Building personal lives as informal migrants in South Africa : narratives of poor African informal migrants in Johannesburg
type: CreativeWork
description: 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…
abstract: 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…
author: Spel, Oghogho Christal
language: eng
date published: 2017-12-18
date modified: 2026-07-27T19:56:01Z
provider: University of Helsinki
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Helsingin yliopisto

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/228640