BOOK REVIEW

 

Book review - Migration in Southern Africa

 

 

Rugunanan, Pragna and Xulu-Gama, Nomkhosi (eds), 2022.
Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 270 pages
IMISCOE Research Series
ISSN 2364-4087 ISSN 2364-4095 (electronic)
ISBN 978-3-030-92113-2 ISBN 978-3-030-92114-9 (eBook)

Migration in Southern Africa is the title of the book edited by Pragna Rugunanan and Nomkhosi Xulu-Gama, whose stated aim is to facilitate migration studies through an Africanist contextual framework that aims to disrupt easy explanations for the migrant and refugee crises experienced in the region. This book is an output from the July 2019 workshop that brought together a diverse range of migration and mobility scholars based mainly in Southern Africa. It contends that South-South migration will continue to dominate future global migration trends, making it imperative for Southern-based scholars to theorize local, regional, and international migration from a South-South perspective.

The book identifies two weaknesses of Southern Africa's migration and mobility studies. First, is a tendency to perceive African rural-urban migration as benign, intimate, feminine, and local, while cross-border migration is considered risky, masculine, exploratory, and global. Second, the plight of migrant children and the complicated situations that women with children find themselves in as internal or international migrants continue to receive insufficient attention.

Rugunanan and Xulu-Gama produced a readable six-part book consisting of 18 chapters that draw from narratives emerging primarily from qualitative research methodologies involving in-depth interviews with participants. In the introductory chapter, Rugunanan and Xulu-Gama reiterate that there is a strong and urgent need for migration research from a Southern African perspective.

The three chapters in Part 1 propose ways of theorizing migration in Southern Africa. In chapter two, Kezia Batisai discusses how migration and migrant identity issues can be studied and understood. She does this by examining the contextual specificities to provide a Southern perspective to analyze African migrant worker experiences. Chapter three by Pragna Rugunanan provides a refreshing case study on South Asian and African migration to South Africa. In chapter four, Samukele Hadebe argues that although South Africa remains the migrant destination of choice in Southern Africa, a combination of factors, including restrictive legislation, xenophobic violence, coupled with high unemployment and crime rates, are making the country a less attractive destination for some migrant groups.

Part 2 focuses on legislation and policy frameworks governing migration and consists of three chapters. In chapter five, Steven Gordon discusses anti-immigrant behaviors in South Africa and provides insight into public attitudes toward migrants. In chapter six, Khangelani Moyo and Christine Botha draw on migration policy and governance literature to comprehensively discuss how the South African state handles refugees and asylum seekers. They conclude that refugee governance faces challenges resulting from a palpable discord between the policy intentions of the South African government and implementation on the ground based on an inadequate migration infrastructure for processing refugees and asylum seekers. In chapter seven, Nomkhosi Xulu-Gama, Sibongile Ruth Nhari, Musawenkosi Malabela, and Tebogo Mogoru contribute to the debate on South African labor legislation, migration, and the effect of worker education programs on workplace struggles, household challenges, and community struggles.

The focus of Part 3 is internal labor migration and regional mobility. In chapter eight, Anna Oksiutycz and Caroline Azionya explore the experiences of internal and cross-border migrants residing in the Zandspruit informal settlement in South Africa. In contrast, in chapter nine, Nomkhosi Xulu-Gama uses a feminist epistemology to unpack the often-painful experiences of migrant women whose livelihood struggles remain under-researched across Southern Africa.

Part 4 consists of three chapters focusing on children's and mothers' migration and mobility experiences. In chapter ten, Kearabetswe Mokoene and Grace Khunou discuss the ugly face of migration when mothers in historically migrant families are compelled by circumstances to migrate, leaving their children behind. In chapter eleven, Chioma Joyce Onukogu employs the conceptual lens of resilience theory to unpack the experiences and the challenges facing second-generation Nigerian children confronted with identity issues and the burden of being "migrant children" or "refugee children." In chapter twelve, Betty Chiyangwa and Pragna Rugunanan show how interwoven structural and social factors in the rural area of Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga (South Africa) shape the lived experiences of Mozambican migrant children.

Part 5 discusses the role of identity politics in migration studies, and it consists of three chapters. Chapter thirteen by Karabo Sitto examines how African migrants in South Africa are reconstructing their identities in transnational spaces. In chapter fourteen, Anthony Kaziboni's discursive analysis of the social problem of xenophobia in South Africa explores the connections between apartheid racism and post-apartheid xenophobia. However, some readers might find his argument that xenophobia is rooted in the country's racist past unconvincing, especially when one considers that most victims of xenophobic violence by Black South Africans are migrants from other African countries. In chapter fifteen, Biniam Misgun explores how Ethiopian migrants in South Africa construct their social identities and livelihoods in urban spaces where xenophobic violence continues to be challenging. Part 6, on workers' rights and new forms of work, consists of the book's final three chapters, which examine the challenges African foreign migrants experience in their efforts to make a livelihood through formal employment in South African cities. Chapters sixteen and seventeen, by Johannes Machinya and Aisha Lorgat, respectively, provide nuanced analyses that reveal the dynamics of migrant worker exploitation and exclusion from various forms of worker associations, including trade unions. Finally, in chapter eighteen, Nomkhosi Xulu-Gama and Pragna Rugunanan provide a well-crafted conclusion to the migrant question that calls for new ways of theorizing migration in Southern Africa and telling women's and children's migration stories. Migration in Southern Africa is an informative book that brings a Southern conceptual focus to the scholarship on the sociology and geography of migration and mobility in Southern Africa. The book has gone a long way in providing a unique lens through which the challenges that both internal and international migrants experience are exposed. It is worth reading if one seeks to understand South-South migration beyond the traditional Western gaze.

Prof Daniel Tevera, University of the Western Cape, South Africa