1 
UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND 
JOHANNESBURG 
 
 
 
 
 
BLACK RACISM IN ALEXANDRA: CROSS ? BORDER LOVE 
RELATIONSHIPS AND NEGOTIATION OF DIFFERENCE IN 
A POST APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THESIS SUBMITTED FOR FULLFILLMENT OF MASTER OF 
ARTS DEGREE IN ANTHROPOLOGY, 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KENNETH MATEESANWA TAFIRA 
STUDENT NUMBER: 0711140G 
 
 
 
 
 
SUPERVISOR: DR KELLY GILLESPIE 
 
 
 
 
 
ii 
 
DECLARATION 
 
 
I hereby declare that this work and ideas contained therein are wholly mine and original. 
 
I declare that full referencing and acknowledgement has been done on ideas and thoughts 
that do not belong to me. 
 
I am also aware of the University?s policy against plagiarism. 
 
 
 
Kenneth. M.  Tafira 
 
 
 
07 June 2010 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
iii 
 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 
 
My sincere gratitude is due to my supervisor, Dr Kelly Gillespie for her advice, criticisms 
and guidance; Prof Eric Worby for believing in me and members of the Anthropology 
Department: Ms Carol Taylor, Prof Shahid Vawda, Prof David Coplan, Dr Emily 
Margaretten for their invaluable advice and availability for consultation and the 
department?s administrator, Mr Molefi Trinity Makola. 
We say in Shona: kutenda kwakiti kurimumwoyo (the gratitude of a cat is in her mind!) 
 
Many appreciations are also to my key informant, Jerrinos Ziwerere, on whose stall I sat 
many days and hours, meeting people, making conversations with them and watching the 
Alexandra world go by.  
To my numerous informants whose contribution made this work possible?Aloha! 
 
To my friend, Rachel Rusznyak, the only person who knows and understands me. 
 
Finally to my friend, Lakhbir Singh and the Gurdwara Sahib of Johannesburg; Rasada 
Goldblatt and members of SOLSA for their financial contribution towards my tuition. 
 
 
 
 
 
iv 
 
 
DEDICATION 
This work is dedicated to my late mother, who passed on to the other world 
when I was a baby. You are living and you are watching, Ma Ndlovu! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
v 
 
List of Acronyms 
ADAPT  Agisanang Domestic Abuse Prevention and Training 
ANC  African National Congress 
CD  Compact Disc 
COSATU   Confederation of South African Trade Unions 
DVD    Digital Video Disc 
GMO    Genetically Modified Foods 
HSRC    Human Sciences Research Council 
ID    Identity Document 
IFP    Inkatha Freedom Party 
ILO    International Labour Organisation 
IOM    International Organisation for Migration 
OHCHR   Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 
SAB    South African Breweries 
SABC    South African Broadcasting Corporation 
SAMP    Southern Africa Migration Project 
SASAS   South African Annual Social Attitude Survey 
UIF    Unemployment Insurance Fund 
UK    United Kingdom 
US    United States 
WNLA   Witwatersrand Native Labour Association 
ZCC    Zion Christian Church 
 
 
vi 
 
List of Figures       Page 
 
 
 
Figure 1 ? The Sticky/Spider Web     102 
 
 
 
Figure 2 ? Flow of Racism      110 
 
 
 
Figure 3 ? Green ID Book      113 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
vii 
 
 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 
 
 
Chapter  Title        Page 
 
Introduction???????????????......................1 
 
1. Poverty, Unemployment and 
Women????..???????????????...........26 
 
 
2. The Immigrant Penis is Huge ?Beauty and the 
Beast...??????????????????????..37 
 
 
3. Social Formation of Races in the Post Apartheid South 
Africa?????????????..??????.............77 
 
 
4. Nationalism, Ethnicism or Racisms?...................................??.95 
 
 
 
Conclusions???????????????????????????.118 
 
Bibliography??????????????????????????...122 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
viii 
 
Abstract 
 
My research in Alexandra has looked at the cultural and sexual logic, in explaining black 
racism and the attacks on non South Africans in May 2008.  More particularly the study 
examines love relationships between South African women and immigrant men in the 
context of allegations and accusations that the latter are ?stealing? South African women. 
This and the male element of the violence, as a cause of black racism have not been 
treated with seriousness in the xenophobic discourse. Instead it has emphasised on lack of 
service delivery, poverty and unemployment as the overriding causes. However the 
research has not disputed this economic reductionism. The findings reveal that black 
racism in Alexandra can be explained through racialised competition for women and this 
is an overwhelming source of resentment by South African men towards non South 
African men. This resentment can be explained in the theoretical context of social 
formation of races in the township. The pre 1994 internal ethnic differentiation has 
shifted to the ?us? and ?them? paradigm, intersecting nationality and ethnicity, defined by 
racial labelling, naming and stereotyping. A binary racial representations, significations 
and subjectivity of the ?other? and those who belong ?here? and ?there? are seen in 
claims to autochthony, thus this kind of racisms. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
Introduction 
 
 
The capacity to live with difference is, in my view, the coming question of the 21st 
century.  
 (Stuart Hall 1993:361). 
 
On 11 May 2008, violence against black African immigrants1 erupted in South Africa, 
starting from Alexandra Township2 and spreading to other areas in Johannesburg and 
Gauteng. When the violence subsided, sixty two people were dead, others were maimed 
and injured and thousands more dislocated. The characteristics of these pogroms3 not 
only exhibited hatred but were racial in nature. This forms my key argument in this thesis, 
that the attacks and manifestations of what is called xenophobia are in fact black racism4, 
which is practiced by black people on other black people who not only belong to the 
community but are considered to be socially and culturally inferior. I will further argue 
that racism is not merely based on differences in skin colour (and that it is possible that 
people of the same skin colour to practice racism on each other), but on culture, language, 
ethnicity and nationality. My hypothesis is that racism is not explained as a single and 
generic phenomena (Hall 1993; Goldberg 1993; Gilroy 1987) but a manifestation of 
multiple and transcendent determinants and causes which are revealed in a particular 
socio - historical conjecture. This I have explored in the social formation of races among 
                                                 
1 Throughout this thesis I use the term immigrant to refer to all non South Africans regardless of their legal 
status I the country. 
2 Alexandra is called by residents Alex or Gomorrah after the biblical place, for its supposed iniquity and 
sin. It also comes form inter township competition with other locations like Tembisa and Soweto, on whose 
neighborhood contained the ?baddest? people. 
3 The Coalition Against Xenophobia in its Declaration (available on http://www.antix.org.za) describes the 
May 2008 xenophobic violence as pogroms similar to those seen in Europe. See also Ishmael Lesufi?s ?On 
the history and dynamics of pogroms and genocide? in Khanya Journal, Number 19, July 2008. 
4 I will use this term throughout, instead of xenophobia. 
2 
 
black populations in the township and placed it in the theoretical framework of 
Goldberg?s (1986; 1990; 1992; 1993; 2002) racial formation and racial subjectification 
and Stuart Hall?s (1980; 1993; 1996) historical specificity of racism. I intend to concur 
with Goldberg?s (1987; 1990) definition of racism as an irrational prejudice asserting 
superiority or inferiority of members of races and racism as discrimination against others 
on the basis of their putatively different social membership. 
 
Before I briefly look at some basic features of apartheid racism, I delve into the 
genealogical inquiry of predominant (European) supremacist discourses. The three logics 
as espoused by West (1993) are: Judeo ? Christian which emanates from the biblical 
account of shaming of Ham and blackening of his progeny; scientific or biological with 
roots in Enlightenment philosophy and the psychosexual which endows Africans with 
sexual prowess. These logics were the foundation of nineteenth and twentieth century 
racism. In the apartheid South Africa, racism was more prominently defined by race, 
class, economy, separation, segregation, inequality and subjugation (Wolpe 1976; 
Alexander 1979; Frederickson 1982; Marx 1998 and Magubane 1979; 2007). At that time 
the situation in South Africa led some authors to view it, like in the American Deep South, 
as a caste system (Beteille 1969). The cumulative inequality which went with status, 
wealth and power was seen in the binary representation between black and white with the 
former being socially underprivileged and at the bottom of economic and political scales. 
Further the apartheid system had strictly enforced rules against interracial marriages, and 
these were inspired by racism. It is not the intention of this thesis, though, to examine at 
great length the manifestations of apartheid racism. However some features and effects of 
3 
 
apartheid, as elucidated throughout this thesis, are being felt in the contemporary South 
African society. My argument in this work then is, though apartheid and post apartheid 
white racism and supremacy (which though important in the present analysis needs 
another space of its own which this cannot afford, for further discussion) is economically 
and class determined my research in Alexandra finds out that indeed there are some 
trappings of these but this is not enough to explain the situation. I do not entirely dispute 
the economic reductionist nature of black racism in the township. My work is not an 
attempt to completely write against the class reductionist idea of ?epiphenomenality? of 
race and local ? level violence either. I see it critical to take terms of local ? level social 
realities seriously while at the same time acknowledging larger class context. The two 
work together to create conditions for racism in places like Alexander.5 
 
My contention is that economic and class reductionism is not adequate in explaining the 
dynamics of black racism. Thus during my ethnography and stay in the township I have 
delved deeper and looked at the cultural and sexual logic; the internal sets of relationships 
between immigrants and South Africans and how racism is manifest in this social world. 
One question I have arrived at during my field work was: is the pre and post May 2008 
violence racism, nationalism, ethnicism or sexism? My findings reveal that one concept 
cannot be separated from another. Doing so would be an erroneous and inadequate 
analysis of the internal dynamics in the township. While on one hand there are nationalist, 
ethnic, racial and sexist sentiments, all these are interlocking and converging, as seen in 
this thesis. As indicated earlier I use the term black racism rather than xenophobia or 
negrophobia to describe this interlocking system. This is inspired by the fact that 
                                                 
5 See Chapter One where I discuss this. 
4 
 
definitions and applications of xenophobia are inadequate in understanding what 
happened in Alexandra. Xenophobia as a universal phenomenon has been broadly 
defined as the intense dislike, hatred or fear of others perceived to be strangers (De 
Master and Leroy 2000; Crush 2006 and Frederickson 2007) and denotes behaviour 
specifically based on the perception that the ?Other? is foreign to or originates from 
outside the community or nation (ILO, IOM, OHCHR 2001:2). Negrophobia has also 
been defined as the fear and dislike of black people and their culture (Fanon 1967; 
Chinweizu 2005; Gqola 2008). Again phobia as defined by Hesnard (cited in Fanon 
1967) is a neurosis characterised by anxious fear of an object or anything outside the 
individual and it must arouse both fear and revulsion. These definitions I think are 
incompatible with the forms of salient, explicit, implicit or hidden black racist practices 
that exist in Alexandra. Although Gqola (2008) and Mngxitama (2008) have both noted 
that the May 2008 attacks on immigrants were racialised and had characteristics of 
negrophobia, I argue that what happens in South Africa is neither xenophobia, 
negrophobia nor any other phobias, but must be taken in the context of racism, that is, 
black racism. My supposition is that this kind of racism has to do with one?s social 
membership which includes differences in nationality, ethnicity, social and territorial 
origin, language, culture, habits, dress and customs. These differences are then mobilised 
to effect discrimination, prejudice, notions of inferiority and superiority and subsequently 
violent attacks and pogroms.  My renunciation of xenophobia, adoption and use of the 
term black racism is inspired mainly by the following propositions: commentators and 
anyone who have used the term xenophobia may have done so unconsciously and 
inadvertently or for lack of a better term to describe anti - immigrant practices in post 
5 
 
apartheid South Africa, Alexandra in particular. This is because I assume, it seems 
incomprehensible to many that racism can be done and practised among populations and 
people of the same skin colour and commentators may be falling in the conundrum of the 
biological racism analysis. Take for example a white non ? national living among black 
South Africans and suffers prejudice and discrimination from the latter. I am convinced 
many would see it as racism. Then take a black African living among the same 
community and suffers the same fate. Many would happen to call it xenophobia rather 
than racism because the social actors here are of the same skin colour. For me both 
instances I call racism notwithstanding a social actor?s skin colour. I call it racism 
because it is based on differences in social membership, culture and nationality rather 
than skin colour.  The commentators have not, which I have done, looked at how people 
of the same skin colour, in this case black immigrant Africans and black South Africans, 
are transformed into races, become racialised subjects and how they bring each other to 
racialised subjectivity. At this point I pose a question: are both xenophobia and racism as 
universal concepts different, although distinct overlapping (ILO, IOM and OHCHR 
2001)? My answer is to some extent yes. This is because xenophobia as defined it means 
a dislike or fear of a stranger while racism to use Goldberg?s (1993) definition, is 
discrimination against others based on their putatively different social membership. 
Furthermore as indicated earlier, commentators, in my view, assume that when 
discrimination and prejudice happens among people of the same skin colour (where 
immigrants are concerned) it is xenophobia, not racism.  The meaning of racism is 
contingent on the prevailing social and epistemological conditions. It follows to say that 
racism as a fluid, chameleonic and delicate term, its conceptualisation assumes a different 
6 
 
meaning at a given time. I insist then, that xenophobia does not remain what it is ? it 
changes into racism. How and when it does so is subject to hitherto existing social 
conditions. Finally I am inspired by Goldberg?s (1993) observation that: 
The methodological disposition one brings to the analysis of racism will influence, if not 
fully determine, its definition. The conception of the phenomena analysts take themselves 
to be addressing is circumscribed by the constraints of method. Studies of racism have 
tended to divide methodologically between those assuming an individually oriented and 
those accepting a structural approach (1993:92). 
Goldberg further notes that: 
Nevertheless, the meaning of racism is significantly narrowed to omit a range of 
expressions ? namely, practices, effects, and implications ? that I want to insist are 
properly constitutive of racialised discourse, in general, and (subject to the proper 
definitional constraints) to racism in particular (1993: 93). 
From observations I have made above, I come to a conclusion that in South Africa the era 
of xenophobia in discourse is coming to an end. What is needed now is to analyse, treat 
and see the so called xenophobia as racism: that is, racism as practised by population 
groups of the same skin colour. For me this is a new paradigm. 
 
I was intrigued by the maleness of the nature of violent practices against immigrants in 
the recent anti ? immigrant attacks. I had some questions that I needed answers to: why is 
that men (especially the younger group) were at the forefront of the attacks? Are women 
incapable of exercising violence at a scale that men do? Is there an intersection between 
township black masculinity and racism and are men (both immigrant and South African) 
in a fight and competition for women? One of the latent causes for black on black racial 
7 
 
violence in May 2008 has been the allegation by black South African men that black 
African immigrant men ?steal? or ?take? local women. I use genital racism to describe 
this because it has to do with phallic obsessions of the ?Other?s? (in this context the black 
male African immigrant male) big penis and sexual prowess (West 1993). This arouses 
racial jealousies and may lead to crimes of racism (Fanon 1967). It is widely believed in 
the township (by both men and women) that the black male African immigrant has a big 
penis6. Genital racism therefore is discrimination based on the myth and phallic 
obsessions of big penis and tremendous sexual powers (Fanon 1967; West 1993).  
However this, in the xenophobic discourse, has not been treated with seriousness. 
Commentators have said that the allegations that immigrants ?steal? South African 
women, were a mere justification for black racism and thus attacks, though some work on 
genital racism and black masculinity has been done by Morrell (1998; 2001 ; Ratele; 
2001; 2004); Nkealah (2008) and Gqola (2008). On the other, they have not placed black 
masculinity in the whole context of black racism. As a result my research has attempted 
to fill this gap, by exploring a close relationship between township black masculinity and 
what has been called xenophobia, in the process of social formation of races among black 
communities in the post apartheid South Africa. Going into the field, my primary thought 
was that the resentment by black South African men, of immigrant men having 
relationships with South African women may have more important social significance 
than previously attributed to it and needed further investigation for the kind of analysis it 
might provide to the debates around the May 2008 attacks.  
 
                                                 
6 I have discussed this in the chapter ?The Immigrant?s Penis is Huge ? Beauty and the Beast?. 
8 
 
As related to me by one of my key informants, Jerrinos who is from Zimbabwe, on May 
11 2008, violence against immigrants originated in Alexandra. He is not clear on the prior 
details leading to the violence but believes there was a meeting at the male, Zulu 
dominated Madala hostel in the Beirut7 area. He says gangs of Zulu men went around the 
township looking for non - South Africans. Apparently they were angered by the fact that 
they are losing women to immigrants and that immigrants are taking jobs. Their modus 
operandi included asking for South African identity documents, asking suspected 
immigrants the Zulu meaning of an elbow (indololwane) and detecting non - Zulu accents. 
Within a few hours the whole township was caught in an orgy of violence as the attackers 
were joined by other men in other areas. The men, heavily armed with a paraphernalia of 
weapons that included sticks, sjamboks (hippo hide whips), stones, bricks, iron pipes, 
indukus (knobkerries) and guns went around ?flushing? out immigrants, beating them to 
death, looting, destroying their properties and asking them to vacate the area with 
immediate effect. Most non - South Africans had been living in the area for decades, had 
married South African women and established permanent homes. Other victims were 
actually South Africans, who happened to be from Limpopo and were seen as non - 
nationals. Father Cairns from the Roman Catholic Church, who has lived in the area for 
twenty six years, provided his church as refuge for fleeing immigrants. Prior to the 
violence he had six hundred non - South African parishioners. In the aftermath of the 
violence the number was negligible as most of them fled the area and never returned. 
Jerrinos (who has lived in the township for three years) told me he survived the violence 
because of his proficiency in South African languages, even his neighbours did not know 
where he is from. On inquiry on the maleness of the violence, Father Cairns told me: 
                                                 
7 I discuss Beirut in chapter 1 
9 
 
The majority of men came from the men?s hostels. Women are seen not to have the 
stamina and power men have. Women are also compassionate and it was heart rending 
for them to see their fellow women being beaten and raped. Traditionally in South Africa, 
men are seen as warriors. Another reason is that in a close knit community like Alex, if 
one doesn?t join in the violence, they become a marked person ? so one has to go along 
with the crowd. In this way fear played a huge role among the perpetrators themselves. 
It?s like mass hysteria.8 
 
The attacks stimulated a wide range of comments from political and community leaders, 
the media and civil society (Valji 2008; Neocosmos 2008; Idasa 2008; Faull 2008; Van 
Driel 2008; Lehulere 2008; Misago, Landau and Monson 2009). One shortcoming is that 
the studies on what has been called xenophobia have largely been based on class and 
economic reductionism and focused on the macro and structural levels of analysis; causes 
being widely attributed to poverty, high rate of unemployment, poor service delivery, 
competition for scarce resource, ineffective migration control, fight for RDP houses9, and 
high crime rate. (Dodson and Oelofse 2000; Neocosmos 2006; McKinley 2007; Idasa 
2008; Faull 2008; Van Driel 2008; Lehulere 2008; Pillay 2008; Valji and Fuller 2008; 
Misago et al 2009). In the aftermath of the May 2008 violence, a study done by the 
HSRC in Alexandra, Tembisa and other townships attributed the causes of the violence to 
economic and socio - political factors. That is relative deprivation, poverty and inequality, 
South African exceptionalism and exclusive citizenship (Pillay 2008; Valji and Fuller 
2008). 
 
                                                 
8 Interview with Father Cairns, 10 June 2009. 
9 RDP houses are free government houses allocated to the poor. 
10 
 
The ?micro? causes that are steeped in attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and values that 
characterise immigrant and South African social relationships have not adequately been 
dealt with. It is only a thorough understanding of these that we can explain how social 
relationships between South Africans and non - South Africans, lead to racialisation. My 
research has found out that Alexandra is a multiethnic society and home to practically all 
South African ethnic groups and immigrants from many other African countries including 
Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Zambia and Uganda. The 
mix of different ethnicities and nationalities has led to local forms of racialisation. 
However, this racialisation has transcended to racism which is seen in differences in 
ethnicity, language, nationality, cross border love relationships and masculine 
competition for women. 
 
Aims and Objectives 
 
Going into Alexandra to commence my field work, I was intrigued by the following 
questions. How would I understand and make an intersection between black township 
masculinity and black racism in the post 1994 South Africa? Whilst, not entirely denying 
and disputing the macro causes and economic reductionism, my research was seeking to 
explore the internal township dynamics, the sexual and cultural logic, the perceptions, 
values and beliefs in connection with cross border relationships, and potentiality, of 
genital racism as a primary motivator for black racism and hence the May 2008 violence. 
My argument here is that racism is not merely an epiphenomenon of economic power but 
has its own internal dynamics which are rooted in a community. These have and need to 
be addressed and understood if analysis of racism is to be complete. 
11 
 
Research Questions 
 
The allegation made that black African immigrant men ?steal? South African women 
begged a further and in - depth investigation. In this regard, in examining cross border 
love relationships and genital racism among black populations in South Africa, what are 
the implications of ?stealing? someone?s wife or girlfriend in the moral universe of South 
Africa? Again, is there a relationship and a distinction between morality and racism? 
Secondly, is there sexual competition between men (that is immigrant and South African  
 
men) and does this competition become racialised and in turn leads to black racism? 
 
Thirdly, is the resentment by South African men of non - nationals having romantic and  
 
marital relationships with ?their? women, driven by sexism that the former want to  
 
exclusively appropriate and access women?s conjugal and marital rights? My study also 
attempts, in the context of social and psychological dimensions of masculinity, to answer 
the question: are South African men seeking not to dominate only women but other men 
as well, who happen to be black African immigrant men, and is this domination both a 
racial and moral one? Finally, I look at how are differences in ethnicity, nationality, 
culture and language between immigrants and South Africans negotiated in the township. 
 
Research Methodology 
I would like to point out my positionality as a researcher. Being a Zimbabwean and male 
researching on a sensitive issue was likely to affect my judgment in the field. I overcame 
this by adopting a neutral and non judgmental stance by realizing i am first and foremost 
a researcher and that I needed to fulfill my obligations as such. I have in all consideration 
taken great care not to stereotyping anyone, which is an unenviable task. Most of the 
12 
 
information contained in this work is from the mouths of my informants, although I have 
my own interpretation and subjectivities. 
 
The methodology employed in the study is largely ethnographic, using different 
approaches to get perceptions of common people in the community. These included 
informal conversations, narratives, inquisitive observation, non probability sampling, 
general observations and in ? depth interviews. I interviewed both immigrant and South 
Africans, from young adults to the elderly, male and female. 
 
Since participant observation as an ethnographic method, is a process that takes a long 
time to develop, and I working on a limited time line, which is one month of fieldwork, 
inquisitive observation was a viable alternative. It involved me ?parachuting? (Bester 
1995), that is dropping in the midst of things from multiple points, tacit observations and 
interviews, asking questions while at the same time establishing myself as a bona fide 
researcher through being seen interviewing people, taking notes and hanging around. In 
this way I was also making and getting people understand the social reality of the 
research. As a result I was able to harness contacts and networks in the field. 
 
Through inquisitive observation I located key individuals, immigrant and South African, 
who led me to others and to those in cross border relationships. One such key individual 
was Jerrinos, a Zimbabwean immigrant who owns a vending stall by a major road in the 
township. During my ?parachuting?, knowing practically nobody in the township but 
determined to establish contacts as I went along in the field, I dropped from a taxi and 
13 
 
went to him. I immediately began a conversation in Zulu, and much later did I realize he 
is Zimbabwean (he is fluent in South African languages). Jerrinos became a focal point of 
my research as I spent some long hours at his stall, watching taxis and pedestrians going 
up and down, to and from Alexandra?s major shopping centre; conversing and making 
friends with many people. As a result Jerrinos features prominently in this project. He 
also acted as my social sponsor, who played a key role in introducing me to other 
informants.  
 
Being autobiographical, in ?depth, narrative and non ? directive, the informal interviews 
were modeled on the conversation. Apart from traversing the length and breadth of the 
township, observing their social life and talking to people on the streets, I found myself in 
numerous taverns where I would write up my field notes, at the same time socializing 
with patrons. This became a social event that enabled me to form friendships with my 
informants and facilitated conversations on sensitive topics and them disclosing more 
about themselves. The in ? depth interviews in total were conducted on twenty five 
immigrants and South Africans, on issues including, causes of the May 2008 violence; 
their perceptions on cross border love relationships and the general social relationships 
between the former and the latter. The interviews were also conducted with five couples, 
with me seeking an in ? depth understanding of the dynamics of cross border love 
relationships, the reasons why they are in such a relationship and how kin and community 
views them. In addition information was sought on issues like township masculinity and 
the conception of manhood and manliness, sexism, domestic and gender violence. 
 
