Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water

Leah Junck

Description

In spite of South Africa’s progressive constitution, citizen’s intolerance of non-citizens, refugees and economic migrants has escalated in recent years. What is more, xenophobic attacks are covered in the public discourse as mere episodes of crisis and often rather fuel rhetoric of national machismo than leading to an acknowledgement of the stories and experiences of people seeking refuge and being exposed to hostility on an everyday basis. This ethnography engages with the strategies employed by a group of refugee men from different African countries in surviving and stabilising their existence in the ‘mother city’ Cape Town in the face of precarity. It grapples with questions of how the men manage to bring about certainty in the face of unpredictability and extends its focus to the men’s dreams and the modes by which these are sought to be achieved. It thereby highlights the ways in which objectifications as refugees and less-than-human are somewhat transcended by navigating spaces with care, purpose and imagination.

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 07 juin 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789956550616
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water: Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water : An Ethnography on Strategies of Bodily Navigation of Male Refugees in Cape Town

Leah Davina Junck An Ethnography on Strategies of Bodily Navigation of Male Refugees in Cape Town

LEAH DAVINA JUNCK

Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water: An Ethnography on Strategies of Bodily Navigation of Male Refugees in Cape Town Leah Davina Junck L a ng a a R esea rch & P u blishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com

ISBN-10: 9956-550-01-9

ISBN-13: 978-9956-550-01-2

©Leah Davina Junck 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher

Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................v About this book ............................................................vii Chapter 1 Male refugees in Cape Town .......................................1 Dreaming precariously ............................................................. 1 Rendered ‘foreign’ .................................................................... 4 Sex work and SWEAT in South Africa ................................. 6 Doing research in Cape Town................................................ 7 Chapter 2 Troubling bodies and the mother city .........................9 Summer in the city.................................................................... 9 Making this city work for you................................................. 11 Chapter 3 The challenged, corporeal body...................................15 Chapter 4 Researching ‘disposable bodies’ ..................................21 Chapter 5 Bodies taking shape: On corporeal resistance to societal exclusion ....................................35 The body as a hindrance.......................................................... 37 The body told............................................................................ 41 Strategic aspects of manoeuvring the city ............................. 45 Being available.............................................................................. 45 Recycling consumerism................................................................... 46 Finding and living a niche existence............................................... 47 Applying skills and knowledge in selling sex and company............. 49

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