3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Othering and the media: a critical discourse analysis of articles about African migrants and health issues in two South African daily newspapers (from April 2008 to August 2015)(2018) Buker, LindaBackground: South-Africa has a long standing history of migration. Yet in 2008 the country experienced unprecedented waves of xenophobic violence against foreigners in a number of townships around the province of Gauteng. In the aftermath negative sentiments seemed to have developed against foreign nationals. The media is a power tool in the creation of such sentiments. Through images, language, voices and representation of individuals and groups media outlets may have significant impact on the perception of its audiences on their realities. This research aimed to investigate in what ways two South-African newspapers have depicted African migrants in relation to their health and healthcare services. In resource scare settings such as South-Africa, a competition for limited services in combination with an increase of users may have contributed to a xenophobic environment. To examine this hypothesis, articles were investigated for their language use and underpinning discourses. Methods: For the analysis two Gauteng English-speaking newspapers were selected (The Star, The Sowetan). Data were retrieved from the online archive of Wits University library and selected through inclusion and exclusion criteria. Using a Jäger’s structural and fine analysis approaches, a form of critical discourse analysis, articles were analyzed according to their use of rhetoric, metaphors, subjects, voices, power relations and institutional forms of power. Furthermore, authors were investigated and all articles summarized as well as examined for their tone and atmosphere. Moreover, articles’ data were checked for their accuracy. Results and Discussion: Publications in the two newspapers on the subject of health and migration were infrequent with 38 articles between 2008 and 2015. The overall impressions of articles varied but the majority did not frame migrants negatively. Information on the authors was not readily available. Metaphors were framed around the supposedly high numbers of migrants entering the country (waves, masses, etc.). A significant word choice was the word illegal which was often used to imply a criminal act. However, many articles conveyed equally empathic views on the difficult positions of migrants. Moreover, othering through the creation of inside and outside groups were a recurrent form of presenting migrants. Several terms around foreign nationals were used interchangeably to speak about migrants irrespective of their legal status. The majority of migrants articles referred to were Zimbabweans (68%) which was often associated with a negative image. Data use in articles was difficult to confirm or reject as accurate data were not easily accessible. Both newspapers allowed various voices to be heard. There was no evidence for misuse of institutional forms of power. Overall, the main discourses in the articles were around cross-border migration and health risks, the poor management of migration, the use of resources by migrants and the health status of migrants living in South-Africa. Results are limited by the researcher’s bias based on her gender, nationality and social background which also limited the choice of data sources to English speaking newspapers. As a non-native English speaker, linguistic nuances may have gone unnoticed. Moreover, certain information was not available, including data on the authors or the layout of the articles. Lastly, this research limited itself to xenophobia against cross-border migrants and not internally displaced people or xenophobia between ethnic groups. Conclusion and Recommendations: Both newspapers fail to account for the different stories behind cross-border movements. Neither of the newspapers gave particular space to the subject itself.Item The role of social media in immigrants' response to xenophobic violence in South Africa(2018) Borman, Jan WillemXenophobia and other forms of discrimination and prejudice has long been a problem in South Africa. When it reached a boiling point in 2008, the country could have been forgiven for thinking that the worst has happened. But since then the country has seen incident after incident and wave after wave of violence against foreigners. Despite all of these incidents, research around xenophobia and responses to it has neglected spending time focusing on the victims themselves. There are bodies of research exploring the responses of government, civil society and other institutions such as the police to xenophobia. By failing to examine the responses of immigrants to xenophobia, research treats them as passive victims. Through resistance and attempts to fight back against the perpetrators of xenophobic violence in recent years, we know that is not the case. Migrants and migrant communities have agency and are active role players in society. Mobilising and responding to xenophobic violence might take different forms including traditional forms such as word of mouth at regular places of gathering and the use of social media. This research not only examines the responses of immigrants to xenophobic violence, but also examines the role social media plays in responding to xenophobic violence.Item A comparative study of the South African Sunday Times and Zimbabwean Sunday Mail newspapers' reportage of the xenophobic attacks in South Africa (March and April 2015)(2018) Chapeyama, Mutsa BelindaThis study explores the way in which xenophobic violence was framed during March and April 2015. This is undertaken through qualitative content analysis of the editorial, news, opinion and feature articles in order to identify themes and news values selected for the coverage of the violence. The study draws on some of the news values enshrined two newspapers, Sunday Times (South African newspaper) and Sunday Mail (Zimbabwean newspaper), coverage of the xenophobic violence and framing of the violence that occurred during 2015. News values are used to determine how much prominence an event or issue is. Hence, this insight is used to analyse the news articles to determine what the newspapers considered newsworthy during the xenophobic violence. In addition, framing theory asserts that the media put more focus on certain events than others and place them within a field of meaning. As such, overall, the findings of the study show that both newspapers framed xenophobic violence in a manner that was not derogatory to the foreigners i.e. the use of words such as makwerekwere or aliens but however different considering the different contexts from which the newspapers reported from. The Sunday Mail had little coverage on the violence and mostly reported on the violence if there was a Zimbabwean national involved. On the contrary, Sunday Times, reported on all the events that took place during the spate of the violence.Item Dedates around xenophobia in university spaces through the context of decolonisation and transformation(2017) Murombedzi, Tapuwanashe Kudzai MichelleThe emergence of xenophobic violence is linked directly to the dissemination and development of certain ideas and perceptions. This paper will examine perceptions of xenophobic violence held by university students looking particularly at the University of the Witwatersrand. The research attempts to