14 
 
Literature Review 
a. Black Racism Since post apartheid South Africa 
The roots of black racism in the post apartheid South Africa are much broader than can 
possibly be assumed (Crush 2006; Nyamnjoh 2006; Hadland 2008) as they are a 
prominent feature of the new state. The rise of black racism in the 1990s cannot be 
isolated from the country?s apartheid past, of racial and class divisions, animosity, racist 
immigration policies, siege mentality and attitudes of uniqueness and superiority towards 
the rest of Africa (Crush 2008; Misago, Landau and Monson 2009). With the advent of 
democracy in 1994, South Africa was opened up to the global economy. The study of 
globalisation, mobility, citizenship and xenophobia shows globalisation as a process of 
flows and closures, empowerment and enslavement and the reality of exclusion 
(Akokpari 2000; Alexander 2006; Nyamnjoh 2006; Lehulere 2008). The accelerated flow 
of labour capital, goods, electronic information and increased migration by African 
immigrants exacerbated insecurities and anxieties of locals and non nationals alike. The 
result is the building of boundaries of difference through black racism.  
 
The association between capitalism and race that emerged in the formation of the new  
nation state can be best seen in what Gilroy (1997) calls ?a distinctive ecology of  
 
belonging?, that links territory to identity and relatedly, sovereignty to belonging.  
 
Similarly the development of the nation state has been characterised by regimes of  
 
inclusion and exclusion (Anderson 1991). As a result, the state identifies those with  
 
legitimate claims of belonging and forms legitimate exclusion from materialities of the  
 
nation (Hintzen 2007; Goldberg 2002; see also Hayter 2004). Further, the state, through  
 
15 
 
its exclusively coercive, dominative and conspiratorial attitudes, puts it in a role of  
hegemonic practices and strategies which are related to racist practices.  Stuart Hall  
(1996), observes that this points out to transformation of old racism (in South Africa, for 
example, from apartheid racism to the post apartheid black racism). It follows to say that 
this new form of racism has emerged and it aligns with the old racism. For Hall this is the 
prominent phenomenon of the post colonial state. Inevitably this produces cultural 
politics of inclusion and exclusion which are racialised and buttressed by the 
exclusionary practices of the state. Since race is integrally linked to territorial origins 
(Hintzen 2007), the Black African immigrant Diaspora in South Africa is consequently 
conceptualised racially and this has to do with differences in nationality, social origin, 
ethnicity, language, culture and dress. 
 
Between the national censuses of 1996 and 2001, Gauteng province?s non national  
 
population increased from 4, 8% to 5, 4% representing a jump of 66 205 to 102 326  
 
(Landau and Haupt 2007:5). In all, the non nationals represent 6, 2% Johannesburg?s total  
 
population and that the city is a primary immigrant destination (Balbo and Marconi  
2005:3). In the period between 1994 and 1996, five million ?illegal? immigrants are 
estimated to have entered South Africa (Bouillon 2001). However, the post 2000 
Zimbabwean economic and political turmoil saw a large influx of Zimbabweans in South 
Africa (Bond and Manyanya 2003), making availability of reliable statistics on the 
number of immigrants in South Africa difficult. Crush and Tevera (2002:30) point out 
that the estimates vary from half a million to eight million, whilst the Human Sciences 
Research Council (HSRC 2008) put the estimates at between five to eight million. The 
16 
 
absence of reliable statistics or credible basis to measure migration, and press references 
of ?floods of foreigners? heighten existing fears and help form defensive attitudes by 
locals (Crush and Williams 2001). 
 
Black racist attitudes and racial attacks against non ? nationals has been a feature of the  
 
post apartheid South Africa (Crush 2008; Hadland 2008; Nyamnjoh 2006, Misago et al 
2009). Since 1994 hundreds of people have been harassed, attacked or maimed. 
In this context, from 1994, anti immigrant sentiments were being whipped up. Former  
Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi in his introductory speech, pointed out  
the threat of African immigrants to South African prosperity (Crush 1996; Landau  
 
2006:228) and that the massive influx of illegal immigrants was ?his biggest headache?  
 
(Dempster 2003).  
 
 
The Southern Africa Migration Project (SAMP) 2006 xenophobia survey shows that  
 
South Africans exhibit high levels of intolerance and hostility to outsiders unlike virtually  
 
anything seen in other parts of the world. By the late 1990s, there was hardening of  
 
attitudes, with opinions varying from demand on restrictions on immigration; total ban on  
 
immigration; allegations of using up national resources by non nationals; allegations of  
 
crime and that immigrants are vectors for disease.  An annul South African Social 
Attitude Survey (SASAS) conducted by the HSRC in 2007 showed a growing anti ? 
immigrant sentiment, rising from 33% in 2003 to 47% in 2007.  Incidents of anti ? 
immigrant attacks have since been continuing since the early 1990s and in 2005 and 2006, 
twenty Somali traders were killed in Cape Town (Hadland 2008). Previously the violence 
had been geographically constrained. The May 2008 attacks, starting in Alexandra spread 
17 
 
like wildfire to areas in and around Johannesburg: Cleveland, Diepsloot, Hillbrow, 
Tembisa, Primrose, Ivory Park and Thokoza. Further violence followed in KwaZulu 
Natal, Mpumalanga and Cape Town. 
 
b. Genital Racism 
 
The preceding section dealt with the largely structural and economic determinism of 
black racism in the post 1994 South Africa. I will now explore some instances of the 
sexual logic of racism. Importantly these have relevance in the contemporary social 
relationships between immigrants and South Africans in the country, in Alexandra in 
particular. These three ideas, that is, structural, cultural and sexual, as I found out, 
converge in some instances, as explained in Chapter one. 
 
Drawing on Chester Himes? ?If Hollers Let him Go? (Himes 1945; Thomas 2006), Fanon 
(1967) famously argues that racism can be explained at the genital level. In his analysis 
of Negrophobia, the myth of a Negro?s big penis and his tremendous sexual powers, 
which begets fears in white men, is the basis of genital racism. The archetypal figure of 
the threatening super sensual dark villain or black beast is old in societies of Western 
civilizations and the threat of a dark villain to the white goddess features prominently in 
Greek mythology (Hoch 1979). Transcending to the medieval Christian theology, the 
devil is depicted as a super sensual and lascivious black male with large penis capable of 
super masculine exertion. This villain is not only darker or black but also dirtier, hairier, 
ugly, disheveled but also threatening and immoral.  The conflict between the hero, who 
defends the white goddess and the dark villain, becomes a struggle between 
18 
 
understandings of manhood: human versus animal, white versus black, spiritual versus 
canal, higher versus lower and noble versus base. The dichotomy therefore is the  
superiority of the morality and manhood of the ?civilized?, the barbaric and base villains 
and the good versus evil. In this context it also means the black South African skin versus 
darker immigrant skin. In South Africa, the defence of manhood is above all demanding 
the defence of the beautiful South African black woman, who here I call South African 
goddess, from the dark and ?ugly? immigrant. The reductionism of the black male to an 
animal, in the sixteenth, seventeenth centuries and later, was in the context of him being 
forged to a sexual link to animals and therefore viewed as lewd, lascivious and wanton 
(Jordan 1968; 1974:18; 2000; Stember 1976; Frederickson 2002). The black male 
sexuality is then seen as bestial and a drive thrusting up from lowers males to higher 
females and originating from beasts.  
 
Although Cell (1982); Van den Berghe (1970); Frederickson (1982) and Marx (1998) 
infer the cause of racism in both South Africa and American South to economic  
determinism, in the American Deep South where genital racism was strongly manifest,  
the occasions of great violence towards Negroes arose in connection with the master  
 
taboo of society, prohibiting any intimacy between the Negro male and a white female  
 
(Stack Sullivan 1941(cited in Hoch 1979); Hoch 1979; Frederickson 1981; 2007). 
Similarly, Fanon (1967) observes that in all cruelties, tortures and beatings (as seen in 
2008 black racial violence in South Africa), there are many elements of sexuality. As 
Fanon, again notes, the viewing of the Negro as a penis symbol, his lynching, like the 
May 2008 violence, is a sexual revenge. A 1937 survey by Dollard in a southern 
19 
 
American town found a widespread belief that the genitalia of a Negro male were larger 
than white males (Dollard 1937; Myrdal 1944; 2000). Thus in the American South and 
Nazi Germany, the fear of sexual pollution or violation by the allegedly subhuman race is 
close to the heart of murderous or genocidal racism (Frederickson 2007:120). In Nazi 
Germany Jewish males, like blacks, in the racist imagination, were seen as potential 
seducers and violent sexual predators (Dingwall cited in Hoch 1979).  The notion of the 
male Jew as a cunning seducer and violent rapist was the staple for Nazi propaganda, and 
his relationship with a German woman would pollute and contaminate the racial purity 
that Nazis were endeavoring to preserve (Frederickson 2007). However, Fanon (1967), 
argues that the whilst the Negro was feared for his perceived large penis and posed a 
biological danger, the Jew was an intellectual danger, resented because of his potential 
for acquisitiveness and deemed to control everything including wealth and positions of 
power. This kind of racism which happened a long time ago is in my view also 
manifesting in contemporary Alexandra. I think the analogy between Western mythology 
and contemporary South African black relations derives from racial sexual jealousies. I 
realize the difference of both contexts but the universality of these kind of perceptions 
and beliefs requires a similar analysis. For me it reveals that racism transcends time, 
place, spatial location and social context. 
 
Hoch (1979) writes that the development of a masculine hierarchy is closely associated 
with unequal access to women who are conceived of as sexual property. The main 
significance and market value of masculinity is a symbol and is measured by length of 
one?s penis, economic status, sexual opportunity, number of one?s conquests and the size 
of their pocket (see also Nkealah 2008; Gqola 2008). Masculinity is often seen as an 
20 
 
almost numerical evaluation of the sexual marketability of the person, largely reduced to 
genital function and conceived as a commodity and a thing (which Gear 2007:219 calls 
commodification of sex).  Similarly, the sexual act as a sexual relation is a social relation 
of domination, appropriation and possession (Bourdieu 2001).  Manliness and virility in 
its ethical aspect to increase honour is not divorced from physical virility especially 
through sexual potency. Again, manliness in many societies is a sexual and social 
reproduction capacity and capacity to fight and to exercise violence which is a first and 
foremost duty (Russell 1975; Bourdieu 2001; see also Connell 1987: 2005; Ratele 2001; 
2004 and Morrell 1998 and 2001). 
 
 
Social Formation of Races 
 
By the 1960s and 1970s, the pseudo ? scientific Enlightenment notion of race based on 
biological differences was being widely contested and discredited (Van Den Berghe 
1967; Banton 1967; 1977; Dubinin 1975; Leiris 1975). Scientific racism as both a 
product and historical construction of Enlightenment era has origins in the myths 
developed by natural philosophers of the eighteenth century to explain man?s place in 
nature (Lyons 1970; Poliakov 1982; Eze 1992; Zack 1996; Brion Davis 1997; 
Frederickson 2002; Anthony Marx 1998; Magubane 2007). The European supremacist 
discursive logics, though not inherently racist, were employed to justify racist practices 
(West 1993). For Goldberg (1990), the principle of gradation and hierarchy of beings 
(with roots in Aristotle?s view of races as natural kinds and essences) was employed to 
ground racial classification (see also Boxill 2001). Thus the eighteenth century science, 
rationality, philosophy and religion merged to circumscribe European representations of 
21 
 
others (Du Bois 1965; Semmel 1968; Lyons 1970; Magubane 2007).  As a result, the 
principle of gradation has also a moral implication ? higher beings are considered of 
greater worth than lower ones. 
 
As race has come to be understood, it is a social construction, there are no races (Rex and 
Mason 1986; Miles 1993; Brion Davis 1997; Van Den Berghe 2001). Instead there is 
only a belief that there are such things, a belief used by some social groups to construct 
an other and therefore the self (Miles 1993). On one hand a racial group is defined on the 
basis of physical characteristics such as skin colour, hair texture and so on and culture 
specific association of certain behavioural, moral and intellectual traits with physical 
phenotypes (Essien ? Udom 1975; Van den Berghe 2001). This is not entirely adequate 
because on the other hand it is a belief about race and social actors based on these, and 
racial prejudices are expressed in ideologies of cultural, social and intellectual inferiority.  
For Goldberg (1990:275) racism is generally considered to be discrimination against 
others by virtue of their putatively different social membership. Further it is an irrational 
prejudice asserting superiority or inferiority of members of races on unwarranted groups 
of physical or mythical properties, such as skin colour, blood and so on (Goldberg 1986). 
 
i. David Goldberg?s Racial Formation and Racial Subjectification 
 
For David Goldberg (1984; 1990; 1992; 1993; 2002), race is neither a static nor a  
 
monolithic concept with a single given meaning. Its adaptivity defines population groups  
 
and social agents at various historical moments.  Race insinuates itself into the  
 
paradigmatic views of group formation of the day. In race formation, Goldberg argues  
 
that this is transformation over time of what accounts to be race, how racial membership  
22 
 
 
is determined and what sorts of exclusion it entails. Though the principle of racial  
 
hierarchy and gradation is now obsolete, the concepts of inferiority and superiority  
 
implicit in racial hierarchy are now part of the buried scientific paradigm.  Although  
 
hierarchy may not be implicit in the concept of racial classification, the synonym ?racial  
 
differentiation? and identity is inherent in the concept of race. It furnishes the  
 
grounds for racial classification. Racism therefore cannot only be explained in terms of 
neither economic nor biological determinism ? historical analyses must not only extend 
beyond economic relations, but also to systems of values and appropriation. These values 
converge at a given sociohistorical conjecture to formulate terms and claims in scientific, 
legal, political and moral concepts, leading to ways of seeing, expressing and acting that 
are distinctly racist. As a result the prevailing meaning of race at a given historical 
conjecture is embedded in, and is influenced by prevailing social conditions of that time.  
 
Similarly, in the historical specificity of racism, Stuart Hall (1980; 1996) observes that  
 
different racisms have each been historically specific and articulated in a different way  
 
within the societies they appear. Though they may draw on cultural and ideological traces  
which are deposited by previous historical phases, they always assume specific forms 
which arise out of present ? not the past ? social and material conditions, and 
organization of society. Emphasizing on the historical specificity of racism, Hall also 
posits that the general features of racism are significant: they are modified and 
transformed by historical specificity of the contexts and environments in which they 
become active. Precisely, in history there is no racism in general but racisms. Hall also 
warns us against assumptions that since racism (s) are anti ? social and anti ? human 
23 
 
there are the same everywhere and homogenous. Instead they are contingent to time, 
place and social contexts in which they appear. Therefore the characteristics in and within 
a nation have a level of determination and unevenness of these racisms. 
 
ii. Racial Identification 
 
In racial subjectification (identification), Goldberg (1984; 1990; 1992; 1993; 2002),  
 
observes that in using race and terms bearing racial significance, social subjects racialise  
 
people and population groups whom they characterize and refer. Entities  
 
constitutive of racism fall under categories of racist expressions which include beliefs,  
 
verbal outbursts, slurs, acts and consequences (which may also be violent)10. In racial  
subjectification, social agents subject themselves and are subjected to modes of 
expressions, in most cases by means of language which Benveniste (1971) calls 
interpellation. This is the use of language to racially refer to other people in ways that are 
derogatory and debasing. It is from these, Goldberg argues, that a thorough understanding 
of racism can be made. 
 
Similarly, once a racial label is applied to people, ideas about what it refers to, come to  
have their social and psychological effects (Appiah 2000). By constructing the ways  
people conceive of themselves and others, these racist labels shape identification.  
 
Identification is central to what Ian Hecking (1992) calls ?making up people?. This is 
synonymous with use of terms like ?amakwerekwere? 11and ?amagrigamba? which are 
                                                 
10  My emphasis 
11  Amakwerekwere and amagrigamba means a person who can?t speak or master local South African 
languages, and who comes from a country assumed to be economically and culturally inferior to South 
Africa (Nyamnjoh 2006). I discuss racial labels in chapter 3. 
24 
 
used by South African blacks to refer to African immigrants. Not only are they 
derogatory, they carry racial connotations as well and with reference to civilization, 
?makwerekwere? would qualify for a subhuman race (Nyamnjoh 2006). 
 
 
Cultural Racism 
The discrediting of the nineteenth century scientific racism which said race is based on 
biological theories of superior and inferior races was no longer viable in the intellectual 
and public discourse (Modood 2001). Instead what emerged was racism based on cultural 
differences. Balibar (1991) argues that this ?new racism?12 is a part of racism in the era of 
decolonisation as seen in the problem of assimilating and integrating culturally ?primitive 
and backward? people into modern civilisation. Similarly, Goldberg (1993) observes that: 
Since the World War two, especially in the last fifteen or twenty years, the cultural 
conception of race has tended to eclipse all others. It has become paradigmatic (1993:71). 
While biological racism is based on exclusion and unequal treatment of people on the 
basis of their physical appearance or other physical differences, cultural racism builds on 
biological racism to vilify or marginalise cultural groups which are seen in racial terms 
(Balibar 1991). While colour racism may become negligible, it is possible for it to 
operate in conjunction with cultural racism, leading to cultural antagonisms and 
prejudices. In Alexandra, while immigrants are defined by physical appearance (they are 
seen as of darker hue), they are also a racialsed group with distinct cultural identities and 
as a result defined as ?aliens? and for this reason suffer discrimination and prejudice. 
Michel Wievorka (1997) notes of two logics of racism: classical or inegalitarian racism 
and differential racism. The former considers the ?other? as inferior who occupies the 
                                                 
12 The New Racism has its roots in Britain 
25 
 
lowest place in society; it denotes legitimisation of domination, discrimination and 
separation based on overt doctrines in support of genetic and biological inferiority. My 
analyses of the situation in Alexandra lead me to apply differential racism. This is a kind 
of racism which is cultural racism where the ?Other? is fundamentally different, which 
means s/he has no place in society, is a danger, an invader, should be kept at a distance, 
expelled or destroyed. Synonymous with cultural racism is the emphasis of cultural 
differences including lifestyle, customs, and manners and paints a threatening picture of 
mixing and interbreeding of cultures and ethnic groups. Though cultural differences 
implicitly seem to avoid hierarchisation, inferiorisation of the ?other?s? cultures is always 
presupposed by social, economic and political inequality between members of the local 
culture and those of the ?Other?s? culture.  
From the literature, my inference is that it is important to look at racism not only at the 
structural level but at the ?micro? nuances, which are however, not given time and study 
though they are important in understanding the racist phenomena 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
26 
 
Chapter One 
 
 Poverty, Unemployment and Women 
This chapter examines the link between poverty, unemployment and fight and 
competition for women between immigrant and South African men. Though there are 
some trappings of economic determinism, my argument is that this is extrapolated further 
to the cultural/sexual logic. I will also look at the intra class conflict between immigrant 
and South African working class and how it leads to racist, nationalist and anti - 
immigrant sentiments. Finally I argue that economic and class determinism is inadequate 
in explaining the situation in Alexandra. 
 
The rise of black racism in Alexandra or moreover violent racism cannot be explained 
nor analysed with singular focal lens. Instead it is multi - causal with all the factors at 
interplay and working together to give manifestations of this kind of racisms. A 
prominent feature of black racism is seen in the fight and competition for women by the 
two sets of manhood: immigrant and South African. This fight or competition is not 
merely just a prima facie incident: there are other factors that are at the foundation of 
these masculinities; sexisms; gender relations and ultimately racisms. These will be 
discussed in detail as a focus of this part of this thesis. 
 
The link between poverty, unemployment and women, work in close affinity and have a 
bearing on social relations between immigrants and South Africans in the township. A 
close analysis of this link gives a deeper and intricate understanding of the May 2008 
27 
 
racial violence. It shows the uniqueness and specificity of ethnic and social relations in 
Alexandra, so different to other racisms seen in other parts of the country, say 
Khayalistha, Gugulethu, Durban, Bothaville, De Doorns or Balfour. I am aware that each 
area has its own situation specifics and internal dynamics that are different from the other. 
This implies that analyses of racisms cannot be generalised but must be done in relation 
to each area and its own sets of social relationships. I am inspired by Goldberg?s (1993) 
assertion that they may be different racisms at the same place at different times or 
different racisms in various different places at the same time, different racist expressions 
are different in their expressions, different in conditions of their expressions, forms of 
expressions, objects of expressions and effects, among different people at the same time ? 
space conjecture. 
 
Though the causal factors seen in the economic and class determinism conspicuous in the 
xenophobic discourse (for example Misago et al 2009; Dodson and Oelofse 2000; Faull 
2008; Lehulere 2008; McKinley 2007; Neocosmos 2008), are still, and remain relevant, 
they are however inadequate and incomplete in explaining these dynamics. The 
concomitant results of the link between poverty, unemployment and women are seen in 
the cultural and sexual logic; contestations of the two sets of manhood; myths and beliefs 
and stereotypes. It is only when we analyse these and their expressions that a thorough 
understanding of racisms in the township can be made. 
 
 
 
28 
 
The link between poverty, unemployment and women converge, concur and explain how 
immigrant and South African men, ?jostle? and compete for women. This is not to say, 
however, that there is a shortage of women in the township. Instead women are plenty; it 
depends on whom the woman goes for and who she leaves. The behaviour of men in the 
township reminds me of animals in a jungle: male animals can brutalise and fight each 
other to death for the sake of monopolising mating rights with females. The dominant 
male (s) is not keen on competition; access and rights to females is a cause for such fights. 
 
One of consistent responses by my female informants was the conspicuous male element 
of the racial violence, emanating first from the male Madala hostel in the Beirut area. 
Beirut is named by residents after a city in Lebanon, because of its violence. On inquiry I 
was told by people that the violence around the area has a long history, beginning during 
the apartheid. Beirut is mainly Zulu dominated and IFP13 aligned. During apartheid there 
was heightened political violence between IFP and ANC14, which assumed an ethnic bias. 
Father Cairns from the Roman Catholic church near a major local shopping centre, told 
me that during that time, Beirut was a separated and a no go area. Anyone seen (including 
a dog) straying there would be shot by Madala hostel residents. With the advent of a new 
political dispensation in 1994, the violence subsided, except for common criminal 
motivated incidents. During my numerous sojourns around the area I passed by a 
sorghum beer outlet and I was struck by an inscription on the wall written:   
Sicela nisuke ma ses?fikile. By AmaZulu. (We ask you to leave when we arrive. By 
AmaZulu.) 
                                                 
13 IFP is a major political party in South Africa 
14 A liberation movement which is now the ruling party in South Africa 
29 
 
On further inquiry I was told by patrons that the inscription was written during the May 
2008 racial violence. The area of course shared its own huge amount of violent killings, 
rapes and destruction of immigrant property. 
 
When I was walking around asking women what they thought of xenophobia and the 
violence, the first thing they told me was: 
Local men are saying immigrant men are taking their women. For sure, South African 
women are going for immigrants.   
Another younger female informant, told me: 
South African women are having relationships with men from outside. South African 
men don?t like this. This was the cause of xenophobia. I think it is racism. It is jealousy. 
Zulu men went around beating immigrants and sometimes those who are not Zulu.15 
Father Cairns from the Roman Catholic Church corroborated: 
The thing about stealing our women is racism?it is jealousy. The thing that I am a South 
African and you are a foreigner, is the same as the division between blacks and whites in 
the past, it is race based, not on colour but on ethnicity.16 
Intriguing is why South African women would ?dump? or leave ?their? men and go for 
immigrants? This question is answered later on. Presently it would be appropriate to look 
at the Spiral and see how it plays a part in answering this question. 
 
