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The gendered nature of xenophobia in South Africa
Romi Sigsworth, Collet Ngwane and Angelica Pino, CSVR
May 30, 2009

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Introduction

After the democratisation of South Africa in 1994, the influx of migrants from other African countries increased dramatically. Despite reconciliation initiatives, old patterns of racism (deeply rooted in the country's apartheid past) combined with new forms of discrimination, such as xenophobia, have played out through the country's period of political transition. Migrants and refugees are, by their very status as foreigners, vulnerable to xenophobia, which can be defined as the attitudes, prejudices and behaviour that reject, exclude and often vilify persons, based on the perception that they are outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity.

Violence against foreigners and violence against women are two forms of violence that are internationally condemned but are normalised ways in which South African society interacts with minority and vulnerable groups. Foreign women in South Africa therefore face a double jeopardy: they are at the intersection of these two groups that are so vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and violence. Although the term 'xenophobia' may conjure up images of the violent attacks against foreigners in May 2008, migrant women in South Africa have been experiencing more subtle and insidious forms of xenophobia on a daily basis for as long as they have been in the country. These forms include not only physical violence, but verbal and psychological abuse, structural and institutional violence, as well as cultural and ethnic discrimination.

Study Rationale and Context

This study was conceptualised, designed and implemented before the xenophobic attacks of May 2008 in recognition of the fact that xenophobia was a particular form of gender-based violence which was ongoing and pernicious but had been afforded scant attention in the past. That the May 2008 attacks happened during the fieldwork phase of the project added another dimension to the data we collected, but did not alter the fact that the women we interviewed spoke mostly of the xenophobic attitudes and behaviours that affected their daily lives both before and after the May 2008 attacks. In many ways, the foreign women in our study saw the May 2008 attacks as an extreme example of what they experience as an unavoidable aspect of their lives and which merely highlighted their plight to the rest of South Africa and outside world.

Study Objective and Methodology

The main objective of this study was to explore the gendered nature of xenophobia in South Africa and the impact of such xenophobia on migrant women.

Methodology of the Qualitative Study

Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted with migrant women in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. A snowballing technique was used and the sample yielded participants from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda and Nigeria.

Access to the research communities was gained through organisations that have previously worked with migrant women.

Initial workshops with potential participants were held to discuss issues relating to gender and xenophobia. The purpose of the research was explained to the participants during these meetings. Permission was sought from the migrant women when they were recruited for the interviews during the initial workshops and an informed consent form was designed and explained to them before they signed it prior to the interviews.

Once the interviews had been transcribed and analysed, feedback sessions were held with the group of participants in each city to discuss the findings and note their recommendations for lessening xenophobia in South Africa.

Methodology of the Quantitative Study

Data was collected in three of South Africa's major cities with migrant populations: Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. Two suburbs in each city were purposively selected from these cities: Maitland and Khayelitsha in Cape Town; Umbilo and Durban central in Durban; and Berea and Yeoville in Johannesburg. The suburbs were expected to have a fair distribution of the study population (migrant women between 18-60 years). The total sample size in all the cities was 155 female respondents (40 in Cape Town, 40 in Durban, and 75 in Johannesburg).

Questionnaires were entered using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) for secondary editing and analysis.

Limitations

Qualitative Study

• A lot of attention has been paid to the migrant population in South Africa by researchers, which may have resulted in this particularly population being over-researched. As such, migrant communities may be wary of engaging with more researchers and/or they may tell the researchers what they think the researchers want to hear. However, we attempted to negate this effect by holding the reference group meetings and also accessing the participants through people who have worked with them in the past and people that they trust.
• The discourse around xenophobia that was pervasive during the May 2008 xenophobic attacks may have influenced the responses given to us by the in-depth interview participants.
• Language issues: most of the participants spoke to us in English even though it was not their first language. This may have implications for the accuracy of their turn of phrase. We did use interpreters where the participants were more comfortable speaking French - but here again, there is no absolute guarantee that the participants' meaning was accurately reflected by the interpreters.

Quantitative Study

• Survey data was collected in English, but the fieldworkers conducting the survey were foreigners who, for the most part, spoke to the respondents in their home language.
• Missing control groups: the study did not include a control group (e.g. interviewing male migrants or South African women to ascertain whether what is happening with migrant women is a general trend or specific to migrant women). The study therefore simply describes how foreign women are living and not why they are living that kind of life in South Africa.
• Problem of representativeness: even though this survey has very rich information, it is not representative of the target population owing to the small size of the sample. However, the quantitative survey data was not designed to be generalisable, but to serve as a supplementary source of information to the in-depth interviews.
• A sample of 155 did not allow us to analyse or compare groups of data because statistical conditions may not have been met.

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