“We are Gauteng People”: Challenging the Politics of Xenophobia in Khutsong, South Africa Joshua D. Kirshner Geography Department, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa;
[email protected] Abstract: This article seeks to shed light on the May 2008 violence against foreign Africans living in South Africa, and the issue of xenophobia more broadly, by examining the case of Khutsong, a poor township on the edge of Johannesburg that did not experience xenophobic attacks. Arguing against prevailing explanations that link xenophobia with poverty and deprivation, this study examines the opposition to xenophobia that developed in Khutsong. It highlights the centrality of a community-based organization, the Merafong Demarcation Forum (MDF), in halting the spread of violence. In its recent struggle against municipal demarcation, the MDF nurtured a collective sense of place that granted primacy to provincial boundaries while downplaying ethnic and national divisions. The article argues for the need to examine local social struggles and their intersections with broader political-economic trends when accounting for the presence or absence of violent xenophobia. Keywords: xenophobia, South Africa, migration, urban rights, municipal demarcation, social inclusion Introduction In May 2008, formal and informal settlements in the poorer parts of large South African cities were wracked by xenophobic violence that left more than 60 people dead and many thousands displaced and homeless (Crush et al 2008; Everatt 2009). Many lost all they owned, including the houses and shacks they lived in. The attacks against foreign Africans living in the country deeply shocked the international community and many South Africans themselves. Several accounts of the events of May 2008 stressed a link between poverty and violence towards foreign migrants, who were seen to be encroaching on locals’ already limited resources.