When immigrants come to South Africa and are undocumented, they are excluded from 
employment.  As a result they end up either trading as street hawkers and vendors or 
occupying unwanted, low status and menial jobs shunned by local workers. There they 
                                                 
15 Interview with  a South African female, 25 June 2009 
16 interview with Father Cairns, 10 June 2009 
30 
 
are employed as cheap labour, earning little or lesser wages than local workers would 
accept.  It is possible for an immigrant to work for R50 a day, but a South African worker 
would not accept that amount and therefore decides not to go to work: 
You see my brother, when we go to look for work in the firms around here, be it Kew, 
Marlboro or Wynberg; you find all the jobs are taken by AmaKalanga17 or amaChina. All 
these people are working for little money. I can?t work for that small amount. I find it 
better to go and stay in the location.18 
Consequently most South African men either don?t go to look for work or spend their 
time sitting in the township doing nothing. Informants told me others loath a nine to five 
job where they are paid at the end of the month. Instead they prefer piece jobs, when they 
finish, get paid and drink the money19. 
While South African men are accusing immigrants of taking all the jobs for lesser pay, 
immigrants and South African women generally say South African men are lazy, don?t 
like to work and ?kill? their time drinking, sleeping and playing dice, where they may 
win a R30 and drink it. Immigrants say South African men because of their laziness have 
no ?direction?. 
 
Given this background, Alexandra women are not keen to have relationships with these 
kinds of men. Unemployed men are seen as dom khanda (thick headed) and omahlalela 
(loafer) who can?t provide and therefore they are inadequate and not real men. Women 
are looking for men who are either employed or seen to be making some kind of money. 
This kind of man happens to be the immigrant: 
                                                 
17 Refers to immigrants. I have discussed racial labels in chapter 4 
18 Interview with an unemployed South African young man, 26 June 2009. 
19 On how alcohol shapes masculinities and relationships, I have discussed in Chapter Two 
31 
 
South African men don?t like to work. Non South African men have a plan. They may 
earn R50 a day but they move around with a nice car. During the day he is seen wearing a 
dirty, paint smeared overalls but look at his car - a nice car.20 
 
If the immigrant, as discussed earlier, is underpaid in the relations of productions, is he 
making money? One explanation is the widespread perception in township that 
immigrants are making money, a lot of money, for that matter. Though, this is not 
necessarily true. The second explanation is the use value of the money, however little. 
One of my male South African informants, hypothesised that if both sets of men (South 
African and immigrant) are earning R400 week, by the end of the week the other man?s 
money is finished and other still has some left. The former man might have drunk it all or 
?wasted it? and the latter, during the week lived frugally, bought some basic necessities 
and therefore still have some saved. This scenario is what was presented to me by 
immigrants. Realising that they are in a foreign land, they have to save money to send 
back home and still have some to spend on their South African girlfriends. Again, on 
most Fridays and month ends, non South African men are seen carrying plastic bags full 
of groceries from Alexandra?s major shopping centre. The perception is that they are 
making money. Immigrants, however, say South African men don?t buy groceries and 
spend their money on drink.21 
 
Some immigrants, who are involved in small businesses and trading, attract women 
because they are seen as ?kings?. From my observations, people involved in this line of 
                                                 
20 Interview with a South African female informant 13 July 2009 
21 I discuss alcohol and ?waste?  in the chapter 2 
32 
 
business, that is, hawking and street trading, are predominantly immigrants. They are 
some South Africans though, mainly members of the ZCC, who are also traders and come 
mainly from Limpopo.  
 
Household poverty, which is intermittent in the slum like conditions, is a chronic 
deprivation, with women lacking food, money and other necessities. They, therefore go 
around looking for money, food and men to provide for that. Since most South African 
men are unemployed, women go for immigrants. In this context, it would seem men are 
competing and fighting for women. The fact that South African women are having love 
relationships with immigrants is a source of deep resentment by South African men, 
particularly those who are unemployed and this has led to racial jealousies in the 
township.  
 
Intra Class Conflict 
The perception that immigrants are taking all the jobs and accept lower pay is a source of 
intra class conflict in the township. I am aware that some writers like Miles (1993: 
Castles and Kosack 1973; Hylland Eriksen 1993) have written on the uneven 
development of capitalism.  As a consequence this situation has identified immigrant 
workers with specific socio - economic functions, namely to fulfil undesirable jobs 
vacated by indigenous workers in the course of the periodic reorganisation of production. 
Immigrant workers thereby come to constitute a ?lower stratum? of the working class 
which becomes fragmented. However in Alexandra, the immigrant worker has a double 
and contradicting status. While he may be occupying an undesirable position at the 
33 
 
workplace where he works longer hours for lesser pay, in the township he has a totally 
different status. There, women desire him, because, first he is working, it doesn?t matter 
how little he earns, and secondly he is seen to be making money. He therefore does not 
occupy an underclass position in the township. He is seen as well resourced, and South 
African men perceive him as taking all the money that the country should be given to 
South Africans. The status of the immigrant is seen in the fact that he can get all the 
South African women, including the township belles who every man is after. However 
some think immigrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique who are not that rich use love 
charms to get ?hot? girls who every man is after.  It is not only because the immigrant is 
making money that women go after him: there are other dimensions as well, that are 
discussed in the later chapters. 
 
The fact that immigrants don?t have a green ID book22 means they are exploited and 
underpaid by owners of capital. This is compounded by COSATU?s reluctance to 
unionise immigrant workers. Conflicts between immigrant and domestic working classes 
take the form of racism and rioting (Hylland Eriksen 1993) and the kind of pogroms seen 
in May 2008. Hylland Eriksen argues that this is ?functional? to the system as a whole 
because these conflicts divert attention from the fundamental contradiction between 
labour and capital. Race continues to differentiate between different fractions of the 
working class with respect to capital, creating specific forms of fracturing and fractioning 
which intersect class relations and thereby internally dividing the working class (Hall 
1982).  
 
                                                 
22 An in-depth analysis of the social life of the green book is discussed in chapter 4. 
34 
 
In similar vein, the emergence of ethnic groups and awakening of their consciousness are 
products of historical processes and structural relations of inequality (Comaroff and 
Comaroff 1992) between discrete social entities in which their distinction is experienced 
in everyday life. While the Marxist view is that ethnicity is a false consciousness which 
would be replaced by a common consciousness of shared and opposed interests, that view 
remains unattainable. In the present milieu, the unity of the working class as a social 
movement is incapable of a unitary and single collective behaviour and action (Wieviorka 
1997). Decades ago, Wolpe (1976) had written that racial divisions amount to nothing 
more than the fractionalisation of the working class, common to all capitalist modes of 
production of which the South African social formation is part. There are effects for this 
decline - some workers actions become infiltrated by nationalist agenda and ideologies 
where they develop populist discourses and racist attitudes. The result has been anti - 
immigrant sentiments and despising of ethnic minorities. National identity has thus been 
loaded with xenophobia and racisms and in Alexandra it has gained impetus with the 
emergence and presence of other identities. These identities are signified, represented and 
defined in racial terms. 
 
Economic and Class Determinism as Inadequate 
Approaches employed by Marxist orientation take economic relations and structures to 
have an overwhelming determination on social structures of those formations (Hall 1982). 
In this paradigm, social divisions assuming a racial or ethnic character are explained with 
reference to economic structures and processes.  Although I, above, have made references 
to poverty and unemployment, this still remains insufficient in explaining racisms in 
35 
 
Alexandra. I argue, though, that these social relationships are directly linked to economic 
processes because of the historical context of the country. Economic determinsm, 
however, doesn?t provide an adequate explanation of racial features in these social 
formations.  In societies like South Africa which historically have been structured in 
dominance, in which identities and identifications have been established in racialised 
terms;  with a long history of racial creation and discrimination in these historical phases 
where different race and ethnic groups have been inserted; these relations have tended to 
erode and transform or have preserved these distinctions over time, not simply as residues 
or traces of the past or modes but as active structuring principles of the present 
organisation of society (Hall 1982; Goldberg 1993). The societies with a history of being 
?structured in dominance? are more readily open to racist discrimination than societies 
not so historically defined (Goldberg 1993). 
 
Racism doesn?t necessarily follow one path and single logic (Gilroy 1987; Goldberg 
1992; Hall 1982). There is no generic racism, only historically specific racisms (Goldberg 
1993), with its own sociotemporally specific causes. Racism is fluid and manifests itself 
in covert and subtle forms. Its transforming natures are deeply connected to cause and 
manifestation; restructured and reconstructed identities and changing social structure and 
organisation. There is no single transcendental determinant of these racisms, be it nature, 
mode of production or class formation. Instead there are values, specific interests and 
cultures out of which racist expression arise. Racisms assume some particular 
characteristics with different entailments and ramifications in relation to class 
constitution, gender, national identity, region or political structure (West 1990). 
36 
 
Economic or class determinism tends to reduce racism to an epiphenomenon of some 
basic component of the social structure, whether economic or political (Goldberg 1993). 
Economic or class determinism is unable to explain racist expressions that are not 
economic by nature and that do not manifest themselves in class terms. As discussed 
above, immigrants and South Africans occupy a similar class; what differentiate them are 
perceptions, myths and beliefs. Immigrants are not richer, though they are seen to be 
better off and making money. This is only a belief and a myth. 
 
In this chapter I have presented the link between poverty and unemployment in 
Alexandra; how these in turn leads to racialised competition and fight for women. I have 
not entirely dismissed economic determinism because I think it has a place in these 
relationships. Doing so would have been erroneous on my part. My supposition has been 
that economic determinism per se is not enough but needs to be analysed in the whole 
context of community dynamics, sets of values and perceptions. These dynamics point to 
the social condition of township life. What I have done in this chapter is to analyse how 
these conditions are affected by the larger economic structures. In this way both the micro 
and macro are an interlocking system that defines social relationships between black 
African immigrants and South Africans. 
 
 
 
 
 
37 
 
Chapter Two 
The Immigrant Penis is Huge ? Beauty and the Beast? 
 
The previous chapter has dealt with poverty and unemployment and how these lead to 
masculine competition for women. As I indicated earlier this is not enough in explaining 
racism in the township. I now look at the sexual logic and how it is part of these social 
relationships. This chapter is about the discourse on the immigrant penis and its role in 
arousing racial jealousies and racial violence, especially among South African men. It 
discusses the discourse on male sexuality in Alexandra which rests upon the idea of 
stereotypes. This helps explain the male element of the racial violence seen in May 2008 
and even before. However I argue that it is not only the genitalia that are a cause: the 
causes are multi -dimensional and all converge and concur in affecting relationships 
between immigrants and South Africans. I will go further and examine these dynamics 
and types of cross border relationships; explore the reasons why South African women 
desire to have an immigrant as a partner. Again I look at the contestations between the 
two sets of manhood, that is immigrant and South African and what it means to be a man 
in Alexandra. Finally I examine how patriarchy plays a role in women domination and 
abuse in the township. My overall argument is that all these dynamics have a hand in 
encouraging and promoting racisms. 
I must reiterate here that this aspect of my research and moreover my thesis is not 
stereotyping South African men and their penises. The information presented here is from 
the mouths of informants I interviewed and engaged in conversation with.  
 
38 
 
There is a widespread belief in Alexandra that the immigrant is endowed with a big penis. 
This also includes men from Limpopo, Vendas and Tsongas in particular. The 
immigrant?s big penis is a subject of discussion among women, in street corners, in 
homes or wherever they gather.  These kinds of discussion bring curiosity to women, who 
want to find out for themselves and partake in this ?second to none? sexual experience. 
The women I interviewed informed me that they love big penises and would shun a man 
with a smaller one. 
All women say foreign men are good in bed?they use muti to get hard erection and the 
penises are big because they eat muti. Women love big penises.23 
 
Apart from the big penis, I was informed, immigrants are said to be better performers in 
bed, capable of engaging women in an unforgettable sexual experience and bringing them 
to a ?maddening? orgasm. Endowing the immigrant with a big penis becomes a 
reductionism to beast like sexual capabilities. Further, it is synonymous with the occult; 
in southern African societies, the tokoloshe, a small hairy familiar used by witches, is 
believed to have an extra large penis and confounding sexual potency (see for example 
Niehaus 2001; 2002). In my view the immigrant?s genitalia is a metaphor of the same. Of 
course the persecution of immigrants, destruction of their property, burning and looting 
their homes, killing and maiming them is a particular form of witch hunt. 
 
During the colonial era, Fanon (1967) observes that the Negro male was seen as a penis 
symbol, whose sexual potency was hallucinating to the white woman and this was a basis 
for lynching and violent racial crimes emanating from racial jealousy. 
                                                 
23 interview with Nikezwa, 13 July 2009 
39 
 
The same views are apparently still prevalent in a contemporary South African black 
community. The contradiction is that they are manifest among black populations. The 
black African immigrant is attributed with a big penis and sexual potency and therefore is 
seen as a threat to the South African woman. Naomi Nkealah (2008) and Pumla Gqola 
(2008) both have come close to the analysis of the penis discourse in contemporary South 
Africa and in their articles they articulate how the myth of the immigrant penis is a source 
of stereotyped masculinities and jealousies from South African men.  
 
During my fieldwork, I could not clearly establish how the immigrant came to be 
associated with the big penis. Closer, my female informant, Tumi who is in a relationship 
with a Nigerian man, said that this myth emanated long back, beginning with Nigerian 
men, who were said to be endowed with large genitalia and that they were better 
performers in bed. Neither could it be known if this belief is true or just imaginations by 
locals. Certainly nobody has measured any man?s (both immigrant and South African) 
penis. Despite this, both South African men and women believe the immigrant has a big 
penis. Tsongas and Vendas though are South African; they have been notoriously 
excluded from the mainstream South African identity; are seen as minorities like 
immigrants and are put in the same cluster. 
 
The Muti Logic 
It is widely believed in the township that immigrants, Tsongas and Vendas have big 
penises because they use muti for hard erection or were given muti to eat by their elders 
40 
 
when they were young. I interviewed some immigrant men if they were really given muti 
to lengthen and thicken the penis. One informant from Sudan, told me 
In my culture, from a young age, elderly women, pull, and play with the boy?s penis. It 
ends up getting big and long. If they overdo it, it might end up getting so long that when 
the boy becomes a man, he has to roll it inside his underwear. 
Another informant from Zimbabwe said: 
When I was young, a goat was slaughtered at our home. My elders, including my 
mother?s brother, were sitting by themselves chatting and eating some roasted goat meat. 
Then my mother?s brother called me over to eat some meat. The other elders protested 
saying this meat is not for young boys like me. But my uncle insisted. He gave me some 
piece of roasted goat testicles and he said: eat boy, you are a man. That meat was 
sprinkled with some muti. I can fuck like a goat. All women who have come across me 
can testify that. 
During my fieldwork, the muti logic was corroborated with by immigrant men themselves.  
When I was young some incisions were done on my testicles and muti was rubbed in.24 
 
The immigrant men talked of a number of issues, from being made to lick a vagina of a 
girl; that immigrants have a lot of strength which has to do with their diet and that South 
Africans are weak because they eat a lot of GMOs.  Sibusiso, a Zimbabwean who sells 
CDS and DVDs at a shopping centre in Alexandra, said that they smoke good marijuana. 
He says when he smokes it he can make a woman go crazy. But when I told him South 
Africans smoke marijuana too, he was noncommittal. Nonetheless, he told me: 
We, foreigners have made all these locals girls cry with pleasure and they love us for that. 
 
                                                 
24 Interview with a Mozambican man, 13 July 2009 
41 
 
I asked South African women who are or have had relationships with immigrants if they 
indeed have big penises. The responses were varying. One, who is involved with a 
Nigerian man and previously been dating a Zimbabwean and a South African, said of the 
Nigerian: 
 His penis is wholesome?he is good.25 
However, some South African women informants were evasive on this question, instead 
saying that men are men, there is no difference. 
 
I interviewed some herbalists and ?doctors? who give out pamphlets in the streets of 
Johannesburg. I wanted to find out the extent to which men seek penis enlargement muti 
and creams. One pamphlet I got had ?testimonies? from men who had seen benefits of 
these muti: 
 The size of my 4/5 (penis) had actually ruined my relationship; I tried a lot of 
doctors and exercise but failed. After using Chinese formula I gained a size I 
wanted. 
 Before using Delay Chinese cream and powder my friends called me a ?1 minute 
guy? but now I am happy, thanks to life solution 
 My penis was small; I was shy to propose love to a woman! I was scared they will 
laugh at me. I used Chinese herb remedies and in seven days my penis grew 
bigger 
I interviewed three ?doctors?26 and they told me that they get regular visitors from South 
African men in need of help. The ?doctors? said that their muti is strong and does 
                                                 
25 interview with No, 4 July 2009 
26 From my observations most ?doctors? are non ? South African. 
42 
 
?wonders? and clients have to apply it on the penis everyday until it gets big. While the 
immigrants said their muti is sometimes a once off treatment and a lifetime ?guarantee?, 
apparently the ?doctors? muti has to be constantly applied for results.  
 
I paid one ?doctor? operating around Braamfontein area a visit. He led me into his office 
with modern furnishings, the reception area had comfortable sofas, a telephone and Dr 
Phil was being broadcast from a 21 inch colour television. He told me to remove my 
shoes and led me to his ?surgery? which was a total contrast to the modern setting of the 
reception. The ?surgery? was a micro cosmic world of its own, a traditionally designed 
space in the shape of a hut, walls plastered with reeds and animal skins and surrounded 
by wide paraphernalia of tools of his trade.  He gave me a counter book where I wrote my 
age, full names, address and telephone numbers. I reiterated that I was doing a research 
but he insisted on asking me if I had some problems. He asked me if I was ?strong? and 
he could give me some muti to that effect. However I managed to get some information 
from him. He said though clients come to consult on problems caused by occult, bad luck 
or recovery of stolen goods, many men who come for his services, are looking for muti to 
enlarge their penises and make them  ?strong?. Apparently the need, demand and market 
for this kind of muti are wide. The ?doctor? said a man must not just last for less than five 
minutes in a sex session but should go for at least thirty minutes, before he ejaculates and 
he has that muti. The price range of the muti depends on the age of the man which is put 
in categories: 18 to 30; 30 to 50 and 50 and above. The older the man the more expensive 
the muti, because he is much more in need of it than younger men. 
 
43 
 
The immigrants said they compliment penis size by drinking concoctions, which are not 
available in South Africa. In Zimbabwe, it comes in different forms: some is powder like 
sprinkled on cooked cow feet and some is drunk with sorghum beer. I am aware of a Zulu 
mixture called imbiza yamaZulu and people say its drunk mainly by taxi drivers and 
women flock to them. At this point the whole penis discussion becomes mired in 
ambiguity. Is it that South African muti is ?weaker? than immigrants?? In Alexandra, 
there is, of course, a general and widespread belief that muti from across the borders is 
stronger (this includes muti from Limpopo, possessed by Vendas, Tsongas and Pedis). 
However whether muti from across the borders is more potent than South African cannot 
be entirely validated because these assertions are ingrained in societal knowledge and 
belief systems. Or is it a question of the art of lovemaking and are immigrants tutored in 
this art form? I interviewed a Ugandan man who said among the BaNyankole, a man has 
to know some ?tricks? and his failure to satisfy his woman is a great source of 
embarrassment. She would report him to her parents that he is a ?chicken? or if it?s in the 
village, to the chief. I also interviewed a BaNyankole woman and she said, a man has to 
know what needs to be done to satisfy a woman, and if a woman has not been tutored by 
her people, he will teach her. She said that she has not been exposed to such tutoring and 
it was her husband who took her through the process. I am also aware that some South 
African ethnic groups send boys to the ?mountain? to be initiated as men. I could not get 
much information on what happens there. However, one female informant, said: 
Initiation schools don?t teach them how to make love. What they know when they come 
from there is to beat up a woman.27 
 
                                                 
27 interview with a South African female informant, 7 July 2009 
44 
 
The big penis myth remains what it is ? a myth. Its ambiguity serves a functional and 
social purpose in the township. Ferguson articulates the social function of myths: 
First there is the popular usage, which takes a myth to be a false or factually inaccurate 
version of things that has come to be widely believed. Second, there is the 
anthropological use of the term, which focuses on the story?s social function: a myth in 
this sense is not just a mistaken account but a cosmological blueprint that lays down 
fundamental categories and meanings for the organisation and interpretation of 
experience (Ferguson 1998:13). 
Although immigrant men and some South African women collaborate with the big penis 
myth, this cannot be entirely verified because in my fieldwork I had seen neither the 
immigrant nor South African man?s penises. These myths (like immigrant steal local 
women and jobs and do crimes and so forth), don?t just remain myths. They become 
beliefs and social realities that shape people?s lives and experiences in these social 
relationships. Further these become stereotypes and if the immigrant man is believed to 
have a big penis, in that sense he is being stereotyped. Paradoxically, the immigrant 
doesn?t see this as such: he boasts of his big penis and uses it to ?make amends? to his 
lost manhood, status and inferiority. Since his daily experience, is a subjection to hate and 
racism, he uses his penis as a symbol to assert his manliness and to avenge by having 
relationships with South African men?s ?women? and ?fucking them to a point of 
craziness.? In this emergence of phallocentricism, the immigrant becomes a man because 
of his penis and his ability to provide for the women and uses that to assert his status. 
While bell hooks (1992) asserts this sexually defined masculine ideal is rooted in physical 
domination and sexual possession of women, whether this statement applies to the 
Alexandra context is debatable. For the reason that South African women enter into cross 
45 
 
border relationships not only for the immigrant?s big penis but to escape physical 
domination and sexual possession they feel South African men subject them to. This is 
discussed later on.  
 
Some male immigrants told me that many women enter into relationships with 
immigrants because of the delirium of the terrific sexual experience they have with the 
immigrant in bed. It is not that they love the immigrant. They love, are hallucinated and 
fascinated by his penis, which is an object, a thing and the sexual potency, orgasm and 
sexual satisfaction he brings. After getting this satisfaction she yearns for, she may leave 
him or victimise him and go on with her life, and leave him used, abused and broken 
hearted. 
 
The immigrant big penis has led to some consequences, the most acute example being the 
May 2008 violence. The belief that the immigrant is ?gifted? with a large penis and that 
South African women go for him for that reason, gives rise to racial jealousies. Further, if 
the South African man despises the immigrant for the reason that he has a big penis and 
that women love him for that, then he might be yielding to a feeling of sexual inferiority 
(Fanon 1967).  By viewing the immigrant as a penis symbol, the penis as a symbol of 
manhood and moreover masculinity, the contestations between these two sets of 
manhood (that is immigrant and South African), come into play.  
 
The discussion in this section has been on the immigrant genitalia. However this cannot 
be examined in isolation. There are other factors that combine with this if the 
46 
 
understanding of cross border love relationships and how they cause racisms in 
Alexandra is to be complete. This I discuss below. 
 
The Dynamics of Cross border Relationships 
From my interviews and conversations with my informants, apparently South African 
women in Alexandra are involved in love relationships with immigrant men and many 
desire an immigrant as a partner. The question i may pose is: why are South African 
women long for relationships with ?strangers? and don?t love South African men? One 
clear reason is discussed in this chapter: the curiosity of the immigrant penis. However 
that alone is inadequate. There are other factors that I will explore later on. 
 
Migration into Alexandra for many decades meant that the newly arrived immigrants had 
to find female partners to cater for their sexual and marital needs and other comforts. The 
immigrants were mainly men, who had left their families and even wives behind. 
Immigrant men being involved in love relationships with South African women in 
Alexandra is not a new phenomenon. This has been happening ever since the advent of 
immigration, as one elderly woman put it: 
Nto yakudala le. Abekoko bethu babeyenza. (This is an old thing, our parents were doing 
it.) 
My conversations with elderly residents revealed that immigrant men from neighbouring 
countries like Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Nyasaland (now Malawi) and 
Mozambique, who were recruited under the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association 
(WNLA), to work in Johannesburg mines settled in the township permanently, married 
local women and set up homes. Some even changed their surnames and adopted Zulu or 
47 
 
Sotho and Tswana ones and never returned back home. Such categories of men from 
Zimbabwe were called muchoni (those who went to Johannesburg and never came back) 
or mujubheki (Johannesburger), who were disconnected from their homes and got 
swallowed by the delights of Johannesburg lights. Johannesburg lights were and are the 
various entertainments and merriments, found abundantly in the city. But these 
entertainments means the city has beautiful women with soporific powers for seduction 
and attraction and immigrant men would be caught in these satisfactions and ?forget? 
their homes and families.  
 
