African Migrants’ Aspirations and Citizens’ Anxieties in Johannesburg, South Africa: Concerning Migration Management

Abstract

This chapter examines African migrants’ aspirations and citizens’ anxieties and South Africa’s vision of migration management. Migration management is identified in this chapter as the theoretical platform where the vision of the future is played out by the state, its citizens and the migrants. Migration management is evolving to interlink the agents of migration management, the migrants and their society in defining migration and the accompanying intervention mechanisms. Notwithstanding, the comprehensive turn of migration management has not proved effective in stopping the flow of unwanted migrants, neither has it concretely improved the wellbeing of citizens. This chapter is organized into sections that examine the anxiety of South African citizens from a socioeconomic perspective, discusses vulnerable African migrants’ presence from the prospective opportunities in entrepreneurship and utilizes migration management as a concept to call attention to state capacity and the need for a more creative approach to immigration issues that will engage sending and receiving countries alongside regional bodies.