Tamlyn Jane Monson Collective mobilization and the struggle for squatter citizenship: rereading “xenophobic” violence in a South African settlement Article (Published version) (Refereed) Original citation: Monson, Tamlyn Jane (2015) Collective mobilization and the struggle for squatter citizenship: rereading “xenophobic” violence in a South African settlement. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 9 (1). pp. 39-55. ISSN 1864-1385 Reuse of this item is permitted through licensing under the Creative Commons: © 2016 International Journal of Conflict and Violence CC BY ND This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67165/ Available in LSE Research Online: July 2016 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. urn:nbn:de:0070-ijcv-2015172 IJCV: Vol. 9 (1) 2015 Collective Mobilization and the Struggle for Squatter Citizenship: Rereading “Xenophobic” Violence in a South African Settlement Tamlyn Jane Monson, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics, and African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Vol. 9 (1) 2015 Editorial (p. 3) Focus Section: Xenophobic Violence and the Manufacture of Difference in Africa: Introduction to the Focus Section Xenophobic Violence Laurent Fourchard / Aurelia Segatti (pp. 4 – 11) and the Manufacture of Difference in Africa “Go Back and Tell Them Who the Real Men Are!” Gendering Our Understanding of Kibera’s Post-election Violence Caroline Wanjiku Kihato (pp. 12 – 24) A Reappraisal of the Expulsion of Illegal Immigrants from Nigeria in 1983 Daouda Gary-Tounkara (pp. 25 – 38) Collective Mobilization and the Struggle for Squatter Citizenship: Rereading “Xenophobic” Violence in a South African Settlement Tamlyn Jane Monson (pp. 39 – 55) Protecting the “Most Vulnerable”? 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ISSN: 1864–1385 IJCV: Vol. 9 (1) 2015, pp. 39 – 55 Tamlyn Jane Monson: Collective Mobilization and the Struggle for Squatter Citizenship 40 Collective Mobilization and the Struggle for Squatter Citizenship: Rereading “Xenophobic” Violence in a South African Settlement Tamlyn Jane Monson, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics, and African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Given the association between informal residence and the occurrence of “xenophobic” violence in South Africa, this article examines “xenophobic violence” through a political account of two squatter settlements across the transition to democracy: Jeffsville and Brazzaville on the informal periphery of Atteridgeville, Gauteng. Using the concepts of political identity, living politics and insurgent citizenship, the paper mines past and present to explore identities, collective practices and expertise whose legacy can be traced in contemporary mobilization against foreigners, particularly at times of popular protest. I suggest that the category of the “surplus person”, which originated in the apartheid era, lives on in the unfinished transition of squatter citizens to formal urban inclusion in contemporary South Africa. The political salience of this legacy of superfluity is magnified at times of protest, not only through the claims made on the state, but also through the techniques for protest mobilization, which both activate and manufacture identities based on common suffering and civic labour. In the informal settlements of Jeffsville and Brazzaville, these identities polarised insurgent citizens from non-citizen newcomers, particularly those traders whose business-as-usual practices during times of protest appeared as evidence of their indifference and lack of reciprocity precisely at times when shared suffering and commitment were produced as defining qualities of the squatter community. In May 2008, violent, collective anti-immigrant evictions on the detail of specific cases, have highlighted “place- broke out in localities across South Africa, leading to sixty- based identities” (Kirshner 2014, 6), and complexities in the two deaths, the displacement of thousands of people, moral economy of incidents of collective violence (Monson deployment of the army to curb the attacks, and the erec- 2012; Kerr and Durrheim 2013; Kirshner 2012). By probing tion of tented camps to shelter tens of thousands of victims the local logic of collective violence, as other key studies of (Igglesden, Monson, and Polzer 2009). Such incidences of violence have done (Kalyvas 2009, 6; 26, Mamdani 2001, 8), collective violence had happened before, and continue to these studies counteract arguments attributing attacks to a occur on a sporadic basis (Africa Research Bulletin 2011, “xenophobic” false consciousness originating from national 38–41; Commey 2013). Many explanations have mapped elites (Hayem 2013; Mosselson 2010). the violence onto racial identities (Gqola 2008; Matsinhe 2012; Tafira 2011) or broad economic variables such as This paper builds on the discovery of a significant association poverty, relative deprivation, or competition for resources between informal residence – that is, living in a shack or other (IDASA 2008; Human Sciences Research Council 2008; untitled dwelling – and the incidence of “xenophobic” viol- Joubert 2008; Amisi et al. 2011, Gelb 2008). Comparative ence in South Africa (Fauvelle-Aymar and Wa Kabwe-Segatti case studies have highlighted instead the importance of 2012). In South Africa, informal residence has historically local leadership (Misago 2012) and struggles for citizenship been concentrated in distinct areas composed of untitled, (Von Holdt et al. 2011). Other emerging readings, focusing makeshift shacks on irregularly occupied land.1 These sites, 1 The densities of informal housing in the back- yards of formal townships are also growing. IJCV: Vol. 9 (1) 2015, pp. 39 – 55 Tamlyn Jane Monson: Collective Mobilization and the Struggle for Squatter Citizenship 41 referred to as “squatter camps” or “informal settlements”,2 are area on the periphery of Atteridgeville, Tshwane, in the often framed primarily in terms of their synony mity with province of Gauteng. This is a productive site for a study poverty. However, they have also been associated with defiant of the local politics of violence because a large-scale, viol- collective politics throughout the twentieth century and ent eviction of foreigners resulted in several deaths and beyond (Bonner 1990; Stadler 1979; Vawda 1997; Van Tonder major displacement occurred here before the nationwide 1989; Chance 2011; Makhulu 2010; Selmeczi 2012; Pithouse outbreak and snowballing of attacks in 2008, indepen- 2014). Given that history, geography ,and politics come dently of the momentum that a sense of national crisis together to create the political identities that animate violence gave to that period. Mshongo was also an area for which (Mamdani 2001), and that place has the power to shape social secondary qualitative data was available to bridge the relations (Gieryn 2000), this article examines “xenophobic period between the 2008 violence and my fieldwork in violence” through a political account of two squatter settle- 2012. I selected two areas of the settlement as the ments across the transition to democracy in South Africa. embedded cases for my study: Jeffsville, founded in 1991 before the advent of democracy, and Brazzaville, founded The contribution is based on a double-embedded case in 1998, four years into the democratic dispensation (Fig- study of two areas of Mshongo, an informal residential ure 1). 251658240 Figure 1: The constituent settlements of Mshongo in Atteridgeville, Tshwane 2 My work draws on Mamdani’s conception of favour “informal” or “shack settlement” over the resonance precisely because of its association with political identity which emphasises the role played term “squatter camp” – associated as it is with the defiance of apartheid controls. I therefore favour by state institutions and practices in shaping even apartheid government – my study illustrates how this term in the present paper, despite the use of syn- counterpolitical identities. Where some might the act of “squatting” retains an important political onyms here and there. IJCV: Vol. 9 (1) 2015, pp. 39 – 55 Tamlyn Jane Monson: Collective Mobilization and the Struggle for Squatter Citizenship 42 Drawing on Mamdani’s concept of political identities as sive character of legislation and spatial policy, and the contoured by institutions and practices