Most of the cross border relationships are the masihlalisane (let?s live together) or vat en 
sit (snatch and squat) type. One explanation as I was told is that the woman has 
accommodation and the immigrant stays with her in her domain and his duty is to provide 
for the household. The major reason though is that lobola (bride wealth) is exorbitant, 
and these formations are convenient. The man and the woman just live together as 
husband and wife, the man providing material needs and the woman, conjugal and marital 
duties. Normally, both parties are not known to their respective kin and as they say, it is a 
?Jo?burg arrangement?. The immigrant, because he comes to South Africa alone, is a 
single man or has left a relict wife back home, and as I was told is ?desperate? and needs 
a woman to provide him with sexual and marital services. On the other hand, the woman 
is looking for a man to cater for her material needs, would get involved with the 
immigrant in this ideal transactional arrangement that satisfies both parties.  Women in 
these kinds of relationships don?t like going to the men?s countries either; for fear that 
they might never come back. 
48 
 
Why do South African Women enter into Cross Border Relations? 
Most love relationships between South African women and immigrant men are materially 
based. The latter provides money, pays rent, buys groceries and looks after the woman?s 
child or children, and does it in a way that she is well cushioned and comfortable. As seen 
earlier, immigrant men are seen to be making money and that is a general belief in the 
township. Again most South African men are unemployed, and the poverty in the 
township?s homes lead women to look for better ?opportunities? by finding men who can 
provide for their needs and wants. Therefore they are looking for immigrant men because 
?baya supporta? (they provide).This might have emanated from Nigerian men, who 
among all immigrant men, are seen as the best providers. As a result, all immigrant men 
are seen to be wealthy like Nigerians. One immigrant man told me: 
The moment you start charming a South African girl, the first thing she asks is: Are you 
Nigerian? 
Female informants say Nigerian men are wealthy and have assets. Unlike South African 
men, Nigerians can easily pay lobola of say, R60 000, without hesitation and though 
lobola is expensive, women desire a man who ?marries? them. Some women believe that 
Nigerians come to South Africa, loaded with US dollars and US dollars have more value 
than the South African Rand, therefore they have more money. Most Nigerians don?t live 
in the township and once they marry the woman, they take her and live with her in the 
affluent suburbs. The houses where the women live with their Nigerian spouses are a 
source of envy to those left in the poverty of the township. Not only are they well 
architectured, with well manicured lawns and gardens, beautiful interior decors and 
furniture, the fridges are well stocked with all kind of food and refreshment.  A woman 
with a Nigerian man is said to be living in ?heaven?. A Nigerian man does not mind 
49 
 
buying a woman R1000 rand shoes, expensive designer clothing and give her R500 to fix 
her hair, while a South African man would mumble in parting with his R30. Again the 
Nigerian can take a woman to Pick n Pay supermarket, and ask her to fill up the trolley 
and pay for all the groceries. 
 
One other reason women enter into cross border relationships is to escape from physical 
violence they say is perpetrated by South African men. This violence is an internalised 
norm, sanctioned and substantiated by patriarchal expectations. One female informant 
told me that South African men are ?brought up like that? and are taught to use physical 
power to show that they are real men, whereas non South African men, show their 
manhood by providing for the woman with material things. However some women view 
physical violence against them by their men as his emotional commitment and his 
expression for love. On the other hand majority of women are seeking ?escape? from this 
entrapment, thus cross - border relationships.  Immigrant men are seen as not culturally 
socialised to beat women. This is the perception of many women, though one female 
informant informed me that her mother told her Zimbabwean men have a tendency to 
beat up their women.  Interestingly the fact that immigrants don?t beat women may be 
due to a couple of reasons: the immigrant is in a foreign country where the first thing he 
is told is, it?s a ?serious? crime to beat a South African woman; the immigrant therefore is 
governed by fear of the state?s legal and judicial machinery and apparatus, that includes 
the police, the department of Home Affairs and the courts; where the immigrants come 
from, there are no perpetual structures of violence that has characterised South African 
history and configured perceptions of masculinity and finally, some immigrant men told 
50 
 
me that although in their societies some men beat women, the prevalence is morally 
sanctioned. 
 
When I asked how men propose to women, I was informed that Nigerians use promises 
of money and wealth upfront saying: 
 Come on baby, let?s eat my money. 
Instantly the woman would fall for him because she loves the money. The Nigerians are 
said to also say to the woman: 
What are you doing with that poor man? Come to me I will give you everything. 
Other categories of men (that is both immigrants and South African) just say: 
 Baby, ke a ho rata. (Baby I love you) 
Jerrinos informed me that, one can pick it up from there, depending on the strength of 
one?s ?statement?. Cell phone numbers are exchanged and by night time, the man would 
have slept with the woman. 
Some female informants informed me that women are naturally born gold diggers who 
love material things in life. 
Non - South African men have money and women love money, that?s why they go for 
them. But women are not the same, its not that they love money, it?s because they love to 
be treated well and spoiled.28 
Therefore they would love a man who provides her with security. In fact women put 
security and material things on a higher pedestal than love, and they are more concerned 
with welfare and well being of their offspring. On the other hand South African men say 
South African women are ?omahotsha (bitches), materialistic, gold diggers and evil? who 
                                                 
28 Interview with a female South African, 13 July 2009 
51 
 
are after money and go for a man who ?impresses?. It happens, then, that the immigrant 
man is the one who ?impresses?. This scenario is what bell hooks (1992) likens to 
misogyny in which women are represented in these terms, that they are evil, are 
prostitutes who see their sexuality as a commodity to be exchanged for cash, after which 
they betray the man. 
 
Again immigrant men bayacharma (well dressed) and are always wearing Levis and 
Carvella clothing. The impression is that they are making a lot of money. In Alexandra, it 
is said one has to avoid ukucharma and must be somewhere in between - smartness and 
scruffiness. Nonetheless since the one ocharmayo is seen to be making money, women go 
for them, and not the township riff raff. The shabbily dressed are always those 
unemployed and are shunned by women. Consequently, unemployed South African men 
resent immigrants for that. 
 
Immigrants are said to be in the habit of ?show off? especially in taverns, where they buy 
women beer; fill tables with bottles; playing snooker and are a noisy lot. The women say 
South African men don?t know how to provide for a woman; they are stingy and all they 
want is sex. What I found contradictory is that while immigrants say South African men 
are misusing money because of their fondness for alcohol, the former are also said to be 
in the habit of going for drinking sprees. Clearly alcohol is imbibed in huge quantities in 
the township. This gives rise to the idea that South African men or even immigrants 
?waste? their money on drink. In one street in Alexandra, I counted seven shebeens and 
taverns, not including many others in other streets. For immigrants South African men 
52 
 
?waste? their money on alcohol. One may pose a question: what is the value attached to 
?waste? and how is it that there is huge consumption of alcohol in Alexandra? At this 
juncture I will stray a bit and delve into the history of alcohol in the country?s townships. 
This section is heavily indebted to the works and insights of Rogerson (1986); Callinicos 
(1987); Mager (1999) and David Coplan (oral communication, 28 October 2009). By the 
turn of the 20th century the colonial administration was prohibiting Africans? 
consumption of alcohol because owners of capital were concerned about reduced 
productivity due to ?drunkenness?, while ministers of religion were concerned about 
effects of alcohol and felt it led to violence and wasted lives.  A 1928 legislation 
prohibited Africans from drinking ?European beer? and restricted them to kaffir beer 
(sorghum beer), which became monopolised by municipalities, who realised huge profits 
from it. Traditionally, African brew had a social and religious value: it was nutritious, had 
low alcohol content and was refreshing, good for relaxation and conversation. However, 
prohibitions on alcohol facilitated trade of illicit liquor and establishment of shebeens in 
towns. Although municipal beer halls existed, they were not preferred because they did 
not have a social environment patrons desired. Town beer began to change its nature and 
became stronger because brewers found out that they could charge more for a drink with 
a ?kick? in it. They were also quick to prepare, and since alcohol was criminalised, it 
lessened chances of being discovered by police. The traditional brew used to take up to 
two weeks to prepare, therefore brewers had to be creative and inventive in an urban 
setting. Beer soon lost its social and religious value. Town brewing began to create a new 
black culture and women?s houses were turned into shebeens. Oppressed and exploited 
workers, who worked for long hours and for lesser wages, found beer as a form of escape 
53 
 
from daily drudgery. Criminalisation of alcohol led to, and encouraged drunkenness in 
urban centres because Africans would swallow whatever quantities they had before being 
discovered by police. 
 
After 1962, prohibitions on ?European beer? were lifted. The motivation was both 
political and economic: the apartheid state realised it could get money from taxes (in 
addition to sorghum beer); the apartheid state constructed Africans as ?naturally heavy 
drinkers? and believed that access to European liquor would increase alcohol 
consumption and thus more gains and  profits.  Again liberalising liquor would draw 
attention away from repressive political controls (Bantu Authorities Act, 1959; the 
Republic of South Africa Act, 1961 and banning of African nationalist organisations in 
the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre).  Lifting of prohibitions also meant the 
state would look forward to an inebriated African population and thus minimise potential 
political opposition to apartheid. The SAB purveying of clear beer to African market 
meant there was booming trade in liquor. The changing African consumer patterns were 
seen in excessive drinking and as Mager (1999) has noted, Africans were drinking 
themselves deeper into apartheid and urban squalor. 
 
Given this background, it is of little surprise then, that alcohol is imbibed in great 
quantities in Alexandra. Wherever there is partaking of alcohol, it?s usual to see groups of 
men who are friends, each taking turns to buy rounds of drinks or around a shisa nyama 
(braai). Each man?s obligation is to his male friends (omagang, izinja, tsotsis, and 
impinsthi which I think is the lexicon of township masculine gang culture) and would 
54 
 
drink until his pocket is empty. I think the ?waste? comes when women see their men 
coming home drunk, penniless, while he has not paid attention to basic priorities like 
necessities, fees and clothes for children and rent. The typical South African male is 
constructed as one fond of alcohol, and merriments and entertainments that come with it. 
He is seen as irresponsible, moreover after a drinking session is prone to violence. It 
became apparent to me the extent of apartheid?s role in producing pervasive alcoholism 
and fracturing social and family relations. 
 
While immigrants ?bayasupporta?, South African men are said not to provide for their 
women and spend money on alcohol and their friends (as discussed above):  
Immigrant men are much better. They give you money without squabbling. When you 
ask South African man money, he starts mumbling and says he will get a skolodo (credit) 
somewhere and then give you the money. He never does. They just want to drink their 
money. Its not that we love material things, we love being spoiled.29 
 
When he buys, say, relish today, tomorrow he says it?s her turn, since yesterday it?s him 
who bought. Or when he pays rent this month, the next, he asks the woman to pay. South 
African men demand that they take turns for providing necessities of the home. The 
general feeling among South African men is that they have to go ?fifty ? fifty? and share 
chores, because of women rights, enshrined in the post 1994 South African constitution 
which guarantees equality. They also say the new constitution has ?destroyed everything? 
by implying that everybody is equal and that both men and women are ?fifty ? fifty?. The 
                                                 
29 Interview with a South African woman, 13 July 2009 
55 
 
men also feel that the women want to control everything including the man and men are 
not keen to be under a woman?s tutelage. 
 
Case 1 
Nice Time Girls 
During my conversations with female informants I was led to one tavern that is 
frequented by Alexandra ?nice time? girls. As I discovered later, this place is a 
microcosmic representation of some cross border love relationships in the township. Girls 
who drink in the tavern, are mostly young women, some aged fifteen or sixteen.  They 
?specialise? in going for male immigrant patrons because they are seen as dom (dull) or 
they are obhare (fools) who think with their ?balls?.  The dom and obhare men are 
mainly Malawians, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Vendas and Tsongas. One of my 
female informants, an elderly Tsonga woman told me that the girls also consider her dom 
because she is from Limpopo and sometimes they want to drink her beer and she has to 
use a ?strong? hand to chase them off. 
 
The immigrant men are dom because they open their wallets easily and bayadliwa30 (are 
eaten). When I related the nice time girls? scenario to one Zimbabwean immigrant, 
Sbusiso, he told me that immigrants are seen by South African women as ?portable 
ATM?s? and as ?easy come easy go?. When the immigrant is paid, he declares all the 
money to the woman and she only gives him some for transport or beer. The result is he 
ends up ?forgetting? his family back home and neglecting the moral duty of providing for 
them. 
                                                 
30 This implies that women spent the men?s money until it is finished. 
56 
 
Of course the girls work their way into the men?s hearts and once it?s open, he opens his 
wallet. It is usual to see tables where the immigrants are sitting, full of beer bottles. The 
perception would be that they have money. However, after some inquiries I was told that 
some of them get the beer on credit and pay the owner at the end of the week or month, 
depending on when they are paid. When a girl gets an immigrant boyfriend, it?s called 
ubamb? bhatshi. (It?s difficult to translate. Literally it means to hold a coat).  
Metaphorically it means she has hit a jackpot; she will ?eat? the man until his pockets are 
empty. I was told that when she gets the man she calls over her friends to partake in the 
merriment. Once she has made the man buy her drinks and food, and sometimes pinching 
his pockets, and realising his money is finished, she leaves him and go to another table, 
for a new ?victim? or leaves the tavern altogether for another. Some of the girls have 
South African boyfriends who would also be drinking in the tavern. Sometimes she 
introduces him to the immigrant boyfriend as her brother. The immigrant would also start 
buying the s?bali (brother in law) drinks. The reason why the girls go for immigrants may 
be two fold: first the immigrants are seen as dom and can do anything to please the 
woman and can be ?eaten? easily. Secondly South African men are seen as ?clever? 
because they are ?stingy? and cannot easily be ?eaten?. Again, once the woman has 
?eaten? the South African man?s money, she can?t in any way evade him or refuse to go 
and sleep with him because bayashaya (They beat women). When its time to go, the 
woman has to fulfil the sexual obligation, there is no negotiation. 
 
These relationships are transactional in nature; the immigrant provides for the woman in 
return for her fulfilling sexual obligation.  In many instances that is not the case. After 
57 
 
?eating? the immigrant, she will refuse to go with him for the night therefore confounding 
his expectations. Neither can he force her because her South African boyfriend and his 
friends get involved and say: 
 Hey baba, don?t force the woman. She doesn?t want to go with you that is it. 
Or they may say: 
 Hey baba, this is our woman, where do you want to go with her? 
The immigrant can?t offer an argument nor force the woman because he fears a beating 
from her boyfriend and his friends. Neither can he beat her because the worst crime an 
immigrant can commit is ?beating up a South African woman?: the police will come with 
three vans to collect him. Arrest and detention are things he fears most, especially if he 
doesn?t have ?papers?. 
 
Often times the women engage in brutal fights that include broken bottles and knives, 
with each other over immigrant men. This happens when one woman accuses the other of 
having ?snatched? her boyfriend. Mainly this boyfriend would be the one who freely 
gives out money and buys a lot of drink. Fighting in the tavern is generally pervasive. I 
witnessed one fight the girls had with a male worker of the tavern. They told me that the 
men have more power because they are men and women are powerless and also that the 
men carry guns and they can easily subdue women. 
 
Types of Cross border Relationships 
a) Casino Type 
Immigrant men are said to be bayabheja. In the township lingo ukubheja is synonymous 
with betting. Imagine betting on horses or at the casino. Like all betting or forms 
58 
 
gambling, there are two possible outcomes: win or lose. The immigrant might win the 
woman?s heart on the basis of him freely opening his wallet and emptying his pockets. 
She provides him with some comforts, sexual and conjugal rights or even bears him a 
child. In some cases he might get South African citizenship and that would broaden his 
employment prospects. On the other hand, he might lose, like in a casino. After doing 
everything for her, the moment his money is finished she might leave him and run away. 
While this kind of incident is related to ?nice time? girls, it?s also prevalent in the 
relationships in the larger community.  
 
A greater stereotypic perception in the community aligns Xhosa31 women with 
materialism, as regards to cross - border love relationships. As one female informant told 
me, when a Xhosa woman, mostly those coming from rural areas, gets an immigrant man, 
she calls home and says, ?Mama, I have some good news.? 
The mother says,? what good news sana (daughter)? 
The girl says, ?Mama, I found a job in Johannesburg.? 
In this sense, the man has similarities of a job; she takes his money and sends it home. As 
a result some immigrants I came across said they tell their countrymen to be wary of 
South African women, especially Xhosas, because they are: ?fast, they can come with a 
lorry and take all your property when you are away and disappear. Where will you look 
for her? She is from the rural areas and you don?t even know her people. Or she can kill 
you and take all your money and property? 
 
                                                 
31 Xhosas are an ethnic group in South Africa 
59 
 
Many women I talked to said Xhosa women love money and don?t mind going with all 
kinds of nationalities as long they fulfil financial obligations. One woman, who is Tswana, 
told me: 
I am afraid of Nigerian men. But Xhosas don?t mind going out with them. I can date all 
kinds of men but not Nigerians. Xhosa women, in terms of temperament are close to our 
West African brothers, they can sort each other out.32 
 
Some immigrant men are said to give the woman a baby and leave her for good, when 
they return back to their countries or they go and stay in another place where they get 
themselves another woman. Consequently women are dismayed as they have to raise the 
babies by themselves and the community complains a lot about these phenomena. This is 
exacerbated by the fact that no lobola has been paid; the couple will be living in the 
masihlalisane type of arrangement and neither of them has been introduced to their 
respective kin. The men would also have left relict wives back home. When they come to 
the community they don?t tell the women that they are married. This makes them dump 
the women easily. The feeling is that it is difficult for a man to support two households 
on a sustained period of time. Again if the man does something terrible to the woman, 
like beating or killing her, he runs away and nobody would ever locate them because they 
don?t have ?passes?33. 
 
 
 
                                                 
32 interview with  a female South African, 12 June 2009 
33 I discuss the meaning of ?pass? in chapter 4. 
60 
 
b) Bribe Take 
Following my observation of ?bribe and take? relationships, I likened them to one 
travelling on a highway at high speed or travelling on a car without headlights. The police 
stops them and say, ?Eh what?s happening here?? and one says, ?officer, lets talk. I give 
you something, it would be good for you, it would be good for me and it would be good 
for all of us.? One bribes the officer and drives on. 
 
The bribe and take relationships are characterised by ukudhiza (bribery). They often 
happen when the woman?s parents are poor. Though they may not approve of the 
relationship, they give a tacit consent, so long the man, at the end of the week or the 
month or whenever he is paid, meets certain obligations. These include buying groceries, 
giving them money and some other niceties. In this sense the man is bribing the woman?s 
parents for him to have the right to stay with her. Seemingly when he fails to meet these 
obligations, he abdicates that right.  
 
Case 2 
I met a Mozambican man, in overalls, who does some odd jobs. He told me he is staying 
with a South African woman. He was complaining that when he takes R20 from his pay, 
she gives him ?hell? accusing him of drinking the whole pay. Of course she expects him 
to surrender all his earnings. She goes around telling her friends how an irresponsible 
man he is and that injures his ego a great deal. He said whenever he is drunk, she 
searches his pockets and steals his money and he is not happy because she buys other 
men beer (and she loves drinking a lot) with his own money. She expects him to buy her 
61 
 
expensive things because she loves izinto zetop (expensive and high status things). He 
knows her parents but he has since ceased complaining to them because each time they 
tell him: asizingeni indaba zenu (we don?t interfere in your matters). He can?t beat her 
because a South African woman should ?never be beaten?. The parents don?t have a 
problem with the relationship, though, because the man uyadhiza.  The previous night he 
didn?t sleep at home, because she also doesn?t sleep at home many nights.  
 
However, not all relationships are material based. Some are premised on genuine love 
with both parties loving the other for who they are as shown in the cases 3 and 4 below. 
 
Case 3 
No, a South African woman in a relationship with a Nigerian for three years got attracted 
to him long before she knew where he was from. Phenotypically he doesn?t look like an 
outsider because he is ?light skinned like South Africans?. This is her fourth relationship: 
previously she was involved with a South African, a Zimbabwean and a man from 
Botswana. She cannot generalise on South African men because she was not much 
involved with them. Though the one she was dating was an arrogant type who kept telling 
her, ?you think you are the only girl? There are millions more out there.? She felt he 
thought she was doing him a favour being his girlfriend. The Zimbabwean and the 
Nigerian are very humble people: they feel she is doing them a favour being in love with 
her. What she treasures most in the relationship is that he respects her, her opinions and 
values and involves her in his plans. For her, material things are not pre requisites and 
62 
 
were not the reason she got into the relationship in the first place, even though some 
women do. 
 
Case 4 
Tshidi, who is involved with a man from Zimbabwe, got into the relationship because it 
was best for her. She was looking for a man who would meet her emotional needs and 
she found out he was the perfect match. Being an ambitious person, she needed 
somebody who could handle her sense of independence, be supportive and reliable. 
Apparently, he is a good father to their two year old daughter and acts as a co - parent 
whenever she is busy somewhere. There is a misconception that South African women 
are involved with non South African men for monetary and material benefits. In her case 
there is no money involved because he has limited finances and she thinks that 
misconception is unfair. Sometimes, though she gets into arguments with her man when 
she is short of money and wishes he could earn a little bit more but that?s not an everyday 
thing. Previously she has dated men from other countries. When she dated a Congolese, 
and because he is of darker hue, she used to get strange looks from people who thought 
that she was ?eating? his money. When they would get into a restaurant, she would pay 
but still people would say she was not interested in him as a person, but was only after his 
money. For her it was like: there is another foreign man dating a beautiful South African 
woman?she is dating below her status, below her level. 
 
 
 
63 
 
Contestations of the Manhoods 
The fact that South African women enter into love relationships with immigrants, is a 
source of deep resentment by South African men. The allegation is that immigrants are 
?stealing our women?. In this sense as I indicated earlier, it seems both sets of men are in 
a sexual competition for women. The ultimate winner apparently is not only the one with 
a long, big and thick penis but the one who can provide for the woman, the family and 
dependants. This is the point of distinction between immigrant and South African men. 
Certainly there are some ?things?, qualities and values that women are looking for. 
Despite them being labelled gold diggers and money mongers, for Alexandra women, the 
man is not just a penis symbol but must come as a ?complete package?. He must not only 
meet her material expectations but her emotional needs as well. It seems to me it is the 
latter that forms the crux of South African women?s dissatisfaction with South African 
men. Again it is this factor that came out prominently in my extensive interviews with 
female informants. This also leads to other outlying forces at play in love relationships in 
Alexandra: sexism, gender violence and abuse. Women are not only after money, but are 
escaping these oppressions. Immigrant men are seen as better lovers and these have 
consequences: bitter contestations between the two sets of manhood which are manifest 
in racisms. 
 
Being a Man in Alexandra 
As indicated earlier, being a man in Alexandra encompasses many things: the big penis, 
being employed and being able to provide for the woman or making money, therefore 
lovable.  South African men are said to be afraid of independent and competitive women 
64 
 
who are better than them. They therefore prefer ?stupid blondes?, who stay at home and 
don?t argue or oppose them and just do whatever he says without question or resistance. 
These women would run his bath, cook and do laundry for him while he sits and watch 
television. South African men are said to demand conformity in a woman, that she 
perform traditional roles and give her babies. Other men look for a trophy woman they 
can display in public and boost their manly egos and masculinities. Certainly women are 
dismayed by this kind of arrangement. Female informants told me that women go for 
immigrants because of unpleasant experiences they have or have had with South African 
men. They say the latter want to dominate women, abuse and isolate them from their 
families. Non - South African men are said to have more love, that is, they spend more 
time and money on the women and buy them material things.  
 
However some women said a real woman must provide for her family, clean the house, 
wash and cook for her man. One female informant argued that though she is a working 
woman, she still finds time to do household chores. Nowadays people employ nannies 
and house girls, she doesn?t like the idea of another woman cooking for her man or 
washing his underwear. She feels a man must eat food his woman has prepared. 
 
The definitive essence of being a man in Alexandra, also means being able to get a cheri 
and concomitantly, the ability to sex her, ukunyoba. The sexual experience is associated 
with initiation into manhood which is socially recognised among the man?s peers. In 
addition, it also means to have concurrent multiple partners, all in which sex is a major 
factor. For this reason, an unemployed Alexandra man who can?t access women because 
65 
 
of his social position is a deep injury to their manhood. The broader connection between 
unemployment, poverty and masculinity means two things: one, as seen earlier, there is 
contestation between the two sets of manhood, which is immigrant and South African. 
Secondly, it would seem men are involved in a sexual competition for women and the 
one able to provide for her becomes the ultimate winner. 
 
