‘Passing’ as Black South African: identity concealment tactics of Eritrean refugees in the face of xenophobia

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Passing
• Eritrean
• refugees
• asylum seekers
• South Africa
• xenophobia

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on a finding from my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Within this paper the concept tactic is used, in accordance with Michel De Certeau’s (1984) notion, to refer to the ways in which ordinary people actively and creatively engage in social action that benefit or advantage them.

2 Migrants are defined those who choose to move not because of a direct threat of persecution but mainly to improve their lives by finding work.

3 A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence’ who ‘has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group’ (UNHCR, 2017).

4 Passing is defined as a performative strategy in which individuals belonging to one group present themselves as belonging to a member of another group largely to evade detection.

5 Xenophobia is understood as hatred and rejection of foreigners by citizens of a host society. In the case of South Africa it is associated with a pointed targeting of African migrants and refugees.

6 I am aware that the racial category ‘Black’ is a socio-political construct as opposed to a biological or genetic classification.

7 Makwerekwere is a derogatory term or epithet referring to African migrants and refugees living in South Africa. Within the makwerekwere interpretative repertoire, African migrants and refugees are seen as undesirable.