Re-examining Ubuntu as a Tool for Social Cohesion: The Silenced Immigrant Voice and Unjustifiable “Moral Arrival” of the Migrant in Post-apartheid City Writing by Mpe, Duiker, Moele, and Beukes

Abstract

Underpinned by Leonard Praeg’s notion of “ontological betrayal” in ubuntu as lived-praxis, this article argues that post-apartheid “city writing” by Phaswane Mpe, K Sello Duiker, Kgebetli Moele and Lauren Beukes humanises “migrants” (those who journey to the South African city from rural South Africa) while neglecting “immigrants”, or black-African arrivals from outside the borders of South Africa. Consequently, a re-examination of the structure and function of ubuntu as a tool for social cohesion is necessary to counter negrophobic and xenophobic versions of an authentic “African” identity.

Keywords:

• post-apartheid fiction
• ubuntu
• tradition
• xenophobia
• migrant

Notes on Contributor

Amy Duvenage has a PhD from Kingston University. Her research interests include representations and discourses of ubuntu, gender, migration, race and nation in South African texts. She teaches at a college in Hampshire, England.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).