“I know a place that is softer than this...”– Emerging Migrant Communitites in South Africa

Abstract

Since the end of apartheid, immigration into South Africa has increased dramatically. Migration has become a volatile issue, with South Africans increasingly xenophobic and threatened by the influx of foreigners. Simultaneously, the question of national identity has increased in significance, with politicians and academics anxious to capture an understanding of the evolution and complementarity of parallel identities and group loyalties. In the rush to develop a better understanding of identity formation, the opportunity to examine the impacts of hostility on identity, as in the example of migrant individuals and communities in South Africa, has been over‐looked. How migrant identities emerge, and how communities play a role in identities and in the survival of individuals, has been a neglected facet of migration in South Africa. This article, constructed largely from interviews with migrants, presents a picture of the emergence of migrant communities in South African society and seeks to enrich understanding of the complexities of migrant society within the country.