Building personal lives as informal migrants in South Africa : narratives of poor African informal migrants in Johannesburg
This study explores why poor African migrants remain in Johannesburg, South Africa’s harsh migration context, to build their lives, and how, in pursuit of a better future, they engage with the various forms of socioeconomic and political constraints that they experience. Popular as a destination for African migrants, South Africa is a country with a very high percentage of asylum seekers, but also a place where they are the targets of violent xenophobia. Yet such migrants are known to live for years in this situation, one which is generally considered socio-economically and politically marginalized and constraining. Their continued presence raises the pertinent sociological query of how and why such large numbers have remained in their host society, continuing to welcome new incoming members, while others have left, been imprisoned or murdered, or died of a range of ailments. Methodologically, resilience theory - conceptualised as a dynamic process of interaction between the individual and his or her environment – is utilised as an explanatory and descriptive framework to examine the subject of this study. Data for the study were collected through life-story interviews with African migrants who are economically active on the streets of Johannesburg, and document analysis was utilised for triangulation purposes. Data were analysed using narrative analysis. Empirical observations called attention to the prominence of aspirations for a better life amongst the informal migrants, an observation that is accompanied by several relevant findings: firstly, that the migrants’ resilience in their constraining environment cannot be attributed to itemized factors. Rather, their resilience takes the form of a dynamic and interactive engagement with the South African context. The interactions are orchestrated by their perceptions of opportunities in their home countries and the South African society, and combined with the application of faith and tactics in dealing with identified adverse conditions. Their resilience is presented as enduring but also transient, as it is subject to individuals’ evaluations and negotiations. In that light, the migrants are shown to be active agents but also victims in their harsh context, calling attention to the duality of the informal migrants’ experience in Johannesburg, irrespective of their violent xenophobic environment. Consequently, considerable challenges are posed to the projects of classifying informal migrants as either passive victims or active agents, and listing or identifying specific factors as means to attaining resilience. Secondly, an observed fallout from the interviewees’ notion of hope – aspiration – is the productive use of ‘waiting time’. The hegemonic control of the interviewees’ time through, for example, official delays or manipulation in the processing of asylum applications, is challenged by the tactical and creative utilization of the period of waiting in which two things stood out: micro-entrepreneurship and development of their social and personal lives but particularly micro-entrepreneurship, as the interviewees focused on achieving a better life through micro businesses. Their engagement in trade and services in a context devoid of institutional support, and under dire personal circumstances, though borne of feelings of ‘no alternatives’, suggests creativity, with potential for growth. Furthermore, my interviewees were also able to make productive social use of the ‘time of waiting’ even as asylum seekers. Living in the city, my interviewees took initiatives to learn new skills, develop new intimate and business relationships, had children, and so on. Their lives reveal that even as asylum seekers, they were slowly building the futures they desired, for instance, through savings and personal projects in the home country. On the basis of empirical observations, the conclusions drawn indicate the limitations of policy in terms of improving the experience of informal migrants, and raises questions concerning the moral or ethical values (or lack thereof) involved in perpetuating their vulnerability – thus calling attention to questions of choice and agency in acts dehumanising informal migrants. Moreover, observations of micro-entrepreneurship beg another question. Could migration management be mutually beneficial if a context conducive to migrants’ entrepreneurial pursuits is promoted? As a contribution to the body of knowledge of Social Policy, the author uses the perspective of the informal migrants as active agents and social victims to argue that political inclusion by the host country cannot be enough to improve the wellbeing of informal migrants. Thus, the author theoretically reflects on the relevance of Social Policy in improving human welfare and emphasizes the informal migrants’ experience of vulnerability as a creative opportunity to engage the development of Social Policy in Africa, for example, from a regional body. Therefore, the thesis postulates that the dilemma of better lives for informal African migrants is a regional political question of belongingness, care, and social responsibility.
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