. Can be grouped into 3 main categories:  Economic and material : Competition for scarce resources and opportunities; poverty, inequality, unemployment; Service Delivery Failures; Mass Influx and Inadequate Border Control (invoking The ‘threshold of tolerance’ hypothesis: the greater the numbers of migrants in a context of deep dislike, the more violent the reaction (Relative deprivation theory).  Historical, political and institutional : the legacy of apartheid (segregation, isolation policies, etc.), the impact of post-apartheid nation-building efforts and the failure to meet socio-economic expectations.  Psycho-social: cultural stereotyping, repressed historical trauma, culture of violence. Shortcomings:

Current Causal Explanations: Shortcomings Common and long standing: cannot explain violence in some areas and not in others with similar socio-economic conditions Reductionist, one-factor, mono-causal explanations: can be at best partial or incomplete.  Biggest problem: they do not seem to recognise their limitations. They claim to be all encompassing i.e. to account for all the elements of the causal chain.  What these explanations really do is to describe the conditions prevailing in affected areas; they do not explain how these conditions exactly lead to mass violence targeting foreign nationals.

Determinants of Xeno violence ( or elements of the violence causal chain ) Deprivation: real or relative Belief: that foreigners are the cause of the deprivation Collective discontent towards foreigners Micro-politics & political economy: instrumental motives of instigators Mobilization of the discontent: the trigger Governance and social controls: favorable opportunity structure for violence. “Nothing happens in out community if leaders do not want it”, Alex respondent

Conclusion: Towards a Multivariate Model of Xeno Violence

Jean Pierre Misago ACMS-University of the Witwatersrand HSRC Seminar Pretoria, 30 June 2015 Xenophobic Violence in South Africa: Critical Reflections on Current explanations