Overview

Generations of people from across Africa, Europe and Asia have turned metal from the depths of the earth into Africa’s wealthiest, most dynamic and most diverse urban centre, a mega-city where post-apartheid South Africa is being made. Yet for newcomers as well as locals, the golden possibilities of Gauteng are tinged with dangers and difficulties. Chichi is a hairdresser from Nigeria who left for South Africa after a love affair went bad. Azam arrived from Pakistan with a modest wad of cash and a dream. Estiphanos trekked the continent escaping political persecution in Ethiopia, only to become the target of the May 2008 xenophobic attacks. Nombuyiselo is the mother of 14-year-old Simphiwe Mahori, shot dead in 2015 by a Somalian shopkeeper in Snake Park, sparking a further wave of anti-foreigner violence. After fighting white oppression for decades, Ntombi has turned her anger towards African foreigners, who, she says are taking jobs away from South Africans and fuelling crime. Papi, a freedom fighter and activist in Katlehong, now dedicates his life to teaching the youth in his community that tolerance is the only way forward. These are some of the 13 stories that make up this collection. They are the stories of South Africans, some Gauteng-born, others from neighbouring provinces, striving to realise the promises of democracy. They are also the stories of newcomers, from neighbouring countries and from as far afield as Pakistan and Rwanda, seeking a secure future in those very promises. The narratives, collected by researchers, journalists and writers, reflect the many facets of South Africa’s post-apartheid decades. Taken together they give voice to the emotions and relations emanating from a paradoxical place of outrage and hope, violence and solidarity. They speak of intersections between people and their pasts, and of how, in the making of selves and the other, they are also shaping South Africa. Underlying these accounts is a nostalgia for an imagined future that can never be realised. These are stories of forever seeking a place called ‘home’.

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9781776142217

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Reviews

These are raw, honest personal stories - some heart-breaking, some up-lifting. Beautifully told, each story is a study of journey-making. No matter where we may have been born, each of us seeks a place where we will be safe and respected for who we are. The stories in this collection illustrate that no journey is easy - each act of leaving and each attempt to begin again is tough. At their core however, these stories grapple with the making of a nation. Taken together, these narratives illustrate the quest for dignity and so they tell the story of humanity and striving, and ambition in the midst of profound diffi culty. This book speaks to South African and African concerns but at its heart, it documents a set of global phenomena that are important to anyone who cares about the state of the world today. - Sisonke Msimang, activist and author of Always Another Country

Author Information

Loren B. Landau is the South African Research Chair in Human Mobility and the Politics of Difference at the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Tanya Pampalone is the managing editor of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and moonlights as a non-fiction editor for Pan Macmillan South Africa. She won the prestigious journalism award for creative writing, the Standard Bank Sikuvile, in 2012. Eliot Moleba is a scholar, playwright, theatre-maker and director. He is currently the resident dramaturg at The South African State Theatre. Nedson Pophiwa is a research manager in the Democracy Governance and Service Delivery programme at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria. Ryan Lenora Brown is an independent journalist and a current fellow of the International Women’s Media Foundation and the International Reporting Project. Oupa Nkosi is chief photographer and a features writer at the Mail & Guardian. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato is an honorary associate professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and a global scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC. Thandiwe Ntshinga is a freelance writer and student of social anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Ragi Bashonga is a PhD research trainee in the Research Use and Impact Assessment unit at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria. Duduzile Ndlovu is a post-doctoral fellow with the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Greta Schuler is a doctoral fellow with the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Suzy Bernstein has worked in South Africa as a freelance photographer for the last 20 years and has taken part in several exhibitions. Tanya Zack is has operated as an independent consultant since 1991, straddling academic research and practice. Kwanele Sosibo is currently an arts writer at the Mail & Guardian.

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