Migration, Marginalisation and Oppression in Mangaung, South Africa

Abstract

Since the dawn of humanity, people have migrated, seeking new opportunities or fleeing from economic, social or political distress. Not all migrants, however, possess official documentation, nor do they possess the South African Identity Document (ID) that gives them access to basic social services, housing or land. Consequently, such ‘illegal’ immigrants are forced to rent backyard shacks or set up shanties in informal settlements, such as those in Grasland, Mangaung (Bloemfontein). The perceived ‘illegality’ of migrants generates contestations around the right to ‘belong’, expressed as the right to access to basic services. This chapter demonstrates how belonging is contested in Mangaung, through the application of the criteria of ‘belonging’, but also that the construction of those criteria produces other forms of contested belonging. The chapter also asks what alternative interpretations of belonging or merit should be applied and how? This chapter therefore situates social justice—defined in terms of values, processes and practices for empowerment to disallow oneself to be oppressed, the promotion of values that disincline one to oppress others and practices that enable equality and justice—as a useful concept or way to explain the contestation of belonging as lived experiences for the Lesotho immigrants (Basotho) in Grasland.