Of foreigners and struggles for service delivery: Subjectivities of migrant traders in Sasolburg
| When: | Thursday, 09 March 2017 - Thursday, 09 March 2017 |
| Where: | Off campus CISA Committee Room, Jorissen Street, Braamfontein |
| Start time: | 14:00 |
The Centre for Indian Studies will host postdoctoral fellow Dr Walter Matina to present this seminar on the struggles of service deliveries for foreigners.
Sasolburg in the Free State is a town which peculiarities and oddities stem from a very politically, racially and economically charged past.
Constructed around the Sasol coal to oil processing plant, Sasolburg saw an influx of migrant labour from various parts of the country, both at the time of its inception and after independence in 1994. As a place that primarily lacks autochthons, it has witnessed violent outbursts against perceived outsiders.
The politics of belonging have thus been drawn out by second generation local migrants turned naturalised inhabitants of Sasolburg against first generation international migrants from the Indian subcontinent as well as from the north-eastern part of the African continent.
In a moment that seems preoccupied with the causes and effects of xenophobic violence on both the victims as well as the perpetrators, there seems to have been a glossing over of the daily lived realities of the migrant. This has begged the question of how the migrant perceives their conditions and deploys creative ways of navigating them.
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