Swazi migrants in Johannesburg: quiet living

Abstract

This study will explore how Swazi skilled migrants become insiders when they move to Johannesburg. It will focus on the bureaucratic and social mechanisms they employ to facilitate this process. As an under researched group skilled Swazi migrants remain relatively unknown. The study looks at the functions of blending in and distinctiveness; which encompass the social and bureaucratic mechanisms that manage the negative perceptions and attitudes towards foreigners. The study pays some attention to the historical and contemporary factors that Swazi migrants encounter and how they deal with them. There are two main theoretical frameworks that base the study; the documentation of migrants and the ideas of foreignness in South Africa. Documentation is examined from a legal/bureaucratic and symbolic understanding. Foreignness is examined as both advantageous and disadvantageous. This brings forth issues of contradiction and dichotomies in migrancy and how these can be understood. Lastly it considers citizenship and belonging. By examining how Swazi migrants validate their South African citizenship in cases where citizenship has been obtained illegally or without due process.