Institutionalised Xenophobia: African Migrants’ Experiences and Perceptions of Service Delivery at a Selected South African Department of Home Affairs

Akachukwu Darlington Umeh, Sogo Angel Olofinbiyi and Nirmala Gopal

Insight on Africa, 2024, vol. 16, issue 2, 166-191

Abstract: This study delved into a conceptual analysis of African migrants’ experiences and perceptions of service delivery at a purposely selected Department of Home Affairs and Immigration Services in South Africa. A mixed-methods design comprising a cross-sectional survey and focus group discussions was conducted with black African migrants awaiting service delivery at the Durban Department of Home Affairs. The findings were discussed within the context of the relative deprivation theory. The study unfolds South Africans’ negative perceptions of African immigrants as vectors of insecurity, criminality and economic hardship for the citizenry, as well as a systemic anathema to South Africa’s state sovereignty. It holistically ascribes the phenomenon to an attendant consequence of unlawful racial discrimination emanating from institutionalised xenophobia, a recently emerged concept that this current study has referred to as Afrophobia.

Keywords: Afrophobia; black African migrants; South African Department of Home Affairs; institutionalised xenophobia; service delivery; social exclusion; racial discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09750878231224704 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:inafri:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:166-191

DOI: 10.1177/09750878231224704

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Insight on Africa
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().