Many female informants pointed out that most sexual relationships are characterised by 
coercion, violence and physical threats. This is viewed as an extension of male authority 
and sex is his inalienable right.  Manhood in the township is marked by sexual and 
physical violence. These two, in the men?s eyes, define manhood. Paradoxically, the 
majority of women don?t see it that way. For them a real man is not the one capable of 
exercising physical and sexual violence: these are two things they loathe and make them 
seek recourse in cross - border relationships. Women are in fact looking for love, 
emotional support, commitment, security and material provision, and this, according to 
women is their definition of manhood. This I discuss below. 
 
a) What women look for in a man? 
One consistent response from female informants was that women look for respect, 
honesty, communication and love. Women love long lasting and enduring relationships 
and bafun? umuzi (they desire a home and a family). Apparently South African men don?t 
provide that. I was told all they want is to fool and play around and bayajola (they cheat) 
and are not serious. All men in Alexandra are said to be jolling.  
66 
 
However some men say that if men are cheating it means something is seriously wrong 
with South African women, mainly because they are materialistic and they don?t love the 
man but his money. The indication was that South African women need to be taught to 
love somebody for who they are and not their money. Further men are privy to serious 
relationships because of fear that the women would give them korobela (love portion), 
which would severely curtail the man?s independence. 
 
An elderly woman told me what makes a woman is her bearing a child. Only and until 
she has had a child can she call herself a woman. That explains why most women would 
first have a baby before a long term relationship. Similarly for men: only after giving a 
woman a baby can he call himself a man and after that he can be involved in a serious 
relationship. However, it seems men only uses the woman and give her a baby and dump 
her. On asking her what a relationship should be like, the same woman said in a 
relationship, love must be balanced and not just all about sex. 
Some South African men were critical of these behaviours as one man said: 
A man must face his responsibilities. If you damage you must fix it. He must take his 
woman and kids as a first priority before anything else.  Some men in South Africa, as 
old as fifty are taken to maintenance court by women because they don?t look after their 
kids. 34 
The same man, called Bhakaniya for his undying love for Orlando Pirates football club 
said a man who doesn?t work is the one who mostly creates problems in the house. When 
some men are out of employment, they start thinking that the woman is no longer 
respecting them, so they leave her and get another cheri (girl).  He said men are charmers 
                                                 
34 interview with a South African man,30 June 2009 
67 
 
and use their tongue to get their way into the new woman?s heart. He starts borrowing, 
say, R100 from her and tells her he will pay it back and never does. He gives her a baby 
and runs away. For immigrant men it?s different because bayabheja. (They freely give 
out money).  Bhakaniya said if South African men don?t take responsibility, immigrant 
men will come and takeover. Women say the dismay and disapproval of South African 
men over cross border relationship emanates from jealous.  
South African men must do a soul searching and ask themselves why they are failing to 
please their women. If South African men knew how to treat a woman nobody would be 
complaining. South African men are jealousy, they beat up women and they don?t trust 
them.35 
When I posed the question if non - South African men are ?taking South African women?, 
No, who has an immigrant lover said: 
I think they (South African men) deserve it. They are full of nonsense. The rate of 
cheating among them is higher. They just say to you: come on don?t expect to be the only 
one. But a non - South African man would think twice before he cheats and if he does and 
his partner finds out, he goes down on his knees apologising. But South African men just 
say ah damnit and they beat you up and get violent. I think South African men should 
learn from these guys (non South African) and what make women go for them.36 
 
Some men are said to spend money on parties, get a girl there, do a one night stand and 
move on and that they are not serious about making a family.  I was informed that the 
man must first have sex with a woman before he buys her clothes for the child or children. 
If she can?t offer it, he goes for other women. Women say when men see a woman they 
                                                 
35 interview with a female informant, 07 July 2009 
36 interview with No, 04 July 2009  
68 
 
see sex; in their imagination they strip her naked and envisage having sex with her. They 
told me that all men want is sex and nothing else. 
Some immigrants feel Alexandra women are ?loose? and also because of widespread 
cheating by men, they have lost the definitive essence of love. When she sees a man, she 
expects him to sleep and jol with her. This may be because of desperation brought by 
intermittent and chronic poverty. Alexandra has a huge concentration of shacks, in their 
homes there is neither money nor food. As a result they go around looking for men to 
provide them with these needs. When a man speaks with her, she expects him to love her. 
Immigrants say local men are not serious with their women, they are the ?hit and run? 
type.  As Jerrinos told me one day, people no longer respect love and they don?t think 
about a long term relationship. He said in Alexandra no woman has a boyfriend 
somewhere, even ?married old mamas have a boyfriend or boyfriends somewhere, its 
waar? (its true). The boyfriend can just come to the woman?s house and sleep with her 
while her man is away, its waar.?   
 
It came out repeatedly that there is moral degeneration in the township. Fathers are not 
there to provide for their families; they are invisible. They just make babies and shy all 
responsibility. The other feeling is that women don?t like living permanently with men, 
because that would ?disturb? them from jolling around. Their young daughters are 
therefore, also jolling. One man said in the old days girls would ?fear? a man. Nowadays 
it?s no time for fear, otherwise they would starve and nobody would provide money to fix 
their hair. 
69 
 
Its mostly young girls who are jolling. When I was coming down the road, I haven?t seen 
a girl walking alone, but with a boy.37 
 
Cultural Particularisms, Patriarchy and Women Domination 
There are cultural factors and perceptions and patriarchal notions that all work towards 
women domination, all intractably linked to, and affect the dynamics of cross border 
relationships. In many instances there may be no problems between the two individuals, 
but they set in as a result of cultural pressures brought largely and mainly by the family. 
 
The Cultural Logic 
Most women believe that non - South African men, Nigerians in particular have a culture. 
The Nigerian culture, they say, stipulates that a man should never argue with a woman, 
worse still fight with, or beat her. One female informant said, if a woman has not swept 
the house or done household chores, the man does all that quietly.  Immigrant men are 
said to be afraid of maltreating the woman because of unknown repercussions associated 
with spirits of the woman, in her cultural domain. 
Others find it strange that Zimbabweans pay lobola late at night while in South Africa it 
is paid during the day. For this reason most parents are hesitant to have their daughters 
marry non - nationals.  However I could not verify where the informant got this story, 
because, being from Zimbabwe myself, lobola is not paid late in the night. 
 
Though cross - border relationships are generally accepted in the community, it was 
revealed, men and unemployed men in particular resent them because of the conception 
                                                 
37 Interview with Mukoma, a Zimbabwean immigrant, 08 July 2009 
70 
 
that immigrants are ?stealing our women?. Some parents, however don?t approve these 
relationships because they are afraid of embarrassment from neighbours and what they 
would say if their daughter is in a relationship with a non - South African whose origin 
and culture is unknown. However, one of my informants, S?busiso from Zimbabwe has 
had a steady relationship with a South African girl for a year and is known to her mother 
and she doesn?t have a problem with that.  
 
In 2008 there were rumours going around in the township of a sixteen year old South 
African girl who married a Nigerian man. The Nigerian had supposedly paid R60 000 
lobola and took the girl to Nigeria. She is said to have come back in a coffin and that the 
Nigerian reported that she had got sick and died there. When the coffin was searched at 
the airport, her body was stashed with drugs. People in Alexandra believed the man had 
killed her so that he could smuggle narcotics into the country. As a result of circulation of 
such stories, racial attitudes towards non - nationals intensified and moreover resentment 
of cross border love relationships. 
 
Another dimension of these relationships is that when non - South African men have a 
child with the woman, the offspring uses the woman?s surname. This is mainly because 
the father doesn?t have ?papers?. Culturally it means, therefore, that by virtue of the child 
carrying the woman?s name, she belongs to her and he doesn?t have control over the child. 
In the patriarchal systems of most African societies this is a deep injury to the man and a 
source of contestations in these relationships. 
 
71 
 
Case 5 
For Tshidi, who is Tswana and is in a relationship with a Zimbabwean man, the problem 
with her people started when their baby was born. Mainly it was to do with naming of the 
child and damages. The man had broken into the family (ho thobela) without Tshidi?s 
father?s consent, by impregnating their daughter. Therefore he did not do it in a legitimate 
way and was liable to punitive measures to correct that. This doesn?t imply, though, that 
he must marry her but that if she happens to meet another man, she would be bringing the 
child into this new relationship. Again, the child would carry the mother?s name until the 
outstanding damages have been settled. This means he has to pay lobola for the child not 
the mother. Unless and until he does that, the child carries the mother?s name (which 
ironically is Tshidi?s father?s name).  In the traditional sense Tshidi still belongs to her 
father and for a man to break in is like tearing a child from its parent. On birth the child?s 
first name was given by Tshidi?s mother; the second by her and the third by the baby?s 
father. The first two names are however, the ones appearing on the child?s birth 
certificate. 
Tshidi attributes this state of affairs to cultural particularism that is synonymous to 
racisms.  Her people are afraid of people who are different from them. Though her man is 
Zimbabwean, the worst ethnic group she would have brought into the family are Xhosas. 
She told me: 
If I had brought in a Xhosa, my mother would have said, oh my God Tshidi! But bringing 
a Zimbabwean, she said, oh my Goooooooooooood! 
 
Her mother used to say that Xhosas cut off baby fingers and feed their children to snakes. 
She doesn?t feel comfortable in the presence of her relatives during family gatherings and 
72 
 
doesn?t mention her man?s name at all because she feels embarrassed as the family says 
she has brought shame. The perception is that their ethnic group is superior and jokes are 
made about her man. Her aunt always says to her that she would go and live in 
Zimbabweeeee and in her imagination; Zimbabwe is some strange and peculiar place. 
Tshidi might have done ?better? though, if she had brought in a non - South African man 
who is coloured, Indian, white or a black American or a black man from UK. A black 
African, however wealthy he might be remains a non starter.  
 
Another informant, Tumi, informed me that her grandfather used to tell her that South 
Africans are like domestic cows whose meat is tender and the blood is soft. Immigrants 
are like the wild cow, the Brahman, with wild blood. When these two cows mix their 
blood, the offspring inherit the wild blood of the Brahman. Thus marriages with 
immigrants were discouraged and dissuaded at all costs. 
 
Parents of the woman generally are dissatisfied with their daughter?s decision to be in a 
cross - border love relationship. Nasty stories and rumours circulate about how 
immigrants steal the woman?s money; how they would eventually hurt and lie to her; that 
they have wives back home and are just fooling around and have no real commitment. On 
the other hand parents of immigrant men also disapprove their sons marrying South 
African women because all South African women are ?HIV positive?. 
 
 
 
73 
 
Are Women Complicit in their Domination? 
a) Two Rand Sly 
The chronic poverty and widespread unemployment means women go around looking for 
money and food and a man who can buy a two Rand sly. This is a common food in 
Alexandra which is made of slices of bread, with chips, fried eggs, cheese, Vienna and 
polony added inside. The cost ranges from R5 to R14 depending on the items included 
(it?s called two rand sly because for some time it used to cost R2). The sly is a corruption 
of slice. It is highly coveted by women. Anyone seen holding or eating it has a certain 
prestige or status. Therefore any man who can buy a woman the sly or ice cream which is 
also widely consumed can win her heart and can sleep with her. Men also propose and 
make sex with women on the promises of buying her a two Rand sly. Apparently, sly has 
assumed a more intrinsic value than the normally staple diet of pap and it has become a 
centre of love relationships and abuses.  A man can get a woman by buying her the sly. 
At the same time, he can abuse her based on that. 
 
b) Patriarchy and Abuse 
Men have the ingrained perception of an infallible right to women?s sexual rights. This 
might have emanated from the mentality of struggle masculinity that considered women 
to be fair game (Xaba 2001).  When their advances are turned down, men would use 
force and this has led to many instances of rape. Rape is therefore a major concern in 
Alexandra. From his study of the Kabyle in Algeria, Bourdieu (2001) observes that 
women are socially prepared to see sexuality as an intimate and emotionally charged 
experience which doesn?t necessarily include penetration. Instead it contains things like 
74 
 
talking, caressing, embracing and other communications and understandings. Men, 
however, compartmentalise sexuality which is seen as an aggressive and physical act of 
conquest oriented towards penetration and orgasm (Russell 1975). This kind of scenario 
unfortunately is playing itself out in Alexandra. 
 
In the Alexandra community few men are seen walking with, and holding hands of their 
children, especially girls (Thapelo, oral communication 08 July 2009). Previously when a 
man was seen walking with a girl child people would think he would rape her. As a result 
many children are afraid of, and are detached from their fathers while the latter remains a 
distant and fearsome figure. 
 
Some female informants like Nikezwa from Alex FM told me that many women are 
abused and they don?t report to police because either the man would be the breadwinner 
or the relationship is a coercive one, and she is afraid of leaving him because he might 
assault or even kill her. However some women think that a man who beats her loves her 
and the beating is an expression of that love even if he is snaaks (nasty). This 
phenomenon is also exacerbated by huge consumption of alcohol and its abuse.  
In many societies, men are the primary agents of violence (Beinart 1992). This is a 
gender identity construction, determined by social norms, influenced by historical factors 
(Morell 2001). Further, masculinities like feminities are not only historical but multiple, 
relational and contradictory as well (Hodgson 2001). 
 
75 
 
Domestic violence in Alexandra is pervasive and a daily reality. Often the distribution of 
power in the intimate relationships is disproportionate. Men are not keen on a woman 
who talks back or challenges him. She does so at the risk of a physical assault.  
 
An unemployed man feels shame because the normative expectations of the community 
are that he should provide for the family. His failure to meet these expectations is a 
source of stress and is compounded by alcohol abuse. Thapelo from ADAPT, a 
community organisation working on domestic abuse, believes that because men are 
unemployed, they are derided and abused by their women who tell them: ?you don?t want 
to go and look for work. All you want to do is sleep and drink?. The result is they vent 
their anger through physical violence, not only on women but on other men as well. Of 
course for a long time women have been single mothers and providing for their families 
and raising their children by themselves. That independence ends, and oppression comes 
in when she gets into a love relationship. He starts saying,? baby, don?t work, I will 
provide for you.? But when he goes out of employment, problems start setting in, often 
related to the man?s inability to provide for his family. The capacity of the man to use 
physical violence, hurt vulnerable people, like women and children who have less power 
is seen as a frequent and daily occurrence in the township. In fact, for the man, to be a 
real man, he has to use violence. Women resent the fact that men want to dominate, abuse 
and give them babies which they don?t support. Far from being caught in the apartheid 
structures, Ratele (2004) argues that black men are still caught up and support the 
oppressive discourses those structures supported.  Manliness as a sexual and social 
reproductive capacity and capacity to fight and exercise violence is a first and foremost 
76 
 
duty for a man in many societies (Bourdieu 2001), of which Alexandra is no exception. 
As a result the masculinisation of the male body and the feminisation of the female body 
reflect relations of domination which are naturalised. 
 
While traditionally men were seen as economic providers (Ratele 2004), it seems this has 
been subverted in the urban context and changing times. Apparently it seems men are 
depending on working women to support them, financially and materially. It was 
revealed to me that it?s not only women that love financial benefits from a relationship 
but men as well. 
 
So far in this chapter I have used a multi - pronged approach, looking at different 
elements and how they play themselves out in giving rise to racisms in Alexandra. The 
immigrant penis alone is not enough, thus my inclusion of other phenomena. I have 
looked at other factors as well that include the linkage between masculinity, sexism, 
gender relations and racism, the cultural logic ingrained in community beliefs and how it 
has a bearing on social relationships between immigrants and citizens. Gender and power 
relations in particular, remain important in understanding these. My belief is that all have 
common affinity and sometimes overlap. All in all these affect dynamics of cross - border 
love relationships. 
 
 
 
 
77 
 
Chapter Three 
Social Formation of Races in the Post Apartheid South Africa 
  
Alexandra is Africa.38 
 
In understanding cross ? border love relationships, I think one needs to analyse racisms in 
the townships. My approach thus is holistic and all encompassing ? I present the overall 
picture. In my analysis I show why black racism is significant, how people get constituted 
into social membership and how immigrants get racially discriminated.  In this chapter I 
look at the community life and its own internal sets of social relationships. Alexandra, 
being a multiethnic society with a large presence of different identities does not mean 
these relationships are harmoniums. Some frictions are bound to come out. This is seen in 
use of language, naming, renaming and use of racial labels on immigrants. For me 
cultural semiotics of signification and representation are important in understanding 
racisms as I will show in this chapter. 
 
Alexandra has for a long time been a primary destination for both internal migrants and 
external migrants since the foundation of the township in 1912. Migrants and immigrants 
were coming from areas like Natal and Transkei, and neighbouring countries like 
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe; Mozambique; Lesotho; Swaziland and Nyasaland (now 
Malawi). Many settled in the township permanently, married local women and set up 
homes. In the pre 1994 South Africa, there were contestations of who the bona fide 
township residents were and who were not (Bonner and Nieftagodien 2008). Migrant 
                                                 
38 Interview with Colin of Alex FM, 07 July 2009 
78 
 
labourers from rural South Africa were in many instances called amagoduka (those 
would return) implying that they were temporal residents who after a certain period of 
time, would return to their rural hinterland. Naturally this arrangement served the 
apartheid regime?s interests, which was loath to the city slicker type and street wise 
township resident and secondly the amagoduka were important as a labour reserve. 
 
The advent of democracy in 1994 saw the country opening up to the whole world in the 
process of accelerated flow of labour, capital, goods, electronic information and increased 
migration by African immigrants (Nyamnjoh 2006).  In addition to almost all ethnic 
South African groups, there are people from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria, 
Somalia, Ethiopia and Zambia resident in the township. Many of the non - nationals 
found their way to Alexandra, because of long existing networks of immigrants who had 
migrated to the country and township for many decades. Secondly, the township is 
favoured because of its proximity to industrial areas which surround it, like Kew, 
Marlboro and Wynberg. Thirdly, it makes economic sense because of cheaper shack 
accommodation, which has been proliferating since the late 1980s (Bonner and 
Nieftagodien 2008). The increase in migration by African non - nationals exacerbated 
insecurities and anxieties of locals and immigrants alike (Nyamnjoh 2008). The resulting 
end has been a building of differences in identity and sequestration of ethnic groups. 
These differences have transcended merely ethnicity, to racial conception, as presented 
later in this chapter. 
 
79 
 
The rise of black racism in the 1990s cannot be isolated from the country?s apartheid past, 
of racial and class divisions, animosity, racist immigration policies, siege mentality and 
attitudes of uniqueness and superiority towards the rest of Africa (Crush 2008).39 Here I 
am inspired by Hall?s (1980) assertion which is relevant in the contemporary South 
African society: 
Different racisms have each been historically specific and articulated in a different way 
within the societies they appear. Though it may draw on the cultural and ideological 
traces deposited in society by previous historical phases, it always assumes specific forms 
which arise out of present ? not the past ? conditions and organisation of society. 
(1980:336). 
In examining the manifestation of racism (s) against immigrants in the post 1994 South 
Africa, one sees  a transformation of previous pre 1994 racism, that characterised black 
and white relations, into the post 1994 that define relationships between black African 
immigrants and black South Africans. In the post 1994 Alexandra, the first incidence of 
violence against African immigrants was reported in late 1994 (Crush 2008). Gangs of 
South Africans, under a campaign code named ?Buyelaekhaya? (Go Back Home) tried to 
evict immigrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, accusing them of crime, 
sexual attacks, unemployment and other social vices. Most of the victims had been 
resident in the township for decades (Crush 2008). In the context of different identities I 
will now look at how immigrants are brought to subjectivity thorough use of names and 
speech in these sets of relationships. 
 
 
                                                 
39 I have made references to this earlier in my literature review 
80 
 
Racial Labelling and Racial Mapping 
As Emile Benveniste (1971) observes, the linguistic status of a person is the very 
foundation of subjectivity. The process of interpellation, thus, is when individuals are 
called to subjectivity by others. Similarly, an index as a sign whose meaning is 
interpreted from the context in which it is uttered configures racial and ethnic 
relationships (Foley 1997).  Understanding the interface between language and 
race/ethnicity shows a close affinity that is tied together and language and its use 
becomes a social marker of ethnicity and or claims to an ethnic identification. Therefore 
the ?speaking? subject exists in culture. If that culture leans more on racist and ethnicist, 
then that ?speaking? subject uses language to that effect. Similarly, language is not a 
mere reflection of the world but produces meaning through articulation of linguistic 
systems upon real situations and relations (Saussure 1983). Further, language is not a 
mere correlation between signifier and the signified but a domain of articulations. It is 
through a more in - depth familiarity with the use of speech, language and expressions 
and articulations that one can thoroughly understand the dynamics of racisms in 
Alexandra. 
 
Goldberg?s (1990) view on racial subjectification demonstrates how social agents are 
defined or define themselves as racial subjects. Further this entails for both the racially 
formed (racialised) and racially forming (racialising) subjects. The entities constitutive of 
racism fall under the category of expressions. Racist expressions include beliefs and 
verbal outbursts. These transcend to acts and consequences which involve racial violence 
as the May 2008 attacks on immigrants in Alexandra show. 
81 
 
In Alexandra, non - South Africans are known by a wide array of given names. These are 
not just names but labels. Consequently they are identified by them. These emanate from 
culture contact as a result of the presence of other ethnicities and identities. Each of these, 
are value laden and have a certain meaning denoting the social origins of their carrier. In 
Alexandra in particular, these labels undergo a mutation process. While their origin may 
be in addressing one racial/ethnic group, they may end up being a blanket label that refers 
to anyone and everyone who is not South African. As I went around asking people their 
perceptions of social relationships between immigrants and South Africans, I also 
enquired about names they are given and their etymological roots. From these 
conversations I identified fourteen: 
 
a) Amakwerekwere 
Amakwerekwere is the most common and ?older? label given to African immigrants. Its 
roots are in language differences found in the latter?s and South African languages. The 
speakers of the strange language were seen as speaking an alien speech, totally 
incomprehensible to South Africans. As I was told, when they speak their languages, the 
phonetic sound would go like ?kwerekwerekwerekwerekwere?. Again they could not 
speak any of the South African dialects, and it was confounding how a black person 
could not be able to speak any of the dialects spoken by South Africans. For Nyamnjoh 
(2006), the term amakwerekwere, in reference to civilisation, its bearers would qualify for 
a subhuman race. Following May 2008 violence, the Black Lawyers Association 
proposed that the painfully offensive term ?makwerekwere? be declared part of the 
lexicon of hate speech in the statute books (the Star 9 July 2008). 
82 
 
b) Amagrigamba 
Another older term that refers to non South Africans. Originally it referred to West 
African men. During my fieldwork, I was told that a grigamba was one who came to 
South Africa with nothing except clothes on his body. After a while they returned home 
carrying lots of property and goods. 
c) Ama foreigner  
This is a recent term, which came about as a result of May 2008 xenophobic attacks. The 
period and aftermath of the violence was captured extensively in the media, with people 
caught up in the violence, called ?foreigners?. Township residents merged the term into 
their daily linguistic repertoire. 
d) Amakalanga 
I first heard the label from a group of Zulu men, while I was watching a soccer 
tournament at the grounds behind Madala hostel.  Among the first Zimbabwean people to 
migrate, and set migration trends, to South Africa long back, to work in the gold mines of 
the Witwatersrand, under WNLA recruitment, was the Kalanga ethnic subgroup of 
Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, they are not regarded as bona fide Ndebele who came from 
Nguni land in South Africa. Most of the Kalangas, however, are fluent in Ndebele, and 
they settled in Alexandra, where they lived for many decades. The term AmaKalanga 
came, before and in the post May 2008 violence. It referred to Ndebele speaking people 
of Zimbabwe and those from Swaziland. The idea was that they are not bona fide Nguni, 
therefore they are amaKalanga. The label, of late has come to refer to anyone who is not 
South African. 
 
