Negotiating Conviviality

L. Hay

Description

This book is an ethnographic study of a group of migrants in Cape Town from Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. It seeks to understand how migrants overcome structural exclusion by forming and maintaining convivial relationships through the Bay Community Church and how this is facilitated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The book argues that ICTs are implicated in the negotiation of conviviality. ICTs allow for a negotiation of intimacy and distance; although their functions may facilitate more contact than is desired or further distance those already separated physically. This book interrogates the strict division between �insiders� and �outsiders� and highlights that migrants are able to sustain multiple networks and relationships, linking their home and host countries. Despite increasingly strict border control and animosity from host communities, migrants are able to overcome imposed identities such as �outsider�. They do so by using ICTs such as cell phones and Facebook to emphasise their Christian identity, which is one of the main factors for inclusion in church-based networks. Membership with a mixed denominational church such as the Bay further challenges the notion that migrants stick to themselves. Inclusive communities such as the Bay and everyday desires for conviviality evoke the need to reconsider policies too narrowly articulated around the dichotomisation of �foreigners� and �nationals�, �home� and �away�, �us� and �them�.

Sujets

• Anthropology

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 13 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789956792375
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NEGOTIATING CONVIVIALITY The Use of Information and Communication Technologies by Migrant Members of the Bay Community Church in Cape Town

Paula L. Hay

NEGOTIATING CONVIVIALITY: The Use of Information and Communication Technologies by Migrant Members of the Bay Community Church in Cape Town

Paula Louise Hay

Langaa Research & Publishing 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.africanbookcollective.com

ISBN: 9956-792-72-1 ©Paula Louise Hay 2014

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Acknowledgements Firstly, to my supervisor Professor Francis Nyamnjoh: thank you for your guidance during my fieldwork and insightful and encouraging feedback throughout the writing process. Sheldon Kidwell: thank you welcoming me to the Bay Community Church and for your kindness and assistance throughout my fieldwork; Rowena Hay: thank you for your unwavering generosity, care and reassurance; Ingrid Brudvig: thank you for your conscientious editing and encouragement; and Andrea Rother: thank you for your personal and professional support. Last, but certainly not least, to my research participants (you know who you are): thank you for your friendship, openness and trust. The research for this book was funded through the South African National Research Fund (Grant Number: 78765), and additionally by SANPAD, as part of the “Taming the Demons: Configurations of Conviviality, Conflicts and Rights in Mobile and Diverse Communities” project. The opinions expressed in this book are entirely mine, and in no way commit the funders of my research.

Table of Contents About this Book…………………...…………………...ix Chapter 1: Introduction: Negotiating Intimacy and Distance: Migration, Religion and Information Communication Technology at the Bay Community Church………………………………………………….1 Research Background……………………………………1 Xenophobia and Belonging…………………….……….. 1 An Introduction to the Bay…………………..…………..3 Research Contribution…………………………….……..5 Intimacy, Distance and Conceptualising Conviviality………………………………………..……..5 Religion and Information and Communication Technologies………………………….………………… 7 Chapter Outline………………………………………… 9 Chapter 2: Home and Away: Methods and Ethics in the Context of Multi-Spaces Fieldwork………………….. 11 Introduction…………………………………….………. 11 Curiosity, Friendship and Fieldwork…………….………. 11 My Multiple Field Spaces………………………..………. 16 Negotiating the Familiar and Unfamiliar…………………19 Studying “Up”, “Down” And “Around”………………... 23 Reflexivity as a Lifelong Process: Ethics and Implications for Knowledge Production…………………………………. 24 Conclusion……………………………………………… 27

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Chapter Three: “Home Away From Home”: Negotiating Capital and Conviviality at the Bay Community Church……………………………………31 Introduction…………………………………………….. 31 Convivial Bodies………………………………………... 31 Worship and Ritual at the Bay………………………….. 33 The Transnational Bay…………………………………. 38 Transnational Pentecostal Networks……………………. 38 Negotiating Transnational Belonging…………………… 41 Drawing On Christian Habitus and Spiritual Capital at the Bay………………………………………………………49 Bridging and Bonding Capital…………………………... 52 Conclusion……………………………………………… 60 Chapter 4: Inside and Outside, Intimacy and Distance: Migrants’ Use Of Information and Communication Technologies in the Context of the Bay Community Church………………………………………………….63 Introduction…………………………………………….. 63 Reaching the Kingdom…………………………………. 64 Brothers and Sisters in Christ…………………………… 68 Inside and Outside: The Cell Phone and the Body……… 72 Calling on God…………………………………………..77 Inter-Subjective Agency and Migrant Identity Construction: Facebook and the Cell Phone……………………………81 “Hoped-For Possible Selves” In a Hoped-For Possible Cape Town…………………………………………………… 81 Home: A Negotiation of Past and Future………………. 84 Conclusion……………………………………………… 88

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