Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies
Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townshi... more Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townships, rural areas and in select central business districts across the country. This article documents the experiences of Ethiopian migrants in the informal sector in South Africa. Theoretically, the article rests on the concept of everyday life. It draws on data from interviews, focus group discussions and observations carried out between October 2020 and September 2021. This signals a period in which everyone was challenged by COVID-19, especially migrants, which compounded the hierarchies of marginality in which Ethiopian migrants in South Africa are situated. Coupled with this, Ethiopian migrants face two broad levels of marginality: firstly, marginality from state policies and the communities in which they reside and work; and secondly, marginality from gendered and class-based inequalities within the Ethiopian community. The structural and hegemonic barriers range from lack of documen...
Using the concept of ontological (in)security, this paper examines how Cameroonian Anglophone mig... more Using the concept of ontological (in)security, this paper examines how Cameroonian Anglophone migrants in Cape Town negotiate and mitigate the loss of ontological security through asylum-seeking and engaging in economic activities, as well as connecting ancestrally in the metaphysical world. Based on qualitative research, the paper explores and analyses the creative ways in which these groups of migrants are able to circumnavigate the challenges of border crossing and regularization of their immigrant status through particularly astute asylum (‘ngunda’/‘adoro’) practices. While obtaining asylum is a spring board to achieving economic freedom and enabling them to engage in the economic sector, it also shields migrants from the complexities of insecurities. Such adaptability and flexibility are simultaneously edifying and challenging to the conventional ideas of personhood and ontology as they have been raised by Cameroonians and Africans. The paper contributes to understanding how personhood, conviviality and strategies help migrants counter insecurities by providing them with new forms of circumventing various control mechanisms to attaining refugee status and those that govern sales of particular goods and financial transactions within and between states.
Following a surge in civil unrest, the need and ambitions to migrate have increased among young C... more Following a surge in civil unrest, the need and ambitions to migrate have increased among young Cameroonians. This article explores how Cameroonian youth and graduates use education as a gateway for migration, selecting new routes and destinations to maximise their chances of migration. Drawing on in-depth interviews with aspiring migrants, I show that long-standing aspirations to migrate have led to a symbiotic relationship between aspiring migrants and migration agents who facilitate and determine the route and destination for the entire process. This relationship reflects aspiring migrants who desire to migrate at all cost rather than planning carefully, often with little information guiding in the process. I argue that migration responds to cultural and political influences as much as ontological (in)security that cannot be defined solely in economic terms. The meaning of ‘successful’ migration is produced and reified through the overt display and interpretations of migration.
The flow of mobility and migration has witnessed an increase in Pentecostal churches that have mu... more The flow of mobility and migration has witnessed an increase in Pentecostal churches that have mushroomed to cater for migrants’ spiritual needs and allay fears of unfulfilled desires. The coming of Pentecostalism, by the same token, has increasingly imbibed the notions of witchcraft, forgiveness and the triumph of good over evil (witchcraft, jealousy and curse) into her teaching to make it relevant to modern day Christianity; hence provided a new context in which they make absolute sense and relevance especially to migrants who are continually faced with the herculean task of meeting unending demands for remittances or faced with the consequences of being bewitched through bad mouthing. Through their spiritual involvement in both host and home countries, transnational migrants thus expand already global religious institutions and assert their dual memberships in spiritual arenas. By doing so, they broaden and thicken the globalization of religious life and practices.
The world is regularly confronted in the media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. See... more The world is regularly confronted in the media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. Seemingly desperate, these Africans, most of them males, are willing to risk a perilous journey at sea, hoping for a better life in Europe. And, even worse, hundreds more are believed to die each year, swallowed up anonymously by the choppy waters off Africa's coast. This book focuses on fishermen who have played a pivotal role in boat migration from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands, advancing various reasons for the fishermen's prominent role. Besides their long history of migration, their proven experience with navigating, their family's push and investment, their perceptions and ideologies about Europe, there is also their growing marginalization as a result of the deepening crisis in the Senegalese fishing sector and the inadequate policies of the Senegalese government that prevents them from having any bright prospects of improving their standards of living. The book p...
This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides in... more This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides insights into current developments by using the explanatory concepts of innovation, competition, and agency. The article draws on data obtained through an interdisciplinary, transnational, and multisite investigation of eight Pentecostal churches in Kampala, Nairobi, Cape Town, and London. Methods used included ethnographic observation, visual ethnography, and semistructured interviews. Pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora, this article argues, are simultaneously reenacting centuries-old faith-informed healing practices and creatively reinventing aspects of these practices to assert their relevance in a postmodern world characterized by religious plurality, competition, and secularism.