83 
 
e) MaNyasa 
This refers to Malawians. The first Malawians to migrate to South Africa did so before 
Malawi?s independence while it was still called Nyasaland. However, the label, when 
addressed, causes injury because it is derogatory. 
f) MaNigeria and Broeder 
It refers to Nigerian immigrants. ?Broeder? is an imitation of Nigerian speech: ?my 
broeder from anoder moeder.?  Apparently, these labels, on surface, seem ?innocent?, it 
is only in the way they are used, and who uses them and for what intentions and purposes 
and results, that they assume social significance, in the process of social and human 
interaction. 
g) Ngwangwa 
Again this label refers to Nigerians. It?s not clear how it came about in Alexandra. 
However my informants told me it has something to do with food Nigerians eat. 
h) Patrao 
Refers to Mozambicans. It originated from the Mozambicans themselves and how they 
addressed each other. Initially it was a respectable term, referring to Mozambican 
business people involved in hawking and trading. When addressing one another, the other 
party would shout: 
 ?Eh, Patrao!? 
The other would reply: 
 ?Patrao!? 
However the term has been appropriated by South Africans, and the way they use it has 
come to be offensive, carrying negative connotations and intending to cause injury to the 
84 
 
Mozambican. Though I observed numerous Mozambican women traders, they are not 
called patrao. That term is used on men. Among Mozambicans themselves women are 
called senora. Apparently that has not been incorporated into the South African lexicon. 
i) OMotswagai 
In seSotho/seTswana, it means ?where do you come from?? Originally it was used by 
urbanised township city slickers to refer to South Africans coming from rural areas, who 
were not well versed with city ways, who were seen as ?traditional, conservative and 
backward.? However it is now used on African immigrants.  By addressing them as such, 
it questions their motive for being ?here?; where they are coming from (an unknown alien 
and strange place with strange people). In the psyche of Alexandra residents, omotswagai 
is another kind of species, who are different from South Africans ? linguistically, 
physically and culturally. Further, it buttresses their inferiority, both as beings and their 
places of social origin and ancestry. 
j) Mkwevho 
Refers to Tsongas and Vendas from Limpopo and Mozambicans as well.  The label might 
have originated from a popular Venda soapie, Muvhango which is broadcast on SABC 2. 
k) MaShangani 
A label used for Tsongas and Vendas. During the violence it was used to refer to 
Mozambicans. The logic was that Mozambicans share the same blood, ancestry or origin 
with South African Tsongas and Vendas. 
l) Abantu bakaMugabe (Mugabe?s people) 
It is used for Zimbabweans. They are considered to be just as bad as Robert Mugabe. 
 
85 
 
m) AmaXenophobia 
A recent label. It came about in the post May 2008 racial violence. The term xenophobia 
was being widely mentioned in the media and Alexandra residents began to refer 
displaced immigrants as amaxenophobia. The Star newspaper article of 30 May 2008 
reads?the most used term in the past weeks has been xenophobia, generally understood 
to mean fear or hatred of foreigners and their culture. The term amaxenophobia, like 
amaforeigner, was incorporated into the daily linguistic repertoire of Alexandra residents 
and became a racial label. 
 However, like other labels, it is also interchangeably used to refer to all non - South 
Africans. 
n) MaZimbabwe 
The label was not only referring to Zimbabwean immigrants but to all non - nationals as 
well. It first appeared in the post 2000 era when the political and economic crisis in 
Zimbabwe led to mass migration by Zimbabweans to South Africa, moreover Alexandra. 
 
The labelling is, however, not a linear process. Immigrants also have names they give to 
South Africans: 
a) MaSasko 
This is mainly used by Zimbabweans to refer to South Africans. There are two 
explanations as regards this label. One is that it might be a linguistic derivation of ?South 
African?. The other is it comes from Sasko bakery or Sasko bread. 
 
 
86 
 
b) MaZulu 
It comes from amaZulu, a South African ethnic group. The immigrants have a perception 
that all attacks perpetrated on them, are done by the Zulus. The maZulu label 
encompasses every South Africans, even if they are Sotho, or Xhosa they are still called 
maZulu. 
 
Immigrants refer to where they come from with a singular term, Africa which they see as 
synonymous with backwardness in terms of civilisation; there is pervasive poverty, war, 
hunger and other deprivations. For them, South Africa then is some kind of a European 
country; developed, industrialised and laden with opportunities. Some progressives in the 
township I came across, in an attempt to be polite, refer to immigrants as ?our brothers 
and sisters from Africa?. The mere fact that they come from ?Africa?, unconsciously and 
inadvertently overrides this ?politeness?, since as indicated above, Africa is a place where 
terrible things happen. 
 
In the above discourse, I am attempting to link racial names that Alexandra?s South 
African residents give to African immigrants. Since the immigrant has come to be 
identified by a label, it lasts long their stay in the township and the country as a whole. 
Even when they go to sleep, in the privacy of their quarters, when there is no one to give 
them a label, they are still amakwerekwere. In the morning, they wake up and still carry 
the same label. In other words the label has become part of them, and they have become 
part of the label. Sensibly, they are not proud of these labels, because, firstly, there is 
nothing to be proud of them. Secondly, they are in most instances derogatory, insulting, 
87 
 
dehumanising and debasing. Thirdly they remind the immigrant that they are not 
welcome ?here? and they don?t belong ?here?. The ?here? is a metaphor for a place and 
space, and the place and space are an abode and preserve of the Alexandra autochthons. 
The right to belong to this particular space is determined by who belongs ?here? and is 
intricately connected to national identity.  
 
If there is a ?here?, there must be a ?there?. The ?there? is where immigrants belong and 
?must go?. These are two contrasting and different places and spaces.  The Alexandra 
autochthon, doesn?t, and won?t care where this ?there? is, because, one, that is where the 
immigrant belongs and the autochthon is not really sure of the physical, geographical and 
social location of it. Two, it is an alien space, so strange and surreal, like the immigrant 
himself who emanates from there. Third, in the autochthons? imagination, that place must 
be inferior, undeveloped, and in terms of civilisation, lesser than Alexandra and South 
Africa in general. 
 
Racial naming as a social practice perpetrated by discriminators who are social actors, 
ultimately commit a social action of discrimination. They generally wield the power, 
embedded in language which can be both an object and means of social discrimination 
(Roberts, Davies and Jupp 1993; Billig 2006; Van Dijk 1987) and these often overlap. 
Secondly, through use of verbal insults and verbal violence, they both empower 
themselves and discriminate the other. The power asymmetry generally inhibits the less 
powerful to discriminate against the more powerful (Riesgl and Wodak 2008). 
 
88 
 
The use of names and labels emanates from distinguishing features or a peg on which to 
hang the discrimination. These are related to social identity markers like gender, race, 
skin colour, birth, hereditary factors, ethnic, national, language, religion and so forth. It is 
not merely racialism which is the reason for this discrimination but racism which lies 
behind social construction of race categories. 
 
Labels like amakwerekwere can be understood through a discursive pattern of 
signification and representation (Wetherell and Potter 1992). Further they are part of 
collective symbols, as espoused by the Duisburg analysts Sigfried Jager and Margaret 
Jager (2001a). These are cultural stereotypes which are in the form of metaphorical and 
synecdochic symbols that are immediately understood by members of the same speech 
community. This is similar to what Riesgl and Wodak (2008) calls discrimination by 
nomination whereby  persons are named and referred to linguistically and that they are 
discriminated at by means of discursive practices (which are nomination strategies). This 
can take many forms ? some explicit like verbal slurs employed in an insulting speech, 
acts or verbal injuries.  The construction of the other therefore is through naming, 
labelling, nouns, verbs and adjectives. A group in a power asymmetrical position employs 
collective symbols to stigmatise, marginalise and exclude minority groups. As a result the 
analysis of racism is tied to power and hegemony. 
 
Hegemony and Signification 
From my observations during my fieldwork I come up with an interpretation of cultural 
semiotics of signification in Alexandra.  Hegemony and signification, representation and 
89 
 
negotiation of difference through space (which is Alexandra); time (which determines 
manifestations of different racisms) and social distance is explained by the fact that 
although immigrants and South Africans live in the same space, their social distance is 
nonetheless wider than near. It?s a synthesis of both remoteness and nearness (Simmel 
1950). These significations speak of cultural symbols and signs encompassing language, 
pointing (like with a finger), the eye (as visual racism); the indexicality of ?you?, ?me?, 
?us?, ?them?, ?here? and ?there?. Though these only explain difference, racisms feature 
when the ?Other? is discriminated, prejudiced and seen as inferior. The significations 
have a deeper meaning that reveals the underlying nature of social relationships between 
nationals and non - nationals. More importantly they manifest the dominant linear 
patterns of power and hegemony, because the senders of these signals, in most instances 
don?t receive feedback from the receivers. For instance, when somebody shouts: ?Hey, 
wena kwerekewere!? the social actor, who the verbal outburst is intended, just imbibes 
the insult silently; they neither respond back verbally nor physically. 
Most of these significations are beyond merely verbal communication (Reisgl and Wodak 
2008: Van Leeuwen 2000). They draw attention to other semiotic processes, in particular 
visual communication. Van Leeuwen identifies various types of discrimination; inter alia, 
depersonalisation; separating; distancing; accentuating differences and devaluing. Visual 
discrimination which is by symbolic distanciation is whereby groups of persons may be 
viewed as not close to viewers, as they are strangers. 
 
The use of these labels is an intrinsic part of societal knowledge stored through 
generations and through time which determines individual or collective doing and 
90 
 
formative action that shapes society, thus exercising power (Jager 2001). Within this 
approach, discourses are understood to be historically determined, transindividual, 
institutionalised and regulated social practices that become material realities sui generis 
(Reisgl and Wodak 2008). 
 
Stereotyping of the Other 
My fieldwork and findings reveal that stereotypes play an essential, yet unacknowledged 
role in social relations in Alexandra. Stereotypes define the ?otherness?, either who they 
are supposed to be or suspected to be. In both cases it necessarily does not have to be true. 
However the implications of such stereotyping give prominence to these racisms. As 
defined by Quasthoff (1998), stereotypes are verbal expressions of a certain conviction or 
belief directed towards a social group or an individual member of that social group. The 
stereotype is typically an element of common knowledge shared to a great extent in a 
particular culture.  
 
I went around asking people (both South Africans and immigrants) what are common 
stereotypes associated with immigrants and South Africans in Alexandra. Below are 
some which I was told, as used by South Africans: 
a) immigrants are criminals and have exacerbated crime in the township 
b) immigrant men have big penises 
c) Immigrants are bad. They do bad things 
d) they do not have any manners and respect, they don?t have any culture 
e) they take all the jobs and locals no longer have access to employment 
91 
 
f) they take all our women, including the most beautiful ones 
g) Immigrants banuka amakwapa (they smell). 
h) foreigners brought AIDS to us 
 
Reverse/Counter Stereotyping 
Stereotyping in Alexandra is not a one way process. Immigrants themselves have, in their 
repertoire, stereotypes that they associate South Africans with: 
a) South Africans are lazy, they don?t want to work and are stupid 
b) The Zulus are not educated and hate school, all they know is driving taxis 
c) South Africans are not skilled, all they know is ukubamb? inkunzi (robbing or 
mugging) 
d) South African women are ?loose? and they all are HIV infected 
e) South Africans are alcoholics and are prone to violence 
f) South Africans don?t like bathing 
 
Most prejudices against non - nationals are used in accusations, metaphors and metonyms, 
which include name change and renaming (Jager 2001b).  In many instances they are in 
the form of derogatory metaphor and fears of miscegenation. Ethnic and racial cleansing 
employed in racist and ethnicist utterances is interpreted by psychoanalysts in terms of 
anal regression and the cleanliness mania (Quasthoff 1998). For example the prejudices 
against immigrants? sexual superiority and sexual potency and being carriers of disease 
are related to psychoanalytic theories related to fantasies of a phallic threatening subject.  
92 
 
These prejudices are steeped in attitudes, convictions and prejudices.  Quasthoff also 
identifies convictions as being central in that they ascribe qualities to others and provide 
rationalisations for negative attitudes to other people. 
For example one man I interviewed said: 
Zimbabweans?ummm?okay?at least some are hardworking. But Mozambicans, no. 
Bayabheda (they are bad) and are stoort (stubborn).  They come here and do all bad 
things. They break into our homes and mug us in the streets. And these people have no 
passes. They do crime and their fingerprints are not known anywhere even in Pretoria. 
When they commit crime, they hide from the law and are never caught. Mfethu, 
ibuhlungu laai len? (My man it?s painful). 
 
Racism, Plurality and Multiethnicism 
Given a long history of migration, Alexandra is place where different ethnic groups 
reside. These are internal and external migrants. They live side by side in the yards and 
shacks and social interaction is close as a result of this proximity. At one instance it might 
imply that social relationships are more defined; well refined and thus giving credence to 
cultural diversity or cultural melting pot. It is through this presupposition, that the May 
2008 attacks, led many people to seek for answers as to the causes of the violence. More 
perplexing was that how can neighbour turn against neighbour, if they have lived together 
for a long time. From my conversations with people it is apparent that some immigrants 
(as I indicated earlier) have stayed in the area for decades, married South African women 
and set up permanent family structures. Those immigrants had lost contacts with their 
homeland, their families and kin there; therefore, the new families they established in 
Alexandra were de facto their only kin.  
93 
 
This brings one to the following question: does absence of violence mean there is no 
racism, prejudices and other intolerances? Does racism manifest itself only in violent 
ways? What about other nuances and logics steeped in stereotypes, culture, habits and 
even verbal outbursts? The salient racism has been an integral part of immigrant/South 
African relationship at least since the post 1994. 
One informant had this to say: 
All of a sudden there was a takeover of Alexandra by foreigners?thousands and 
thousands of them. It was like an invasion. All these foreigners set up shacks all over. We 
no longer had any yards to put our gardens; no space at all, every space is filled with 
shacks. Some started selling and hawking on the streets and pavements and in front of 
shops. We started getting tired of these people.40 
The problem of overcrowding and proliferation of shacks has been laid on immigrants. 
Most South Africans think this has to do with government?s failure to curb mass 
immigration of ?these people?. 
Another informant put it this way: 
They (foreigners) are uncontrolled. When we (South Africans) were in exile fighting 
apartheid, we were put in camps. We could not just move around like these people are 
doing. Some of them have, especially Somalis a bad attitude, and they think they own this 
place. These foreigners started not respecting us South Africans and that?s when our 
anger began rising.41 
 
Alexandra as a multiethnic society means social relationships are defined by conflict and 
tension and are rarely harmonious. Unlike other communities where racisms against non - 
                                                 
40 Interview with a South African man, 10 June 2009 
41 Interview with a South African man, 10 June 2009 
94 
 
nationals have occurred, Alexandra is a situation with its own specifics.  It is a 
community with its own beliefs on non - nationals, which is seen in the long history of 
migration and presence of different identities. As both Smith (1986) and Armstrong 
(1982) argue, cultural myths and symbols endure through time and are reproduced 
through generation after generation, notwithstanding changing material and historical 
conditions.  Again cultures that are seen in these differences operate within the context of 
both the social and the spatial, which can?t be separated from the time dimension (Massey 
1994). Individual and collective identities, which are specific forms of cultural narratives, 
constitute commonalities and differences between the self and others (Yuval Davis 1997). 
These often relate to myths of common destiny and origin. An immigrant in Alexandra 
therefore cannot breach the line of naturalised psychological and cultural difference 
existing between them and the locals (Alund 1995). This line demarcates the national and 
non - national and as Wieviorka (1994), observes, it has to do with issues of identity and 
difference. These are determined by national borders in which people construct their 
collective identities and meanings and form a base for social interaction (Cohen 1986). 
 
In this chapter I have presented how cultural semiotics of signification lead to 
differentiation and I have borrowed from psychoanalysts? perspectives.  However 
differentiation becomes racial in the sense that it used to refer to the ?otherness? and their 
inferiority. The ?Other? is therefore discriminated and faces prejudice because of their 
place of social origin. The signification and representation through use of language is 
usually debasing, humiliating and dehumanising.  My argument thus, is that cultural 
semiotics helps one to understand the depth of racisms in Alexandra. 
95 
 
Chapter Four 
Nationalism, Ethinicism or Racisms? 
One question may be asked: are racisms in Alexandra a result of nationalism, ethnicism, 
sexism or purely racism? In this chapter I attempt to answer this question.  Based on 
findings of my fieldwork, I affirm that it is not only nationalism, sexism, ethnicism or 
racism but all four. These four in turn constitute racisms and they converge, concur, 
interface, cross cut, intertwine and sometimes overlap. In this chapter I will not dwell on 
sexisms because I have done so in the previous. I instead analyse the other three. As 
indicated earlier, Alexandra is a place where many and different identities live, this 
makes it possible for these factors to play. The fact that these identities live in one place; 
I therefore see it as claustrophobic racism which is racism in a shared social place (see 
also previous chapter). This I discuss below. In this chapter I also take time to examine 
state racism and how it shapes public opinion and attitudes to outsiders. I also look at the 
social life of the identity document and its role in community relations. 
 
The definition of racism in Alexandra is sometimes fluid. The May 2008 pogroms were 
racial and sexist in nature, more than merely an expression of ethinicism or nationalism. 
The latter two concepts were nonetheless heavily intertwined in pre and post violence and 
social relationships in general. The question is: to what extent is the violence or these 
social relationships racist, sexist, ethnicist or nationalist? This question will be addressed 
latter in the chapter on the section of Spider web/Sticky Web. Presently let us take a 
look at the social relationships among different ethnic groups in Alexandra. 
 
96 
 
The Common World 
As a multiethnic/multicultural society, all those residing in Alexandra live in what I call a 
common world. This world is home to people from different areas, regions and countries. 
They ?co ? habit? in a mutual territory and a space and apparently live together, side by 
side. In many homes, like the one where one of my key informants, Jerrinos live, are 
made up of South Africans (Xhosas, Zulus, Sothos, Pedis, Vendas and Tsongas). Non -
 nationals living at the house are from Zimbabwe, Ndaus from Mozambique and one man 
from Malawi. Most South Africans at the house have families living with them. 
Immigrants, who are mainly male have families back home, and one man from 
Zimbabwe, though he doesn?t live with his wife in South Africa, who is a relict wife back 
home, she however intermittently visits him. This typical microcosmic world has its own 
specifics, on the surface the social relationships are not strained, all residents show each 
other, not only some kind of  respect, but a muted show of acknowledgment of each 
other?s presence. For example one day I observed a Zimbabwean man occupying a room 
behind the main house, while passing in the front where some tenants were sitting and 
conversing, just went by without offering a greeting. Here the social distance in these 
social relationships need to be emphasised. Though the inhabitants are near each other by 
virtue of living together, they are distant to each other.  This is because of circumstantial 
necessity that in the first place has made them live together. Living together might not 
necessarily mean that their social relations are smooth. These relations are marked by 
silent tensions. These silent tensions originate from differences in ethnicity and 
nationality.  Here I may use Gluckman?s (1942) concepts of endoculture as referring to 
culture of social personality or group as perceived by them and exoculture as culture of a 
97 
 
social personality or group as perceived by other members of the same social system. In 
reacting to these relationships as defined by cultural differences, social actors in 
Alexandra value others with feelings that vary in ways they perceive people from outside 
whom they come to associate with. This forms the basis in which cultural differences are 
defined which are embedded in linguistic differences as well. The far reaching 
consequences as a result are racisms which are an integral part of these. 
 
This however, does not mean that these relations are entirely silent tensional ones. During 
my long hours of observation at the house, sitting on a wooden bench, just outside the 
fence, by the stall where Jerrinos sells his wares; these relations are sometimes cemented 
by terms of address that are reminiscent of kinship relationships. Jerrinos who is from 
Zimbabwe would address an elderly Venda man as: 
 ?VaVhenda we!? (Hello Vhenda man!) 
The man would reply: 
 ?Nda! ni honi?? (I am alright, how are you.) 
Consider another situation. Jerrinos who is conversant with most South African 
languages because he hears them being spoken all the time and he also once worked with 
South Africans who were speaking local languages only. After all he lives at a house 
where practically all South African ethnic groups are. They address him as s?bali.42 They 
would leave keys with him and ask for them: 
 ?Sawubona s?bali. Umntwana ushiyile is?kiye?? (Hello brother in law, did the 
child leave the keys with you?) 
                                                 
42 S?bali is Nguni word that might mean brother in law. However it can be used interchangeably by both 
sexes. 
98 
 
He would also say: 
 ?yebo s?bali.? (Hello). 
Those addressing him as s?bali include men, women and their children. 
The terms of address may also take the form of joking or playful banter. Jerrinos (who is 
a young man of about twenty three) would address an elderly Venda man (of about fifty 
five) as: 
 My baby, shoo my baby! 
The elderly Venda would also say: 
 Shoo my baby! 
In this way these different groups foster kinship relations in a new urban setting, which in 
this case is Alexandra. Be they South African internal migrants or immigrants from 
outside the country, their kinship or even extended kinship patterns are broken as a result 
of migration. The networks found in a family life (like addressing each other as s?bali) 
often occur within, and depend on artificial structures (Rex 1997). Having left their 
families back home, immigrants, ideally in this situation become part of the common 
world that assumes some tenets of family life. Tenants from the same region, area or 
country immediately form kinship relations extending back to their home area, by virtue 
of coming from the same place.  In this way they have a sense of identity that is both 
shared and similar.  
 
The extent to which primary social relationships become integrated in the whole societal 
network of relations is inhibited by the larger manifestations of racisms in the public 
sphere. While the private domain plays an important role in socialising individuals for 
99 
 
participation in the public sphere, the public domain is shaped by a morality which is in 
calculated in the family (Rex 1997). In the aftermath of the racial attacks on immigrants 
in Alexandra, the Star newspaper ran an article, with a picture of a group of 
schoolchildren jeering at displaced immigrants: 
Their (kids) faces contorted with hatred and contempt, the schoolchildren shout and jeer 
and torment and laugh at a woman refugee in Alexandra yesterday. This perhaps, of all 
pictures that have come out of Alexandra, is the most disturbing. This is the lesson 
children have learnt from their elders?xenophobia, even if they never heard the word.  
(The Star, 15 May 2008). 
 
While children live with immigrants and interact with them on a daily basis, the private 
sphere of this common world is one of greater social distance. Here I imply that 
proximity can also include social distance. The situation specifics of Alexandra leave 
people with no option but to live side by side and not separately. Living side by side, can 
nonetheless give an illusion that all social actors are in a harmonious world devoid of 
racial or ethnic tensions. This situation I call coerced co ? habitation. Social actors live 
together, not because they desire it, but because they have nowhere else to stay other than 
where they are. As a result they grant each other some ?concessions?, which allow them 
to live together. These tolerances are presupposed by both situation specifics and coerced 
co ? habitation. By coerced co ? habitation I imply that circumstances and the situation 
coerce people to live side by side. A couple of reasons may explain this (as I indicated 
earlier): the proximity of Alexandra to industrial areas like Kew, Wynberg and Marlboro; 
the availability of cheap shack accommodation; since Alexandra has a long history of 
migration by both internal and external migrants, the presence of existing kinship 
100 
 
networks is exploited by new arrivals who come and stay in the area and finally 
Alexandra mastands (landlords) prefer immigrant tenants because they don?t give 
?headaches? when paying rent at the end of the month. 
 
Therefore this primary community cannot succeed in becoming a functional subsystem of 
the whole. First, the diversity of the private domain of this multicultural facet becomes 
radically altered in the public sphere where the unitary single culture that divides South 
Africans and non - South Africans, seems to be dominant. This is when the idea of 
geographical and national origin and national identity comes into the picture. 
 
