Governing for Urban Inclusion? A Critical Analysis of the City of Johannesburg Migrant Help-desk Roshanara Brigid Dadoo 400811 submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Masters by Dissertation Development Studies Supervised by Prof Loren Landau and Prof Srila Roy March 2020 1 Declaration I declare that this dissertation is my own original work and that none of its sections have been previously submitted for publication or examination. Signature................................................Date..................................... Roshanara Brigid Dadoo 2 Abstract Globally, right wing populist regimes with violently anti-migrant agendas are coming to power and imposing increasingly authoritarian mechanisms of governing populations. Rapid urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa in particular has put a spotlight on the role of cities in migration and how municipalities handle tensions between incomers, integration with local communities and the needs of expanding numbers of poor and peripheral residents. Johannesburg, synonymous with migration since its beginnings in the 1890s gold rush, is the only city in the country to have designed and implemented an urban migration policy. It is a striking example of a post-apartheid liminal city in which mobility is a marker of precarity or poverty for citizen and migrant alike. I set out to understand what the creation and operation of the City of Johannesburg migration policy and Migrant Help-desk reveals about the city government’s vision in/exclusion. The study was conceived from asking how and why state institutions in post-colonies decide who to in/exclude from their jurisdictions through governing urban migration. Critical assessments of municipal policy in Johannesburg have mainly focused on local economic, planning and infrastructure issues. Migration scholars have mainly focused on the everyday lives of migrants. I look at a social policy from the perspective of the everyday work-life of government officials. Through analysing official documentation, while drawing on experiences and perspectives of the political principal and officials working in the City of Johannesburg Migration Sub Unit, I explored the municipal imagination of an inclusive urban society. I approached the research from a critical activist perspective, questioning the assumptions government makes towards migration and the conceptions employed to ‘manage’ mobility. My argument rests on how the policy and office conceptualises the righteous citizen/abject other and how the Help-desk both illuminates these ideas and helps to enact them. I show how increasingly exclusivist discourses are becoming hegemonic yet also contain tensions and contradictions, suggesting the possibility for imagining an emancipatory urbanism. 3 I am a partisan, I am alive, and in the conscience of those on my side I feel the pulse of the future city we are building. Gramsci, 1917 Acknowledgements I am most grateful to my supervisors, Prof Loren Landau and Prof Srila Roy, for all their advice, encouragement and for getting me through the last two years in spite of myself. I am indebted to Prof Jo Vearey and the African Centre for Migration and Society for the scholarship that enabled me to undertake the first year of this degree. Thank you to all of the Johannesburg Migrant Help-desk officials for sharing your time and your tales so generously. To my family, friends and comrades, I could not have completed this without your support in so many ways: materially, physically, practically, emotionally, intellectually and nutritionally. Thank you for putting up with two years of me winging and whining…it takes a city to submit a dissertation and I would never have done it without all of you - Amandla! 4 Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ................................................................. 10 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 10 Context and rationale ................................................................................................................. 14 South Africa’s post 1994 policy approach to migration ............................................................ 14 Johannesburg and migration ................................................................................................... 16 The City of Johannesburg Migrant Help-desk ........................................................................... 18 Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 20 Research design ...................................................................................................................... 20 Data collection ........................................................................................................................ 21 Primary data .................................................................................................................................... 21 Secondary data ................................................................................................................................ 23 Data analysis ........................................................................................................................... 24 Outline oF chapters ..................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ................................ 27 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 27 Literature Review ....................................................................................................................... 28 Introduction ................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not deFined. Governance and public administration .................................................................................... 29 Urban studies .......................................................................................................................... 30 Urban migration ...................................................................................................................... 31 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................... 35 Freedom isn’t free ................................................................................................................... 36 Governing through governmentality ................................................................................................. 36 On the outside looking in.................................................................................................................. 38 A long history .......................................................................................................................... 40 The shadowing history of slavery and virtuous citizens ..................................................................... 40 Not yet Uhuru in the post colony ...................................................................................................... 44 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 47 CHAPTER THREE: FRIEND OR FOE? ..................................................................................... 48 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 48 5 Integration .................................................................................................................................. 49 National government context .................................................................................................. 49 COJ discourse on integration ................................................................................................... 52 Xenophobia: Fact or Fiction? ....................................................................................................... 55 National government context .................................................................................................. 55 CoJ discourse on integration.................................................................................................... 56 Human TraFFicking ...................................................................................................................... 64 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 71 CHAPTER FOUR: MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL ................................................................ 73 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 73 Consultations and Stakeholders ................................................................................................. 73 DHA White Paper stakeholder consultation ............................................................................. 73 CoJ Stakeholders and Forums .................................................................................................. 76 Administration and Organisation ...............................................................................................