From Deprivation to Mobilisation: Towards a Multideterminant Model of Xenophobic Violence

An ACMS Seminar by Dr Jean Pierre Misago

ACMS Seminar: ‘From Deprivation to Mobilisation: Towards a Multideterminant Model of Xenophobic Violence in South Africa’ by Jean Pierre Misago. Drawing on extensive and comparative qualitative data from a nearly two-decade long and ongoing research, this paper responds to inadequacies and limitations of current causal explanations for xenophobic violence in South Africa. It argues that existing explanations are inadequate as many lack empirical backing and others are incomplete due to their reductionist approach. To address these shortcomings, this paper proposes an empirically based and theoretically informed multideterminant (explanatory) model, which identifies and analyses the roles of – and interconnections between – six key determinants namely: i) socio-economic and political deprivation, ii) xenophobic beliefs, iii) collective discontent, iv) political economy, v) mobilization, and vi) governance. The paper argues that i) these determinants and their interconnections in a value-added process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence, and ii) this multideterminant model consequently provides an adequate and comprehensive explanation of the xenophobic violence in South Africa.

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