In Alexandra, generally all ethnic groups (both South African and non - national) live 
side by side, except one area which residents43 call ?Maputo?, which is entirely inhabited 
by Mozambicans. During my fieldwork I could not ascertain how and why this kind of 
demarcation. However though the ?Maputo? area is almost entirely inhabited by 
Mozambicans, there are many of them living in the greater Alexandra community.  
The ?Maputo? area has a huge concentration of shacks and people who live there have 
formed a bond of old, new and existing social networks that are held together by 
identities emanating from common social and national origin. This Diaspora identity is in 
my opinion, a response to cultural politics of difference though there is no rigid and 
explicit separation of areas where different ethnicities live. The identity is framed by 
memories of a collective history rooted in common origins in which Mozambicans of 
?Maputo? share. 
                                                 
43 South African residents were the first to call the area ?Maputo?. However everyone including immigrants 
and Mozambicans themselves call it by the same name. 
101 
 
The Spider Web/the Sticky Web 
Is the situation in Alexandra a nationalist, ethnicist, sexist or racial one? Describing racial, 
ethnic and inter ? relationships in the township is fluid. The concomitant effects of 
culture contact as a result of the presence of other identities are seen in anti - immigrant 
sentiments that have traces of nationalism, ethnicism, sexism and racism. I reiterate my 
emphasis that these concepts are interpenetrating, interrelated, intertwined and cross 
cutting. One cannot attribute the social situation exclusively to nationalism neither 
ethnicism nor racism. Doing so would be an inadequate and incomplete analysis and 
glaringly missing the point. Therefore the Alexandra situation can be seen as a spider web 
or a sticky web (see the Spider Web figure below). It?s a sticky web because racisms in 
the township cannot be explained by a single factor: instead the causes are multiple, multi 
- dimensional and relational. Plucking one factor and analysing it will not help one 
understand the nature of racisms, moreover social relationships in Alexandra. Like a 
spider web, all factors are woven into, and demand a subtle and intricate analysis for a 
deeper understanding. The implication is that a holistic approach which I have taken is 
necessary to unlock social dynamics in the township. Since racism doesn?t move 
unchanged in history and assumes new forms and articulates new antagonisms in 
different situations, it exists in a plural form (Gilroy 1987).  
 
The figure shows a spider web. In it are intricate and interlocking sets of factors like 
ethnicity, nationalism, racism (s), the public and private sphere, binary representation, 
racial labelling, naming and renaming and interpellation. From my observations, all these 
102 
 
factors mark and influence the nature of social relationships between immigrants and 
South Africans. 
 
 
    Figure 1 The Sticky/Spider Web 
103 
 
It is common, in Alexandra, to hear conversations of this nature between nationals and 
non nationals: 
Eh baba, do you think this is Zimbabwe? Here in Mzansi (South Africa), my friend, we 
don?t do the kak (shit) you do where you come from?. 
 
References to each other?s nation of origin or even nationality, fundamentally might 
appear not wrong, it shows differences in nationality between these social actors. 
However these differences as exhibited in speech tend to carry racial overtones because 
they are mainly references of not only differences but inferiority. The other actor is seen 
as belonging ?there?, a different social origin determined by nationality and the other 
belongs ?here?. It also not only shows superiority of those who belong ?here? but their 
uniqueness, distinctness and ?betterness?.  
Consider also this kind of conversation: 
 Eh baba, do you think this is Maputo? 
 
Mozambicans are seen as coming from ?Maputo?, just as Nigerians are seen as coming 
from ?Lagos?. This, however, does not mean that all Mozambicans and Nigerians come 
from Lagos or Maputo, because they come from different parts of these countries. 
Maputo and Lagos, as used in conversations and speeches, become derogatory, 
condescended places linked to those nationalities, which emanate from them. In abstract 
terms, an analysis of social actors using this kind of speech might on one hand be deemed 
to be not familiar with the nationality of people from ?Maputo? or ?Lagos?.  In reality 
they know that these immigrants come from Mozambique or Nigeria. However, an 
explanation is that they might not be familiar with the geographical location of these 
104 
 
places. At this juncture the social origins of these immigrants become abstract, except the 
fact that they are not South African and therefore don?t belong ?here?. 
 
Some racial labels carry racial connotations that are intricately linked to the semantic 
space, place and national origin and determine claims to autochthony. Labels like 
?MaNigeria?, ?MaZimbabwe? or even ?Maputo? or ?Lagos?, in their meaning, transcend 
merely space, place and national origin. They link the bearers of these labels to places of 
social origin, thereby defining cultural, ethnic, national or even phenotypical differences 
(their skin is seen as of darker hue). This is the basis of ?us? and ?them? and in this 
current social scenario, is a binary racial representation. 
 
The interface between ethnicism, nationalism and racism 
In Banton?s (1967) view race refers to categorisation of people (them) while ethnicity has 
to do with group identification (us) and stresses the need to distinguish between race and 
ethnicity. On the other hand, Van den Berghe (1983) would regard race relations as a 
form of ethnicity. In Weberian terms, ethnic groups are those human groups that entertain 
a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of 
customs or both or because of memories as a result of colonisation or migration (Weber 
1922; 1968). Anthropologically ethnicity refers to aspects of relationships between 
groups which consider themselves, and are regarded by others as culturally distinctive 
(Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Hylland Eriksen 1993; 1997).  Weber (1922; 1968) 
distinguished ethnic groups from races conceived in biological terms. Its not biological 
differences alone that constitutes an ethnic group (in Alexandra, immigrants, including 
105 
 
Tsongas and Vendas are seen to be uglier and of darker hue) but also common customs.  
Its not only physical or cultural characteristics but subjective perceptions of these by 
those who share them or who react against them. For Weber, shared ethnicity leads to 
group formation and ethnic groups have memories of a common past, attachment or 
clearly demarcated territory and these survive for a long time in the consciousness of 
people. 
 
Since ethnicity assumes many forms and tends to stress on common descent among their 
members, the distinction between race and ethnicity becomes a problematic one (Hylland 
Eriksen 1993). In reference to Alexandra, ethnic labelling as I pointed out earlier on is 
also an ethnic classification which is a reflex of self identification (Ardner 1989a). In that 
way indexicality becomes racist.  
 
Ethnicity and nationalism being related concepts, the majority of nationalisms are ethnic 
in character (Hylland Eriksen 1993), and also racism and nationalism are fundamentally 
related with the former deriving from the latter (Anderson 1983). Commonly racism 
usually manifests itself within national boundaries.  Ideological articulation shows how 
ideologies like racism, nationalism, sexism and ethnicism verge on each other and they 
are connected and overlap (Miles 1993). Studies of ethnicity at the local community level 
and studies of nationalism at the state level stress that ethnic or national identities are 
constructions. Like other ethnic identities, national identities are constituted in relation to 
?others?. 
 
106 
 
The nation as the socio ? historical context in which culture is embedded, it emphasises 
emotional investment of the individual in the elements of their culture, which is a key 
factor exploited by nationalism (Guibernau 1996). The power of nationalism stems from 
its capacity to create a common identity among group members. Identity?s defining 
criteria is continuity over time and differentiation from others and which is the basis of 
national identity. The common culture allows members to create solidarity bonds and 
they imagine themselves as distinct and separate from others who are seen as strangers 
and potential ?enemies?. Conversely, race is a way of naming the difference between 
members of a particular collectivity and the ?other? or the ?alien?. It establishes a 
boundary between those who share certain biological or physiognomic characteristics and 
cultural make up. Racist practices are inherently steeped in power which is exercised in 
the dual practices of naming and evaluating the other.  When a group imposes a world 
view that consists of racist elements, the society becomes automatically divided between 
minority and majority groups (Spoonely 1988). Minority groups44 according to Spoonley 
are not necessarily numerically smaller but are those groups that face prejudice and 
unequal treatment because they are seen as inferior in some way. Modernisation and the 
establishment of the nation state, and spread of capitalism have created situations of 
people known as ethnic minorities and have led to new forms of identity and ethnicity, 
through local economic and cultural change and migration (Hylland Eriksen 1993). The 
majority groups have privileged access to state apparatus and the policies it adopts 
exacerbates racial disadvantages. The majority groups also have the power to determine 
the status of minorities and in times of crises the minorities receive harsher treatment and 
are blamed for social ills and vices affecting society. In Alexandra immigrants are blamed 
                                                 
44 In Alexandra minorities are immigrants and South African ethnic groups - Tsongas, Vendas and Pedis.  
107 
 
for exacerbating crime, taking jobs and women and utilising national resources meant for 
South Africans. This is compounded by lack of service delivery and protests on these, 
though genuine, are usually infected with racial sentiments. 
 
Though nationalism and racism exhibit fundamental differences and oppositions, 
formulations of nationalism are closely related to racism. Nationalism, by using ?us? and 
?them?, does not only construct national identity but a racial identity as well, based on 
national, cultural or phenotypical differences. The ?other?, then is someone potentially 
inferior. The intersection between nationalism as propagated by the state; micro level 
nationalism at the community and how the immigrant is brought to racial subjectivity is 
the subject matter below. 
 
State Racism 
The pattern of racisms or even nationalism at a community cannot be studied or analysed 
in isolation. It intrinsically links to the overarching perpetration of a nationalist agenda; 
anti - immigrant policies and harassment by state agents, who include the police, the 
department of Home Affairs and other state apparatus. Formulation of policies by the 
state inhibits immigrant access to employment, health services and infringe upon their 
fundamental human rights. The state bureaucracy and hegemony is used coterminously 
with its apparatus to separate populations and labelling of the ?Other?. The ?Other? is 
denied ?belonging? through denial of legal status, documentation, police harassment and 
arrest and detention at Lindela 45Repatriation Centre, and lack of protection through 
                                                 
45 Lindela, is a deportation in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg and in the recent years has gained 
notoriety for gross human rights violations of detained immigrants awaiting deportation 
108 
 
courts. At this point, I will briefly look at the state?s immigration policy and how it is part 
of state racism and I am indebted to the work of Peberdy and Crush 1998b; Leitzes 2009; 
Harris 2001; Handymaker and Parsley 2000 and Valji 2003.  The South African 
immigration policy is rooted in the racist history of the country; hostile to ?foreigners? 
and black racism is a continuation of the historical narrative of resistance to ?foreign? 
nations and creation of a new nation (Leitzes 2009). From 1913 to 2002, immigrants were 
seen as contaminating national identity. The 1913 Immigration Act and the 1937 Aliens 
Act formed a foundation for all subsequent South African immigration legislation until 
2002. Though amended, the effects of this legislation have remained in place ? the 
Immigration Act (2002) and its amendment (2004), although not explicitly racially 
exclusionary, they have a linkage between state policy and citizens attitudes towards 
immigrants. 
 
I can draw a conclusion that the racial logic that emanates from the top is like drops of 
water from a gourd suspended up a tree seeping down, into the community and not only 
permeates into locals? approach to non - nationals, but shapes their views as well. This is 
because the state is not autonomous of society and is in constant interaction with it ? 
regulating, ordering and organising it. Here I will use Hall?s (1982) treatise of the state. 
For Hall, the state constitutes society and is constituted by it, in a complex inter -
 relationship and inter - dependency that exists therein. There is a general willingness of 
the population to consent, conform and support the state?s rule, which in turn affects 
public attitude. However there is the concept of power - administering society involves 
policing it. The state?s relation to society is hierarchical and those above set the rules of 
109 
 
the game for those down there. This also entails state?s use of force to enforce conformity 
to its rules, laws and regulations. Hall argues that though the state may be abstract, its 
power acquires concrete, real and social organisational form which includes using of real 
resources through a set of practices in the state?s apparatuses. These apparatuses acquire 
characteristics of their own and become power bases for quite distinct interests. I think 
Hall?s supposition is true when analysing the situation in Alexandra as shown below. 
Identification processes done by the police on immigrants have been denounced by 
Dludlu (cited in Valji 2003) as ?humiliating?, ?dehumanising? and current state policies 
?smack of apartheid rule?. Recently Dludlu has written on his harassment by immigration 
officials who suspected he was not South African (see the Sunday Times Review, 1 
November 2009). 
 
In depth interviews with immigrants reveal dismay with ill treatment they receive form 
state agents, particularly the police 
I don?t have legal documents to stay in this country. Every time I see a police van 
patrolling around I have to run away or hide. The police might stop me and ask for an ID 
or passport which I don?t have. I came here to look for better opportunities and support 
my family back home. If I am deported they will starve.46 
 
Detection, stopping, searching and detention of immigrants by police, often happens in 
full view of the community. Consequently they have a misconception of immigrants and 
augment the idea that they are ?illegal? and have no right to belong to both the 
                                                 
46 Interview with a Mozambican immigrant, 23 June 2009. 
110 
 
community and the country. The manner, in which these operations occur, criminalises 
immigrants. The community in turn views them as such. 
 
Flow of Racism 
State - - - - - - - - - - - - - Community- - - - - - - - - - - - -Immigrant 
Figure 2 
 
Figure 3 illustrates how racisms, can in a singular time period, emanate from the state. 
The working of the state is complex for these reasons: firstly, the state may for instance 
be the Department of Home Affairs and policy makers who make (immigration) policies 
from their offices. These policies in turn affect relationships between immigrants and 
locals. Secondly, at the community level, the state is represented by agents like the police. 
They are not merely an extension and representatives of the state but when in the 
community they assume two complimentary roles: they are the state themselves and 
secondly, since they are operating in the community they are part of the community?s 
racial logic. For example one Zimbabwean immigrant who was stopped and searched by 
police, informed me that they crudely told him: ?you should go back to Maputo?. 
 
As indicated earlier, one major crime an immigrant could commit, as I was informed by 
immigrants themselves, is beating up a South African woman. While a South African 
man might abuse or beat her, he might get away with it. For the immigrant it?s a different 
matter altogether. 
Uh my brother, the moment an immigrant steps his foot in Alexandra, the first thing he is 
told is never beat a South African woman. If you do so you will serve a jail term, where 
111 
 
you might get out an old man. If she reports the assault to the police and says the man 
who beat me is a foreigner that is enough to cause much commotion and interest in the 
police station?.the police would come with three vans to pick you up.47 
 
Centrally, the non documentation of immigrants and the state?s reluctance to document 
them and its anti - immigrant policies, has a ripple effect on the community level:  
Foreigners do a lot of crime here; we are tired of crime in Alexandra. They are 
housebreakers and babamb?inkunzi (they are muggers/robbers). Now you see Broer waka 
(my brother), these people don?t have ID?s or any form of identification. When they do 
crime they run away or just disappear and they are never caught. This is because since 
they have no ID?s, their fingerprints are not in the records in Pretoria.48 
 
This phenomenon is not a new characteristic of the post 1994 state. State?s attitudes 
towards those perceived as ?aliens? have deeper historical roots that can be traced to the 
apartheid era (see for example Coplan 2007; Bonner and Nieftagodien 2008; Misago, 
Landau and Monson 2009). During that time black South Africans were seen as ?surplus 
people? and temporary sojourners to the city and the idea of the ?alien? was used to deny 
them citizenship, political and economic rights. That system apparently has been an 
antecedent to contemporary socio - political relations between the state and communities? 
views on the one perceived to be an outsider (Misago, Landau and Monson 2009). 
Criminalisation of immigrants and the fact that they don?t have ?passes? fuels nationalist 
and anti - immigrant sentiments in the township.  A contradiction however is that many 
South Africans don?t have the green ID book, for a variety of reasons including 
                                                 
47 Interview with an immigrant man 01 July 2009 
48 interview with a South African, 30 June 2009 
112 
 
incompetence at Home Affairs; still non documented immigrants are seen in negative 
light. They are seen as not belonging and are aliens, and in this instance citizenship and 
what it means to be South African, are predetermined by one?s possession of the green ID 
document. 
 
What struck me was the fact that most residents still use the apartheid lexicon pass in 
referring to the identity document. The apartheid state enacted the pass laws under The 
Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 (Magubane 1979; Helen Joseph 1986; 
Callinicos 1987) and blacks were excluded from living or working in white areas unless 
they had a pass, nicknamed dompas by Africans (dumb pass in Afrikaans). Blacks who 
had no pass faced immediate detention, a summary trial and deportation to their 
?homeland?. The pass controlled every aspect of African people?s lives: access to 
housing, work and movement. The pass was the most powerful tool and weapon of white 
domination over blacks. Similarities in the social life of the apartheid pass and the post 
apartheid identity book are drawn below. My supposition is that identity and 
documentation in the contemporary South African society are a mere reinvention and 
repetition of history.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
113 
 
 
Green ID Book 
 
  
 
 
  Nationalism      racisms access to employment  citizenship 
      Figure 3      
In Figure 4 above I am illustrating how the green identity book has concomitant effects 
in many spheres. Firstly one?s identity, social and territorial origins are determined by a 
document. This is the defining basis of nationality and nationalism and because 
immigrants don?t have the South African identity document are seen as outsiders and not 
?belonging here?. As a result this fuels racisms which are based on national and cultural 
differences as determined by the identity document. Secondly, the fact that immigrants 
are not documented, they are used by owners of capital as cheap labour, working long 
hours for low wages. The fact that they accept lesser pay is a source of intra class conflict 
between South African and immigrant workers (see also Chapter 1). This is compounded 
by non unionisation of the latter and trade unions are not willing to unionise them either. 
Thirdly immigrants are then denied political, social and economic rights and citizenship. 
This merges well with the idea of the ?alien?. 
 
Non possession of the green ID book has other social consequences that in a huge way, 
affect social relationships between nationals and non nationals. To get South African 
114 
 
citizenship, some immigrant men enter into contractual love relationships with South 
African women and get married at the Home Affairs. This phenomenon, as I was 
informed, is most common with Mozambican men. South African male interviewees feel 
that, in these arrangements, non - South African men are being used by South African 
women. The latter blackmail the former by making monetary and material demands; that 
the immigrant must do everything she asks for because it was her who facilitated his 
acquisition of a South African ID and consequently citizenship.  Acquisition of ID?s and 
citizenship in this manner is a bone of contention between nationals and non - nationals 
and leads to hatred tension and conflict. 
 
It?s easier for unemployed South African men to blackmail immigrants, because they are 
seen as ?illegal?. My informants informed me that on Fridays or month ends when 
immigrants are paid, they are waylaid by South Africans who exhort money, cigarettes or 
beer from them. They threaten the immigrants, saying that they would report them to the 
police because they don?t have ?papers?.  In similar vein, Somali traders, operating in the 
area around a major shopping centre in Alexandra, are victimised in many ways. 
Residents borrow goods and items from them and later renege on payment.  When the 
Somalis ask for their money, they are either victimised or threatened with a report to the 
police that they don?t have ID?s. 
 
Though many immigrants are qualified, their lack of an ID book greatly diminishes their 
prospects of finding employment that is commensurate with those qualifications. They 
either end up vending and hawking (like Jerrinos who holds a university degree, and is 
115 
 
running a vending stall in Alexandra) or being underemployed. Further they assume 
menial jobs shunned by locals. The existence of unwanted, stigmatised and low status 
jobs which local workers are no keen to take means immigrant workers can easily be 
assimilated into them; in which they are both a pariah working class and scapegoats (Rex 
1970; Wieviorka 1997).  
 
One immigrant from Zimbabwe told me: 
When the job I was working ended, I decided to claim my UIF money because when I 
was working they used to deduct it from my pay. When I went to the offices I was told to 
produce a green book and I don?t have it, and the officials started to be rude and 
dismissed me like a dog. Up to now I am still fighting to get the money. 49 
The same man also told me: 
After my job ended I applied for another job and I was invited for an interview. 
The guy who was doing the interviews was a black South African, and when he 
realised I am a foreigner, he told me there is no job for me, because I don?t have 
a green book. 
 
This is in sync with the whole discourse of discrimination. According to Reisgl and 
Wodak (2008), discrimination means putting an individual or individuals, who are 
considered to be different from others, at a disadvantage.  This is negative discrimination, 
which refers to an ethical and normative dimension; political and legal evaluation and 
also inimical to principles of justice and human rights. It also means the persons and 
groups are treated unfairly, unjustly; repressed; suppressed; decried; discredited, debased; 
                                                 
49 Interview with a Zimbabwean immigrant, 26 June 2009 
116 
 
degraded; defamed; excluded unjustifiably in the social and economic, and other 
inequalities are established. 
 
Discrimination at both community and state level cannot be discussed fully without 
reference to the idea of hegemony. In Gramscian terms, hegemony is a state of total 
social control (Gramsci 1971). This is closely intertwined with ideologies which are 
material relations, which Lenin (cited in Hall 1977) calls ideological social relations, that 
shape social actions and function through concrete institutions and apparatuses and 
become materialised through processes. Ideologies operate by constituting individuals as 
?social subjects? of ideological discourses (Althusser 1965) which Laclau (1997) calls 
?interpellating subjects?. Ideologies cannot be reduced to a situation where one class 
imposes its unitary ?world vision? upon all other classes but by taking elements of the old 
ideology into the new doctrine and ideology (Gramsci 1971). In South Africa (as 
indicated earlier) the history of the ?alien? which began in the apartheid era was used to 
deny ?outsiders? political, economic and residents rights (Misago et al 2009). This 
system has been used as antecedent for the hitherto existing socio - political 
configurations and has shaped the state?s and nationals? views on outsiders. 
Following the Gramscian model, Hall (1990), shows how an old conception of the world 
is gradually replaced by another mode of thought that is internally worked and 
transformed. Therefore culture is a historically shaped terrain on which all ?new? 
philosophical and theoretical currents work. The complexity of deconstruction and 
reconstruction in this historical phase is by which old alignments are dismantled and new 
alignments are effected in different discourses and between social forces and ideas. 
117 
 
Moreover, the state has been consistently seen and defined by its exclusively coercive, 
dominative and conspiratorial nature. In Gramscian terms, the state?s domination; its 
?educative? role and its position in construction of hegemonic practices and strategies is 
related to racist practices. This is the related phenomenon of the post colonial state (Hall 
1990). 
 
In the chapter I have examined nationalism, ethncism; racisms, state racism and how they 
manifest at the community level. I have shown and argued how all these are interwoven 
in an interlocking system of racism hitherto prevailing in Alexandra. These reflect the 
overarching picture of racisms in contemporary Alexandra and in my understanding they 
influence anti - immigrant and racial sentiments. I have shown how one?s social 
membership is used for inclusion and exclusion. In considering this, black racism is both 
structured at the top (that is the state) and at the community level. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
118 
 
Conclusions 
 
I have throughout this body of work attempted to bring a clearer understanding of black 
racism as it manifests in Alexandra. I have argued that at this present time, employ of 
xenophobia in discourse is becoming irrelevant. Rather use of racism in studying black 
African immigrants and black South African relations is in my view paradigmatic. I have 
argued that racism is not a single phenomenon but is multi ? dimensional and has 
multiple causes and determinants and that there is not merely racism but racisms. I have 
posited that racism should be seen in the system of values, attitudes and perceptions as 
well. Rather than these being dismissed, they tell us more about sets of relationships that 
exist in township communities. These manifest themselves depending on time and place 
and that each situation where instances of black racism arise in South Africa should be 
specifically analysed than generalised and homogenised. There are other factors in 
Alexandra like sexism and gender relations, nationalism and ethnicity, state racism, racial 
labelling and naming which characterise social relationships between immigrants and 
citizens. These I have examined in the limited time I had, as they occur in the township 
and I have shown how they intertwine to give rise to black racism. 
 
I have made linkages between black township masculinity, sexism, gender relations and 
racism. In discourse this has not been adequately analysed. While the epiphenomenon of 
economics is relevant, it has its own shortcomings that I have attempted to address. I have 
gone further to examine cross ? border love relationships between black African 
119 
 
immigrants and South African women and how these have led to black racism in the 
township. This I find important in understanding May 2008 racial violence in Alexander. 
 
At the time of fieldwork for this research project, relationships between immigrants and 
South Africans seemed normal in Alexandra. There were no overt or explicit articulations 
of racism. Though most immigrants fled the area, many returned. What would strike a 
first time visitor to the area is that scarcely over a year ago; this was the scene of bloody 
pogroms that horrified everyone. People go about their business as if nothing ever 
happened.  It is like a mask ? that hides things from the outside world but inside are 
defining sets of relations. This scenario might mislead anyone about the nature of racisms 
in the township. However as one goes deeper into the field, beyond and unravelling that 
mask, then unlike what has been said in many quarters, the May 2008 violence, was 
neither an out of the blue nor a surprising phenomena. The dynamics of South African 
and non South African relationships, I have pointed out in this thesis. A closer 
examination of these relationships can only make us understand as to why and for what 
reasons South Africans, especially men, turned against their non - South African 
neighbours in an orgy of violence and death. Of course Alexandra is a situation specific, 
with its own dynamics and factors. Therefore it should not be generalised, neither 
compared nor homogenised with other incidences of black racism and violence in other 
parts of the country. However Alexandra has important things to tell us about black 
racism in the country generally. 
 