In the authors’ recent case-study research of migrant-dominated Pentecostal charismatic churches ... more In the authors’ recent case-study research of migrant-dominated Pentecostal charismatic churches (PCCs) in the South African cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, language emerged as a prominent feature of religious practice, suggesting a positive correlation between experiences of xenophobia and religious innovation. This perspective is developed through the identification and discussion of two interlinked themes that surfaced from a closer analysis of the findings: (1) belonging and diversity and (2) evangelization. These two themes are assessed through the prism of religious innovation.
This is a study on the creative appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs... more This is a study on the creative appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by mobile Africans and the communities to which they belong, home and away. With a focus on Cameroonian migrants from Pinyin and Mankon who are currently living in Cape Town and the Netherlands, this book examines the workings of the social fabric of mobile communities. It sheds light on how these communities are crafting lives for themselves in the host country and simultaneously linking up with the home country thanks to advances in ICTs and road and air transport. ICTs and mobilities have complemented social relational interaction and provide migrants today with opportunities to partake in cultural practices that express their Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. Pinyin and Mankon migrants are still as rooted in the past as they are in the present. They were born into a community with its own sense of home, moral ethos and cultural pride but live in a context of accelerated ICTs and mobilit...
Contemporary African societies are increasingly mobile but this mobility does not prevent migrant... more Contemporary African societies are increasingly mobile but this mobility does not prevent migrants from continuously seeking to partake in ritualistic activities related to birth, marriage and death in their host and home countries as the Pinyin and Mankon communities from Cameroon living in Cape Town do. This article focuses on how mobile communities, although away from home, continue to uphold and participate in ritual practices and ceremonies in the host and home countries simultaneously to maintain their identities of Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. I show how rituals are dynamic and reconfigured as a result of mobility and new communication technologies, and I go on to explore the ways in which these new technologies allow rituals to be transformed on the basis of migrants' desire to be involved. With a focus on birth, marriage and death rituals I show how these rituals vary within societies and how 'outsiders' may find the performances meaningless because strands of m...
This paper provides an ethnographic reading of how Congolese women, in particular aslyum seekers ... more This paper provides an ethnographic reading of how Congolese women, in particular aslyum seekers with temporary permits, navigate Cape Town's informal urban economy. We argue that the intersections of temporary permit status and gender, as well as the particularities of diaspora flows and settlements, compound the precarity of everyday life. We engage with how precarity shapes and is shaped by what we define as “working practices.” These practices include the everyday livelihood tactics sustained on shoestring budgets and transnational networks. We also show how, in moments of compounded crises – including the COVID-19 pandemic – marginal gains and transnational networks are rendered more fragile. In these traumatic moments, working practices extend to include the practices of hope and reliance on prayer as social ways of contending with exacerbated precarity.
Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies
Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townshi... more Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townships, rural areas and in select central business districts across the country. This article documents the experiences of Ethiopian migrants in the informal sector in South Africa. Theoretically, the article rests on the concept of everyday life. It draws on data from interviews, focus group discussions and observations carried out between October 2020 and September 2021. This signals a period in which everyone was challenged by COVID-19, especially migrants, which compounded the hierarchies of marginality in which Ethiopian migrants in South Africa are situated. Coupled with this, Ethiopian migrants face two broad levels of marginality: firstly, marginality from state policies and the communities in which they reside and work; and secondly, marginality from gendered and class-based inequalities within the Ethiopian community. The structural and hegemonic barriers range from lack of documen...
Using the concept of ontological (in)security, this paper examines how Cameroonian Anglophone mig... more Using the concept of ontological (in)security, this paper examines how Cameroonian Anglophone migrants in Cape Town negotiate and mitigate the loss of ontological security through asylum-seeking and engaging in economic activities, as well as connecting ancestrally in the metaphysical world. Based on qualitative research, the paper explores and analyses the creative ways in which these groups of migrants are able to circumnavigate the challenges of border crossing and regularization of their immigrant status through particularly astute asylum (‘ngunda’/‘adoro’) practices. While obtaining asylum is a spring board to achieving economic freedom and enabling them to engage in the economic sector, it also shields migrants from the complexities of insecurities. Such adaptability and flexibility are simultaneously edifying and challenging to the conventional ideas of personhood and ontology as they have been raised by Cameroonians and Africans. The paper contributes to understanding how personhood, conviviality and strategies help migrants counter insecurities by providing them with new forms of circumventing various control mechanisms to attaining refugee status and those that govern sales of particular goods and financial transactions within and between states.
