Migration and the Locality: Community Peacebuilding as a Deterrent to Collective Violence in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa has made significant democratic gains and economic growth over the past 18--20 years; however, this has not translated into better living conditions and economic gains/opportunities for all. The structural violence effected by the apartheid state through repression and inequality of distribution of resources has left a conducive environment for the politicization of social and economic rights in post-apartheid South Africa. From this politicization has emerged a disgruntled and marginalized citizenry who have developed a culture of violence to air their grievances at lack of service delivery and high levels of unemployment. This violence is often manifested toward/against foreigners in an attempt to rid the country of the people whose presence is seen as an obstacle to attaining social and economic transformation. In 2016 Freedom House embarked on a project to mitigate xenophobic violence in South Africa. The project set out to establish whether a planned multi-pronged intervention in a democratic state could prevent costly outbreaks of collective violence that undermined livelihoods and put democracy at risk. The answer was a resounding yes, but in order for this to happen, community actors and conflicting groups had to work together on issues of mutual interest, which in turn taught them how to cooperate and strengthen non-violent community-developed and community-led solutions to community problems. It is posited that, this shared commonality which would in turn reduce their overall prejudice against outsiders and their sense of vulnerability could contribute toward peacebuilding. As a result, this chapter gives a brief overview of the project and community-led peacebuilding interventions toward social cohesion.