understand the perceptions and understandings of the university students, and how they conceptualize their individual perceptions in the context of university unrest and university transformation. These perceptions will be discussed and analysed through individual interviews in conjunction with questioners. Questions of perceived identity and the evolution of identity will be tackled in an aim to fully understand these perceptions. This focus on the tertiary institution serves to increase the analysis of xenophobic violence through the analysis of perception and debates. The dominant discourse around xenophobia is often focused on how the xenophobic attacks occurred and what drove the xenophobic attacks. However, there is limited focus on what drives xenophobia and the discourse that emerges in the xenophobic attacks. This paper will provide an analysis of this discourse to develop an understanding of the origins of xenophobic mentalities and the differing perceptions of foreign nationals held by university students.Item Effects of the proposed Licensing of Businesses Bill on migrant traders in Soweto(2017) Motsoeneng, MbaliAs an economic hub of Africa, South Africa has been experiencing an influx of economic and political migrants leading to the ethnic diversification of its population. This trend has incited a xenophobic atmosphere due to frustrations from locals, and has led to violent attacks towards foreign nationals. In particular, the Somali population has endured a high number of attacks as this group has successfully penetrated the informal business market in the townships of South Africa. Government has responded to these xenophobic attacks by proposing, amongst others, a Licensing of Businesses Bill in 2013. The bill has been criticised by the public as it is considered a hostile policy that aims to enforce regulations that restrict foreign nationals from operating businesses in the informal sector. This political dilemma has also led to questions as to how this policy response may have an effect on social cohesion in unequal societies where violence against Somalis is prevailing. The Klipspruit community was selected as it forms part of the City of Johannesburg that has a significant amount of Somali informal traders. The purpose of the study was to examine the root causes of violence against Somalis and the potential of the governments’ policy response to mitigate this phenomenon. In particular, the study also investigated the effect of the proposed Licensing of Businesses Bill on social cohesion development between Somalis and South Africans in Klipspruit. The qualitative research findings indicate that violence against Somalis was due to the economic situation, lack of regulation, competition and business miscommunication. The responses were generally driven by the perception that the government of South Africa introduced a bill that is fostered by nationalistic interests to the detriment of foreign nationals such as Somalis. It is therefore recommended that the government develops a way to enhance power sharing in decision-making processes, monitoring and correcting inequalities amongst culturally distinct groups, promoting cultural diversity and integration through education and lastly ensuring that the government acts in a constitutional manner.Item Migration, governance and violent exclusion: exploring the determinants of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa(2016) Misago, Jean PierreResponding to inadequacies and limitations of current causal explanations for xenophobic violence which has become a long standing feature in post-Apartheid South Africa, this study proposes a Governance Model of Xenophobic Violence that provides a comprehensive empirically-based and theoretically informed causal explanation. It is a multivariate empirical and integrated theoretical explanatory model that identifies and explains the roles of - and the complex interplays between - the key determinants of xenophobic violence consisting of underlying causes, proximate factors and triggers. The six key determinants the model identifies are: deprivation, xenophobic beliefs, collective discontent, political economy, mobilization and governance. This study argues that these determinants and their interconnections in a value-added process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence. I call it the governance model because of the predominant role governance plays in the occurrence of xenophobic violence. With underlying causes (deprivation, xenophobia and collective discontent) already established, the study pays particular attention to the often missed proximate factors and triggers (the political economy of the violence, mobilization and governance). It is through the findings on these new factors that the study introduces new empirical and theoretical insights and innovations to the understanding of, not only, xenophobic violence in South Africa but also collective violence generally. First, this study argues that xenophobic violence in South Africa is just ‘politics by other means and by doing so brings to the fore the often missed centrality of micro-politics and localised political economy factors as key drivers of collective violence particularly communal violence. Second, the study argues that that the triggers of xenophobic violence and of collective violence generally lie in the mobilization processes and not in the grievances and ensuing discontent as argued by many theoretical approaches to collective violence. The study suggests a new theoretical model, the Mobilization of Discontent Model, which captures the increasingly recognised centrality of mobilization as a trigger of collective violence. Third, the study argues that governance is a key determinant of xenophobic and collective violence but not necessary in ways often assumed or prescribed by time-honoured and widely accepted theoretical predictions, particularly those contending that collective violence and other forms of contentious collective action tend to occur in societies where mechanisms of social control have lost their restraining power. By demonstrating that local governance deliberately facilitated the occurrence of xenophobic violence in areas where it occurred by providing what I term micro-political opportunity structures, the study calls into question the common understating of the relationship between governance and collective violence and reveals some aspects of this relationship that are either misunderstood or undetected until now. The Governance Model of Xenophobic Violence this study proposes is an innovation that clearly illustrates the poverty of most explanatory models of collective violence, which makes it an appropriate tool for integrating empirical and theoretical knowledge from different disciplines and for identifying gaps in existing scholarship.Item Medical outcasts: voices of undocumented Zimbabwean and Mexican women fighting gendered and institutionalized xenophobia in American and South African emergency health care(2016-08-01) Richter, RoxaneThis thesis is the culmination of medical aid work and 24 one-on-one interviews with undocumented Mexican women in the U.S.A. and Zimbabwean women in South Africa seeking lifesaving emergency healthcare access. The theoretical research combined with practitioner-based fieldwork, shows the direct and deplorable effects of xenophobic policies coupled with a demonstrable failure to enforce healthcare access rights.