120 
 
This body of work is a study of micro level causes of racisms in Alexandra that are 
steeped in value systems, cultural and sexual logic, though without entirely denying the 
economic. I believe an understanding of these reflects better on the social dynamics and 
relationships existing in the township. I have attempted to point out the realities, as 
revealed to me by my informants through conversations, interviews and my own general 
observations. Writing this work has however been an arduous and a challenging task for 
me. The major being to straddle on a thin line that, on one hand lays bare these realities 
and on the other, avoiding stereotyping anyone. The other, being an immigrant myself, I 
have tried to be objective and present the social world as it is. But realities like these and 
all others are controversial and are subject to different interpretations. As an ethnographer 
and moreover an anthropologist, I owe my duty to revealing the social world as it is; the 
social and lived experiences of the people I studied and above all to contribute towards a 
struggle for humanity. This would enable us to see people as people; people as human 
beings; created equal; living in peace and harmony. This supposition lead us to struggle 
for a better world; where children are not bred and fed on hate, but have love for 
humanity; where men don?t exercise violence on women, children, the vulnerable and 
those deemed different by virtue of race, ethnicity, social origin and nationality. It also 
leads us to question state policies and laws that ferment these feelings and how they 
contradict principles of the prophets who sacrificed their lives fighting oppression, 
exploitation and domination and how they envisaged a world where these ills and social 
vices would buried in the chapters of history. 
 
121 
 
I hope and believe issues brought out in this body of work bring a new theoretical 
dimension in the study of racism (s) and form a basis for further research. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
122 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
Abramson, J and Mizrahi, T. 
1994 Examining Social Work/Physician Collaboration: An Application of 
Grounded Theory Methods. In Qualitative Studies in Social Work Research.  
Catherine Riessman, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 
 
Akokpari, John K.  
2000 The Political Economy of Migration in Sub ? Saharan Africa, African 
Sociological Review 3 (1): 75 ? 93. 
 
Alexander, Neville 
 1979 One Azania, One Nation. London: Zed Books 
 
Alexander, Peter 
2006 Globalisation and New Identities: A view from the Middle. In Globalisation 
and New Identities.  Peter Alexander, Marcelle. C. Dawson, and Meera Ichharam, 
eds. Johannesburg: Jacana Media. 
 
Althusser, Louis 
 1965 For Marx. London: Allan Lane. 
 
Alund, Aleksander 
 1995 Alterity in Modernity. Acta Sociologica 38:311. 
 
Anderson, Benedict  
1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of 
Nationalism. New York: Verso Books 
______ 
1991. Imagined Communities. London: Verso Books. 
 
Appiah, Kwame Anthony.  
1990 Racisms. In Anatomy of Racism. David Theo Goldberg, ed. Minneapolis: 
University of Minnesota Press 
______ 
2000 Racial Identity and Racial Identification. In Theories of Race and Race 
Relations. Les Back and John Solomos,, eds. London: Hogarth Press. 
 
Ardner, Edwin 
1989a Language, Ethnicity and Population. In The Voice of Prophecy and Other 
Essays. Malcolm Chapman, ed. Oxford: Blackwell. 
 
 
 
 
 
123 
 
Balbo, Marcello and Marconi, Giovanna. 
2005 Governing International Migration in the City of the South. Global 
Migration Perspectives 38 Geneva: Global Commission for International 
Migration. 
 
Balibar, Etienne 
1991 Is there a Neo Racism? In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguos Identites. Etienne 
Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds. London: Verso Books. 
 
Banton, Michael 
  1967 Race Relations. London: Tavistock. 
______ 
1977 The Idea of Race. London: Tavistock. 
 
Barker, Gary and Ricardo, Christine 
2005 Young Men and the Construction of Masculinity in Sub ? Saharan Africa. 
Implications for HIV/AIDS, Conflict and Violence.  Washington: World Bank. 
 
Baxter,Lisa, Hughes, C and Tight, Michael.  
2001 How to Research.  Buckingham: Open University Press. 
 
Beinart, William 
1992 Political and Collective Violence in Southern African Historiography. 
Journal of Southern African Studies 18 (3). 
 
Benedict, Ruth 
  1983 Race and Racism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 
 
Benveniste, Emille 
  1971 Problems of General Linguistics. Miami: University of Miami Press. 
 
Bernard Russell, H. 
1994 Research Methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and Quantitative 
Approaches. London: SAGE Publications. 
 
Bester. Theodore. C. 
1995 Inquisitive Observation: Following Networks in Urban Fieldwork. Stanford: 
Stanford University Press. 
 
Billig, Michael 
2006 Political Rhetorics of Discrimination. In The Encyclopaedia of Language 
and Linguistics Volume 9. Brown, Keith, ed. Elsevier. Oxford University Press. 
 
Bond, Jarvis.E. 
 1996 Ethics and Human Well Being Wiley: Blackwell. 
 
124 
 
Bonner, Phil and Nieftagodien, Noor 
 2008 Alexandra. A History. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. 
 
Bouillon, Andre 
2001a  African Francophone Migrants to South Africa: Languages, Images and 
Relationships. In African Immigration to South Africa: Francophone Migration to 
South Africa. A, Morris and Andre Bouillon, eds.  Pretoria: Protea and IFAS. 
 
Boxill, Bernard, ed.  
2001 Race and Racism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
 
Bourdieu, Pierre  
2001. Masculine Domination. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
Callinicos, Luli 
1987 Working Life. Factories, Townships and Popular Culture. 1886 ? 1940. 
Johannesburg: Ravan Press. 
 
Castles, Stephen and Kosack, Godula 
1973 Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe. London: Oxford 
University Press. 
 
Cell, John W. 
1982 The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in 
South Africa and the American South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
 
Chinweizu 
1994 On Negrophobia: Psychoneurotic Obstacles to Black Autonomy. Lagos: 
Sundoor Publications. 
 
Cohen, Robin 
1986 Endgame in South Africa? The Changing Structures and Ideology of 
Apartheid. London: James Currey. 
 
Connell, Robert W. 
1987 Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Palo Alto, 
California: University of California Press. 
______ 
  1995 Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
Coplan, David B 
2007 In Township Tonight! Three Centuries of South African Black City Music 
and Theatre. Johannesburg: Jacana Press. 
______ 
Oral Communication, 28 October 2009. 
 
125 
 
Cox, Oliver C. 
 1970 Caste, Class and Race. New York: Monthly Review Press. 
 
Crush, Jonathan 
1996 A Bad Neighbour? Migrant Labour and the New South Africa. Southern 
Africa Report 12 (1). 
 
Crush, Jonathan and Williams, Vincent. 
2001 Making up the Numbers: Measuring Illegal Immigration to South Africa. 
Southern Africa Migration Project Migration Policy Brief (3): Cape Town. 
 
Crush, Jonathan 
2008 The Perfect Storm: The Realities of Xenophobia in Contemporary South 
Africa. South Africa Migration Project Policy Series 50. 
 
Crush, Jonathan and Tevera, Dan, eds 
 2008 Zimbabwe?s Exodus: Escaping the Crisis. Pretoria: UNISA Press. 
 
Davis, Brion David 
 1997 Contesting Race: A Reflection. William and Mary Quarterly 541, January. 
 
De Master, S and Le Roy, M. K. 
2000 Xenophobia and the European Union. Comparative Politics. 32 (4): 419-436, 
July. 
 
Dempster, Caroline 
2003 Xenophobia in South Africa, BBC Africa Live! August 15, 2003. 
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/315
 3461.stm . 
 
Dludlu, John 
2000 South Africa?s Humiliating Alien Policy Smacks of Apartheid Rule. 
Business Day. 
______ 
2009 A Bad Month for Citizen Dludlu. Sunday Times Review, November 1. 
 
Dodson, Belinda and Oelofse, Catherine. 
2000 Shades of Xenophobia: In-Migrants and Immigrants in Mizamoyethu, Cape 
Town. Canadian Journal of African Studies. 34 (1): 124-148. 
 
Dollard, John 
  1988 Caste and Class in Southern Town. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 
 
Dubinin, Nikolai P.  
1975 Race and Contemporary Genetics. In Race, Science and Society. Leo Kuper, 
ed. Paris: UNESCO Press. 
126 
 
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt 
1965 The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Africa has played in World 
History. New York: International Publishers. 
______  
1965 Souls of Black Folk. Bedford: St Martins Press. 
 
Dunn, Leslie Clarence 
1975 Race and Biology. In Race, Science and Society. Leo Kuper,  ed. Paris: 
UNESCO Press. 
 
Eriksen Hylland, Thomas 
 1993 Ethnicity and Nationalism. London: Pluto Press. 
______ 
1997 Ethnicity, Race and Nation. In Ethnicity Reader. 
Nationalism,Multiculturalism and Migration. Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex, 
eds. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
Eze, Emmanuel, ed. 
1992 The Colour of Reason.  Post Colonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader. 
Oxford: Blackwell. 
 
Fanon, Franz 
 1967 Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grover Press, Inc. 
 
Faull, Jonathan 
2008. Weakest in Our Midst Now Bear the Brunt of Our Failure to improve The 
Lives. Available on internet: http://www.idasa.org.za. Accessed on 11 April 2009. 
 
Ferguson, James 
1998 Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the 
Zambian Copper belt. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 
 
Foley, William A 
1997 Anthropological Linguistics. An Introduction. Massachusetts: Blackwell 
Publishers 
 
Foot, Paul 
 1965. Immigration and Race in Britain?s Politics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 
 
Foucault, Michel 
 1972 The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock. 
 
 
 
 
 
127 
 
Frederickson, George M. 
1981. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study on American and South African 
History. New York: Oxford University Press. 
______ 
  2002 Racism. A Short History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 
 
Freud, Sigmund 
 1953 Totem and Taboo. In Complete Works. London: Hogarth Press. 
 
Furnivall, J.S 
 1945 Colonial Policy and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
 
Gear, Sasha 
2007. Behind the Bars of Masculinity. Male Rape and Homophobia in and about 
South Africa?s Men?s Prison. Sexualities 10 (2): 209 ? 227. 
 
Gellner, Ernest 
 1983 Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 
 
______1994 Encounters with Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. 
  
Gilmore, David 
1990 Manhood in Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven: Yale 
University Press. 
 
Gilroy, Paul 
 1987 There Aint No Black in Union Jack. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
______ 
1997 Between Camps: Race and Culture in Post modernity. Inaugural lecture, 
Goldsmiths College, University of London, March 4 1997. 
 
Gluckman, Max 
 1942 Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand. Bantu Studies. 147 - 174 
 
Goldberg, David Theo 
1984 The Philosophical Foundations of Racism. PhD Dissertation, University of 
New York. 
______ 
1990 Anatomy of Racism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 
______ 
1992 The Semantics of Race. Ethnic and Racial Studies 15. 
______ 
 1993 Racist Cultures. Philosophy and Politics of Meaning. Blackwell: Oxford. 
______ 
2002 The Racial State. Blackwell: Oxford 
 
128 
 
Gramsci, Antonio  
1971 Selections from Prison Notebooks. New York: International. 
 
Gqola, Pumla Dineo 
2009 Brutal Inheritances: Echoes, Negrophobia and Masculinist Violence. In Go 
Home or Die Here: Violence, Xenophobia and the Reinvention of Difference in 
South Africa. Shireen Hassim, Tawana  Kupe,  and Eric Worby, eds. Pp 209 ? 
224. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 
 
Guibernau, Montserrat 
1996 Nationalisms. The Nation State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. 
Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
Guibernau, Montserrat and Rex, John, eds 
1997 Ethnicity Reader. Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration. Cambridge: 
Polity Press. 
 
Gumperz, John 
 1982 Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
 
Hadland, Adrian, ed 
2008 Violence and Xenophobia in South Africa: Developing Consensus, Moving 
to Action. Pretoria: HSRC. 
 
Hall, Stuart 
 1977 Race and Class in Post Colonial Society. Paris: UNESCO. 
_____ 
1980 Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance. In Sociological 
Theories: Race and Colonialism. Hall, S, ed.  Paris: UNESCO Press. 
______ 
1982 The State in Question. In The Idea of the Modern State. Gregor McLennan, 
David Held and Stuart Hall, eds. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 
______ 
1990 Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. 
Jonathan Rutherford, ed. London: Lawrence and Wilshart. 
______ 
1993 Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In Colonial Discourse and Post colonial        
Theory. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, eds. London: Harvester 
Wheatsheaf. 
______ 
            1996 Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London. Routledge. 
 
Handymaker, Jeff and Parsley, J 
 2000 Migration, Refugees and Racism in South Africa. Refuge 20 (1). 
 
 
129 
 
Harris, Bronwyn 
2001 A Foreign Experience: Violence, Crime and Xenophobia during South 
Africa?s Transition. Violence and Transition Series Vol 5, August. 
______ 
2002 Xenophobia: A new Pathology for a new South Africa? Cape Town: 
University of Cape Town Press. 
 
Hayter, Teresa 
2004. Open Borders. The Case against Immigration Controls. London: Pluto Press. 
 
Hecking, Ian 
1992. Forms of Desire: Sexual Orientation and the Social Constructionist 
Controversy. New York: Routledge.  
 
Himes, Chester 
1945 If He Hollers Let Him Go. New York: Thunder?s Mouth Press. 
 
Hintzen, Percival C. 
2001 West Indian in the West: Self Representations in an Immigrant Community.    
New York: New York University Press. 
______ 
2007 Diaspora, Globalisation and Politics of Identity. In Caribbean Reasonings, 
Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall. Brian Meeks, 
ed. Kingston: Ian Rindle Publishers. 
 
Hodgson, Dorothy L 
 2001 Gendered Modernities. Ethnographic Perspectives. New York: Palgrave. 
 
Holland, Janet and Ramazanoglu, Caroline. 
1994 Coming to Conclusions: Power and Interpretation in Researching Young 
Women?s Sexuality. In Researching Women?s Lives from a Feminist Perspective. 
Mary Maynard and June Purvis, eds. London: Taylor and Francis. 
 
Hoch, Paul 
1979 White Hero Black Beast. Racism, Sexism and the Mask of Masculinity. 
London: Pluto Press. 
 
hooks, bell 
 1992 Black Looks. Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press. 
 
Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D 
 1994 Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
 
Human Sciences Research Council. 
 2008 Citizenship, Violence and Xenophobia in South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC. 
 
130 
 
Idasa Report. 
2008 Background Report on Recent Xenophobic Violence in Gauteng. 
Preliminary Investigation. May 28 2008. 
ILO, IOM and OHCHR 
2001 International Migration, Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia. 
Discussion Paper. Geneva. 
 
Jager, Siegfried and Jager, Margaret 
2001b Discourse and Knowledge: Theoretical and Methodological Aspects of the 
Critical Discourse and Despotive Analysis. In Methods of Critical Discourse 
Analysis. Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, eds. London: Sage Publications. 
 
Jordan, Winthrop 
1968 White over Black: American Attitude towards the Negro 1550 ? 1812. 
Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina Press. 
______ 
1974. The White Man?s Burden. New York: Oxford University Press. 
______ 
2000  First Impressions. In Theories of Race and Racism. Les Back and John  
Solomos, eds.  London: Routledge. 
 
Joseph, Helen 
 1986 Side by Side. The Autobiography of Helen Joseph. London: Zed Books. 
 
Kuper, Leo 
1997 Plural Societies. In The Ethnicity Reader. Nationalism, Multiculturalism and 
Migration. Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex, eds. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
Laclau, E 
 1997 Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. London: New Left Books. 
 
Landau, Loren B. and Haupt, Irrian. 
2007  Tactical Cosmopolitan and Idioms of Belonging: Insertion and Self 
Exclusion in Johannesburg. Migration Studies Working Paper Series 32. 
 
Lehulere, Oupa 
2008 The Xenophobic Outbreak in South Africa: Strategic Political and 
Organisational Questions Facing the New Social Movements. Khanya Journal 
Number 19, July 2008. 
 
Leiris, Michel 
1975 Race and Culture. In Race, Science and Society. Leo Kuper, ed. Paris: 
UNESCO Press. 
 
 
 
131 
 
Leitzes, Maxine 
2009 Xenophobic Triggers Situated in the history and Legal Provisions of 
Domestic and International Migration Policies in South Africa. Available on 
internet, http://www.cps.org.za/cps%20pdf/Syn10_3_August2009.pdf. 
 
Lenin, Vladimir Illych 
1974 Critical Remarks on the National Question: The Right of Nations to Self ? 
Determination. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 
 
Lyons, A.P.  
1970 The Genesis of Scientific Racism, Including Some Thoughts on the 
Scholarly Works Produced in the Years 1774 ? 1975. Journal of the 
Anthropological Society of Oxford (1)1. 
 
Mager, Anne 
1999 The First Decade of ?European Beer? in Apartheid South Africa: The State, 
the Brewers and the Drinking Public 1962 ? 1972. Journal of African History (40) 
3: 367 ? 388. 
 
Magubane, Bernard M. 
1979 The political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa. New York: 
Monthly Review Press. 
_____  
2007 Race and the Construction of the Dispensable Other. Pretoria: UNISA Press. 
 
Marx, Anthony W 
1998 Making Race and Nation. A Comparison of South Africa, United States and 
Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
 
Massey, Doreen B 
 Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
McKinley, Dale T.  
2008 The Making of a Myth: South Africa?s Neo Liberal Journey. Unpublished 
paper. 
 
Miles, Robert 
  1993 Racism after Race Relations. London: Routledge. 
 
Misago, Jean - Pierre, Landau, Loren B and Monson, Tara. 
2008 Towards Tolerance, Law and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign 
Nationals in South Africa. Pretoria: International Organisation for Migration. 
 
Modood, Tariq 
2001 Difference, Cultural Racism and Anti ? Racism. In Race and Racism. 
Bernard Boxill, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
132 
 
Morrell, Robert, ed.  
1998 Of Boys and Men: Masculinity and Gender in Southern African Studies. 
Journal of Southern African Studies 24 (4). 
 
Morrell, Robert, ed. 
 2001 Changing Men in Southern Africa. Scottsville: University of Natal Press. 
 
Mngxitama, Andile 
2008 We are Not all Like That. Race, Class and Nation after Apartheid. In Go 
Home or Die Here. Violence, Xenophobia and the Reinvention of Difference in 
South Africa. Shireen Hassim, Tawana Kupe and Eric Worby, eds. Johannesburg. 
Wits University Press. 
_____ 
2009 Blacks Can?t be Racist. Critical Essays on the Black Condition 3. 
Johannesburg. New Frank Talk.  
 
Myrdal, Gunnar 
1944 An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy. 
New York: Harper and Row. 
______ 
2000 Racial Beliefs in America. In Theories of Race and Racism. Les Back and 
John Solomos, eds. London: Routledge. 
 
Nkealah, Naomi 
  2009 Commodifying the Female Body: Xenophobic Violence in South Africa.      
Yaounde: CODESRIA. 
 
Neocosmos, Michael 
2006 From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners: Explaining Xenophobia in post 
Apartheid South Africa. Citizenship and Nationalism, Identity and Politics. 
CODESRIA Monograph Series. Dakar. 
______ 
2008 The Politics of Fear and Fear of Politics. Available on internet, 
http:www.pambazukanews.org. 
 
Nyamnjoh, Francis B. 
2006 Insiders and Outsiders. Citizenship and Xenophobia in Contemporary 
Southern Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA. 
 
Omi, Michael and Winant, Howard 
1986 Racial Formation in the United States: From 1960s to the 1980s. New York: 
Routledge. 
 
 
 
 
133 
 
Peberdy, Sally A and Crush, Jonathan 
1998b Rooted in Racism: the origins of the Aliens Control Act. In Beyond 
Control: Immigration and Human Rights in a Democratic South Africa. Jonathan 
Crush, ed. Cape Town: Idasa. 
 
Pillay, Suren 
2008 Xenophobia, Violence and Citizenship. In Violence and Xenophobia in 
South Africa: Developing Consensus, Moving to Action. Adrian Hadland, ed. 
HSRC: Pretoria. 
 
Quasthoff, Uta M 
1998 Global and Local Aspects of Perspectivity. In Perspective and 
Perspectivation in Discourse. Carl Graumann and Werner Kallmeyer, eds. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. 
 
Ratele, Kopano 
2001 Between Ouens.Everyday Makings of Black Masculinity. In Changing Men 
in Southern Africa. Robert Morrell, ed. Scottsville: University of Natal Press. 
______ 
2004 Kinky Politics. In Rethinking Sexualities in Africa. Signe Arnfred, ed. 
Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute. 
 
Rex, John 
1970 The Concept of Race in Sociological Theory. In Race and Racialism. Sami 
Zubaida, ed. London: Tavistock. 
______ 
1970 Race Relations in Sociological Theory. London: Weidefeld and Nicolson. 
 
Riesgl, Martin and Wodak, Ruth 
2010 Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Anti Semitism. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 
 
Roberts, Celia, Davies, Evelyn and Jupp, Tom 
1993 Language and Discrimination. A Study of Communication in Multi Ethnic 
Workplaces. London: Longman. 
 
Rogerson, Christian Myles 
1986 A Strange Case of Beer: the State and Sorghum Beer Manufacture in South 
Africa. Area (18) 1: 15 ? 24. 
 
Saussure, Ferdinand 
 1983 Course in General Linguistics. London: Duckworth. 
 
Said, Edward 
 1978 Orientalism. New York: Pantheon. 
 
134 
 
Silverstein, Michael and Urban, Greg 
 1996 Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 
 
Simmel, Georg 
 1950 The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press. 
  
Smith, Anthony D 
 1991 National Identity. London: Penguin Books. 
 
Smith, M.G 
 1965a The Plural Society in the British West Indies. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 
 University of California Press. 
 
Spoonley, P 
 1988 Racism and Ethnicity. Auckland: Oxford University Press. 
 
Stack Sullivan, H. 
 1941 Growing Up in the Black Belt. New York: Schocker. 
Stember, Charles H. 
 1976 Sexual Racism. New York: Elsevier. 
 
Sivanandan, Ambalavaner 
  1982 A Different Hunger: Writings on Black Resistance. London: Pluto Press. 
 
Thomas, Greg  
2006 Psychosexual Racism and Pan African Revolt: Fanon and Chester Himes.: 
219 ? 230. Journal of Sociology of Self Knowledge V 
 
Valji, Nahla 
2003 Creating the Nation. The Rise of Violent Xenophobia in the new South 
Africa. Unpublished Masters Thesis. York University. 
 
Valji, Nahla and Fuller, R 
 2008 Scarcity Sets Fire to Counties Xenophobic Tinderbox. Busines Day, 22 May. 
  
Van Driel, Maria 
2008 Understanding Xenophobia in Democratic South Africa. Khanya Journal 
Number 19, July. 
 
Van Dijk, Teun A 
 1984 Prejudice in Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. 
______ 
2001b Critical Discourse Analysis. In Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Schiffin, 
Deborah, Tunnen, Deborah and Hamilton, Haide, eds. Oxford: Blackwell 
Publishers. 
 
135 
 
Van den Berghe, Pierre L. 
 1967 Race and Racism. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 
______ 
2001 Does Race Matter? In Race and Racism. Bernard Boxill, ed. Oxford:Oxford 
University Press. 
 
Van Leewen, Theo 
2000 Visual Racism. In The Semiotics of Racism: Approaches in Critical 
Discourse Analysis. Vienna: Passagen. 
 
Van Woodward, C 
 1974 The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press. 
 
Weber, Max  
 1922 (1968) Economy and Society. Los Angeles: University of California Press. 
 
West, Cornell 
 1993 Prophetic Fragments. Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing. 
______ 
1993. Beyond Eurocentrism: Prophetic Thought in Post ? Modern Times. 
Monroe: Common Courage Press. 
 
Wetherell, Margaret and Potter, Jonathan 
1992 Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of 
Exploitation. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. 
 
Wieviorka, Michel 
1997 Racism in Europe: Unity and Diveristy. In The Ethnicity Reader. 
Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration. Cambridge: Polity Press. 
 
Xaba, Thokozani 
2001 Masculinity and its Malcontents. In Changing Men in Southern Africa. 
Robert Morrell, ed. Scottsville: University of Natal Press. 
 
Yuval ? Davis, Nira 
 1997 Gender and Nation. London: Sage Publications. 
 
Zack, Naomi 
1996 Bachelors of Science: Seventeenth Century Identity Then and Now. 
Philadelphia; Temple University Press. 
 
?Kids Learn Lesson of Hate.? The Star, 15 May 2008. 
?Belittling Labels can lead to Genocide and little Hitlers.?  The Star, 9 July 2009. 
?1960 ? 1966. The Genesis of the Armed Struggle.? 
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governance/liberation-struggle.