In spite of South Africa’s progressive constitution, citizen’s intolerance of non-citizens, refugees and economic migrants has escalated in recent years. What is more, xenophobic attacks are covered in the public discourse as mere episodes of crisis and often rather fuel rhetoric of national machismo than leading to an acknowledgement of the stories and experiences of people seeking refuge and being exposed to hostility on an everyday basis. This ethnography engages with the strategies employed by a group of refugee men from different African countries in surviving and stabilising their existence in the ‘mother city’ Cape Town in the face of precarity. It grapples with questions of how the men manage to bring about certainty in the face of unpredictability and extends its focus to the men’s dreams and the modes by which these are sought to be achieved. It thereby highlights the ways in which objectifications as refugees and less-than-human are somewhat transcended by navigating spaces with care, purpose and imagination.
At the heart of 21st century discourses are questions of whose lives may matter more than others. While the debates themselves are not new, the #hashtags they are linked to and the media through which concerns around moralities of living together are expressed allow for debates to reach large numbers of people in accelerated, individualised and accessible ways. The new media have been powerful in (re)igniting debates and (re)activating demands for social change. Yet, the focus of ubiquitous #hashtags on binary positions may render it easy to neglect their nuances and facets. In recognition of grey-zones, contradictions and ambiguities, this ethnography focuses on a suburb of Cape Town, Observatory, and its recently revived Neighbourhood Watch as an urban renewal project and attempt to decrease notions of vulnerability to crime and violence. In Observatory – considered to be liberal and bohemian by its inhabitants – the framing of topics within the Neighbourhood Watch group often take on an abstract, intellectualised form. Nevertheless, the group with its rather clashing ideals is grounded in and fuelled by recycled crime stories as well as snapshots of suspected criminals that continue to reappear via various social media channels. Individual experiences, stories and inner conflicts of local Neighbourhood Watch members are at the centre of this exploratory engagement with how fear becomes embodied, everyday practice and the ways in which desires for relationality and spatial exclusivity become entangled in a place where every life matters only in principle.
At the heart of 21st century discourses are questions of whose lives may matter more than others. While the debates themselves are not new, the #hashtags they are linked to and the media through which concerns around moralities of living together are expressed allow for debates to reach large numbers of people in accelerated, individualised and accessible ways. The new media have been powerful in (re)igniting debates and (re)activating demands for social change. Yet, the focus of ubiquitous #hashtags on binary positions may render it easy to neglect their nuances and facets. In recognition of grey-zones, contradictions and ambiguities, this ethnography focuses on a suburb of Cape Town, Observatory, and its recently revived Neighbourhood Watch as an urban renewal project and attempt to decrease notions of vulnerability to crime and violence. In Observatory considered to be liberal and bohemian by its inhabitants the framing of topics within the Neighbourhood Watch group often take on an abstract, intellectualised form. Nevertheless, the group with its rather clashing ideals is grounded in and fuelled by recycled crime stories as well as snapshots of suspected criminals that continue to reappear via various social media channels. Individual experiences, stories and inner conflicts of local Neighbourhood Watch members are at the centre of this exploratory engagement with how fear becomes embodied, everyday practice and the ways in which desires for relationality and spatial exclusivity become entangled in a place where every life matters only in principle.
In spite of South Africa’s progressive constitution, citizen’s intolerance of non-citizens, refugees and economic migrants has escalated in recent years. What is more, xenophobic attacks are covered in the public discourse as mere episodes of crisis and often rather fuel rhetoric of national machismo than leading to an acknowledgement of the stories and experiences of people seeking refuge and being exposed to hostility on an everyday basis. This ethnography engages with the strategies employed by a group of refugee men from different African countries in surviving and stabilising their existence in the ‘mother city’ Cape Town in the face of precarity. It grapples with questions of how the men manage to bring about certainty in the face of unpredictability and extends its focus to the men’s dreams and the modes by which these are sought to be achieved. It thereby highlights the ways in which objectifications as refugees and less-than-human are somewhat transcended by navigating spaces with care, purpose and imagination.
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