ABSTRACT

More recently there is a growing research on passing tactics employed by Southern African migrants in the context of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa; however, little is known about what tactics non-Southern African migrants from other African countries utilize to make themselves invisible in the face of anti-foreigner attitudes in post-apartheid South Africa. I address this research void by reporting on the ways in which three Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in Durban, South Africa attempted to pass as Black South Africans during xenophobic violence of 2015. The three Eritreans attempted to enact three different tactics of passing to avoid being marked as a ‘foreigner’: (1) racial passing by modifying the body; (2) linguistic passing by speaking the local language; and (3) remaining silent to avoid detection. The results of this study form part of a larger project that examined racial/ethnic self-identification patterns of Eritreans in South Africa. Drawing on participants’ accounts, I argue that non-Southern African foreigners in South Africa are not simply passive victims of xenophobic violence but creative and agential social actors who perform a multiplicity of tactics to avoid being victims of xenophobia during their random social encounters with South African citizens.

摘要

最近，关于种族隔离后南非仇外心理中南部非洲移民所采用的通行策略的研究日益增多；但是，对于来自其他非洲国家的非南部非洲移民如何利用这些策略使自己面对面对种族隔离后的南非的反外国态度变得不可见，知之甚少。我报告了南非德班的三名厄立特里亚难民和寻求庇护者在2015年的仇外暴力期间试图以黑人南非人身份通过的方式，从而弥补了这项研究的空白。这三名厄立特里亚人试图制定三种不同的通过策略，以避开标记为“外国人”：（1）通过改变身体的种族传球；（2）通过说当地语言进行语言传递；（3）保持沉默以避免被发现。这项研究的结果是一个较大项目的一部分，该项目研究了南非厄立特里亚人的种族/民族自我认同模式。根据参与者的陈述，我认为，在南非的非南非非裔外国人不仅是仇外暴力的被动受害者，而且是创造性和代理性的社会行为者，他们采取多种策略避免在与南方的随机社会接触中成为仇外心理的受害者非洲公民。