Abstract
Nationality is a category used by Zimbabweans strategically in order to seek self-esteem and positive affirmation as migrants in a foreign land, and as a means of discursive self-defence. In the following, I will assess the meaning and function of nationality in the interviews I conducted for this study, in comparison to empirical findings and theory sourced from selected literature. The relation I have sketched and depicted in the course of this study between Zimbabweans and South Africans will be examined further in this chapter, followed by an accompanying chapter looking at national(istic) undercurrents in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
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Notes
- 1.
The intergroup dynamics described between Zimbabweans and South Africans often is termed “Othering”. Lajos Brons (2015: 70) provides the following definition:
“Othering is the simultaneous construction of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual and unequal opposition through identification of some desirable characteristic that the self/in-group has and the other/out-group lacks and/or some undesirable characteristic that the other/out-group has and the self/in-group lacks. Othering thus sets up a superior self/in-group in contrast to an inferior other/out-group, but this superiority/inferiority is nearly always left implicit.”
As such, we can identify the othering of Zimbabwean migrants by South Africans as well as the othering of South Africans by Zimbabwean migrants. The latter can be termed “reverse-Othering” (Chimuka, 2019). We have seen this form of othering during the self-description of Zimbabweans and the related description of South Africans. The depiction of South Africans follows a logic termed “reversing the stereotypes” (Hall, 1997). The establishment of a superior position became most explicit when examining the point of “claiming the moral high ground”. Othering is almost inevitable, as it serves particular psychological needs. Brons (2015) distinguishes between “crude” and “sophisticated” othering. According to him, crude othering, the harmful and offensive form of othering, is a prerequisite for sophisticated othering to take place, which rehumanizes the other and furthers one’s own self-understanding. Fanon (2008: 169–170) basically makes the same argument. I will not examine othering further in this study. Focussing on the use of nationality, the analysis of both groups has been confined to the meaning and imagination of their respective nationalities.
- 2.
In the study of Ana Deumert (2013: 69), an interviewee differentiated between older and younger communities of the Cape Town region: “iLanga is an older township. More of, they are close-knit, they associate with themselves. You know, they are not easily outgoing, they’ve got their own language.” Another interviewee (Deumert, 2013: 57) remarked in terms of being a newcomer in Cape Town: “Yeah, they say they are Cape-borners and if you are from the Eastern Cape they’re always like, they don’t, I don’t know how to put it, but they treat you as if like you, you’re not like them. Like that, like if you do things traditionally, everything that you do is traditional.”
Even among Xhosa migrant groups, dualistic group formations exist: e.g., between “amakhaya” and “amashipa” whereby the one carries positive, the other negative connotations. It can be observed that their depictions resemble many of the predicates outlined between Zimbabweans and South Africans in this study (Steinbrink, 2007: 105–107).
- 3.
Prominent exceptions are areas where organizations like Abahlali baseMjondolo have a presence and where no attacks on foreign nationals occurred (Gibson, 2008). Further examples can be found in Kirshner (2012; 2014) and Kerr et al. (2019).
- 4.
Zygmunt Bauman, who we will come to shortly, regards the division between “us” and “them” as the most fundamental distinction of humans within their social behaviour (Bauman, 1990: 40). This classification is defined mutually: “‘Them’ are not ‘us’. And ‘us’ are not ‘them’; ‘we’ and ‘they’ can be understood only together, in their mutual conflict. I see my in-group as ‘us’ only because I think of some other group as ‘them’” (Bauman, 1990: 41). These two groups refer not only to matters of affiliation but rather to “two totally different attitudes—between emotional attachment and antipathy, trust and suspicion, security and fear, cooperativeness and pugnacity” (Bauman, 1990: 40).
- 5.
I shall use foreigner and stranger interchangeably. In general, I use the term “foreigner” but will make use of the term “stranger” where used by the authors referenced.
- 6.
We may recall the circumstance that, originally, no particular prejudices were applied to Zimbabweans in particular. Therefore, stereotypical descriptions of “foreigners” in general were employed instead. We also may recall the “narcissism of minor differences” encountered in Chapter 2 and that, in particular, the “native foreigner” acted on their sentiments regarding “foreigners”.
- 7.
By the term “apparatus” or “dispositif”, Foucault (1980: 194–196) refers to “a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions” and fulfils a “dominant strategic function” in terms of a “certain manipulation of relations of forces, of a rational and concrete intervention in the relation of forces, either so as to develop them in a particular direction, or to block them, to stabilize them, and to utilize them. The apparatus is thus always inscribed into a play of power […].”
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Kögel, J. (2024). Examining Insider-Outsider Dynamics. In: Navigating Nationality. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43850-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43850-0_9
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