‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

The Production of Space

Benedict Anderson’s deservedly famous thesis about the origins and nature
of modern nationalism turns around the central notion of an “imagined
community.” This category provides him with a matrix out of which one
can apprehend-theoretically and historically-the different variants of nationalist discourse formulated over the last two hundred years. We will refer,
in the brief comments that follow, to three basic dimensions structuring
the fabric of Anderson’s argument: 1) the presuppositions implicit in the
notion of an “imagined” community; 2) the kind of substitutability or solidarity which is required to be a member of such a community; 3) the kind
of relationship that is established between such a community-which is by
definition finite or limited-and its outside. Before that, however, let us
describe the main features of Anderson’s thesis.

On Imagined Communities

Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Aihwa Ong. Durham, NIC: Duke University Press, 1999. ix. 322 pp., notes, bibliography, index.

Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality

Inclusion and democracy.

Migration, both within and beyond borders, has become an increasingly prominent theme in domestic and international debates, and is the topic of the 2009 Human Development Report (HDR09). The starting point is that the global distribution of capabilities is extraordinarily unequal, and that this is a major driver for movement of people. Migration can expand their choices — in terms of incomes, accessing services and participation, for example — but the opportunities open to people vary from those who are best endowed to those with limited skills and assets. These underlying inequalities, which can be compounded by policy distortions, is a theme of the report.The report investigates migration in the context of demographic changes and trends in both growth and inequality. It also presents more detailed and nuanced individual, family and village experiences, and explores less visible movements typically pursued by disadvantaged groups such as short term and seasonal migration.There is a range of evidence about the positive impacts of migration on human development, through such avenues as increased household incomes and improved access to education and health services. There is further evidence that migration can empower traditionally disadvantaged groups, in particular women. At the same time, risks to human development are also present where migration is a reaction to threats and denial of choice, and where regular opportunities for movement are constrained.National and local policies play a critical role in enabling better human development outcomes for both those who choose to move in order to improve their circumstances, and those forced to relocate due to conflict, environmental degradation, or other reasons. Host country restrictions can raise both the costs and the risks of migration. Similarly, negative outcomes can arise at the country levels where basic civic rights, like voting, schooling and health care are denied to those who have moved across provincial lines to work and live. HDR09 shows how a human development approach can be a means to redress some of the underlying issues that erode the potential benefits of mobility and/or force migration.

Human Development Report 2009. Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development

Social scientists doing fieldwork in humanitarian situations often face a dual imperative: research should be both academically sound and policy relevant. We argue that much of the current research on forced migration is based on unsound methodology, and that the data and subsequent policy conclusions are often flawed or ethically suspect. This paper identifies some key methodological and ethical problems confronting social scientists studying forced migrants or their hosts. These problems include non-representativeness and bias, issues arising from working in unfamiliar contexts including translation and the use of local researchers, and ethical dilemmas including security and confidentiality issues and whether researchers are doing enough to 'do no harm'. The second part of the paper reviews the authors' own efforts to conduct research on urban refugees in Johannesburg. It concludes that while there is no single 'best practice' for refugee research, refugee studies would advance its academic and policy relevance by more seriously considering methodological and ethical concerns.

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The Dual Imperative in Refugee Research: Some Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Social Science Research on Forced Migration

Research amongst immigrant groups in Johannesburg points to the emergence of distinctive ways of negotiating inclusion and belonging that transcend ethnic, national or transnational paradigms. Confronted with new South African nationalism, a restrictive immigration regime and xenophobia, immigrants have reacted with what we term ‘tactical cosmopolitanism’ to negotiate partial inclusion in South Africa's transforming society without becoming bounded by it. Rather than a coherent philosophy, it is a mish-mash of rhetorical and organisational tools drawing on a diversity of more established discourses and value systems. In so doing, they capitalise on cosmopolitanism's power without being bound by its responsibilities. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on cosmopolitanism ‘from below’, conceptualised not as a philosophy but as a practice and form of experiential culture.

Tactical Cosmopolitanism and Idioms of Belonging: Insertion and Self-Exclusion in Johannesburg

On 11 May 2008, residents of Alexandra Township turned violently on their neighbours, launching a string of attacks that, two weeks later, left 60 dead, dozens raped and over a hundred thousand displaced. This book situates recent anti-outsider violence within an extended history of South African statecraft that both produced the conditions for the attacks and has been reshaped by it. It is the first academic text to fully theorise the events that made global headlines in 2008. Through its subtle, empirical and theoretically informed analysis, the book reshapes discussion of xenophobia and violence in South Africa while injecting local debates into global considerations of the meaning of citizenship and the post-colonial state.

Exorcising the demons within : xenophobia, violence and statecraft in contemporary South Africa

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Towards Tolerance, Law, and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa

In May 2008, South Africa witnessed two shocking weeks of deadly attacks on foreigners and other suspect outsiders. This article makes sense of the violence with reference to an extended history of South African statecraft that both induced the conflict and hamstrung efforts to address it. In particular, it describes how decades of discursive and institutional efforts to control political and physical space have generated two demons with which the country must now contend. The first is a perceived enemy within: an amorphously delimited group of outsiders that is inherently threatening, often indistinguishable from others, and effectively impossible to exclude spatially. The second demon rests in a society prepared to kill to rid itself of those retarding the country’s post-Apartheid renaissance. For many of those behind the attacks or empathizing with them, controlling the movement of people within the country and across its borders remains essential to security, prosperity, and South Africa’s national self-realization. Political leaders now face a dilemma: extending legal identities and constitutionally promised protections to outsiders and other foreigners risks being seen as betrayingthenational projectbythedemonicandvisiblyviolentsocietythey have helped create.

Loren B. Landau

Papers

The Dual Imperative in Refugee Research: Some Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Social Science Research on Forced Migration

Tactical Cosmopolitanism and Idioms of Belonging: Insertion and Self-Exclusion in Johannesburg

Exorcising the demons within : xenophobia, violence and statecraft in contemporary South Africa

Towards Tolerance, Law, and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa

Loving the alien? Citizenship, law, and the future in South Africa’s demonic society