Following a surge in civil unrest, the need and ambitions to migrate have increased among young C... more Following a surge in civil unrest, the need and ambitions to migrate have increased among young Cameroonians. This article explores how Cameroonian youth and graduates use education as a gateway for migration, selecting new routes and destinations to maximise their chances of migration. Drawing on in-depth interviews with aspiring migrants, I show that long-standing aspirations to migrate have led to a symbiotic relationship between aspiring migrants and migration agents who facilitate and determine the route and destination for the entire process. This relationship reflects aspiring migrants who desire to migrate at all cost rather than planning carefully, often with little information guiding in the process. I argue that migration responds to cultural and political influences as much as ontological (in)security that cannot be defined solely in economic terms. The meaning of ‘successful’ migration is produced and reified through the overt display and interpretations of migration.
The flow of mobility and migration has witnessed an increase in Pentecostal churches that have mu... more The flow of mobility and migration has witnessed an increase in Pentecostal churches that have mushroomed to cater for migrants’ spiritual needs and allay fears of unfulfilled desires. The coming of Pentecostalism, by the same token, has increasingly imbibed the notions of witchcraft, forgiveness and the triumph of good over evil (witchcraft, jealousy and curse) into her teaching to make it relevant to modern day Christianity; hence provided a new context in which they make absolute sense and relevance especially to migrants who are continually faced with the herculean task of meeting unending demands for remittances or faced with the consequences of being bewitched through bad mouthing. Through their spiritual involvement in both host and home countries, transnational migrants thus expand already global religious institutions and assert their dual memberships in spiritual arenas. By doing so, they broaden and thicken the globalization of religious life and practices.
The world is regularly confronted in the media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. See... more The world is regularly confronted in the media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. Seemingly desperate, these Africans, most of them males, are willing to risk a perilous journey at sea, hoping for a better life in Europe. And, even worse, hundreds more are believed to die each year, swallowed up anonymously by the choppy waters off Africa's coast. This book focuses on fishermen who have played a pivotal role in boat migration from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands, advancing various reasons for the fishermen's prominent role. Besides their long history of migration, their proven experience with navigating, their family's push and investment, their perceptions and ideologies about Europe, there is also their growing marginalization as a result of the deepening crisis in the Senegalese fishing sector and the inadequate policies of the Senegalese government that prevents them from having any bright prospects of improving their standards of living. The book p...
This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides in... more This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides insights into current developments by using the explanatory concepts of innovation, competition, and agency. The article draws on data obtained through an interdisciplinary, transnational, and multisite investigation of eight Pentecostal churches in Kampala, Nairobi, Cape Town, and London. Methods used included ethnographic observation, visual ethnography, and semistructured interviews. Pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora, this article argues, are simultaneously reenacting centuries-old faith-informed healing practices and creatively reinventing aspects of these practices to assert their relevance in a postmodern world characterized by religious plurality, competition, and secularism.
In the authors’ recent case-study research of migrant-dominated Pentecostal charismatic churches ... more In the authors’ recent case-study research of migrant-dominated Pentecostal charismatic churches (PCCs) in the South African cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, language emerged as a prominent feature of religious practice, suggesting a positive correlation between experiences of xenophobia and religious innovation. This perspective is developed through the identification and discussion of two interlinked themes that surfaced from a closer analysis of the findings: (1) belonging and diversity and (2) evangelization. These two themes are assessed through the prism of religious innovation.
This is a study on the creative appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs... more This is a study on the creative appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by mobile Africans and the communities to which they belong, home and away. With a focus on Cameroonian migrants from Pinyin and Mankon who are currently living in Cape Town and the Netherlands, this book examines the workings of the social fabric of mobile communities. It sheds light on how these communities are crafting lives for themselves in the host country and simultaneously linking up with the home country thanks to advances in ICTs and road and air transport. ICTs and mobilities have complemented social relational interaction and provide migrants today with opportunities to partake in cultural practices that express their Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. Pinyin and Mankon migrants are still as rooted in the past as they are in the present. They were born into a community with its own sense of home, moral ethos and cultural pride but live in a context of accelerated ICTs and mobilit...
Contemporary African societies are increasingly mobile but this mobility does not prevent migrant... more Contemporary African societies are increasingly mobile but this mobility does not prevent migrants from continuously seeking to partake in ritualistic activities related to birth, marriage and death in their host and home countries as the Pinyin and Mankon communities from Cameroon living in Cape Town do. This article focuses on how mobile communities, although away from home, continue to uphold and participate in ritual practices and ceremonies in the host and home countries simultaneously to maintain their identities of Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. I show how rituals are dynamic and reconfigured as a result of mobility and new communication technologies, and I go on to explore the ways in which these new technologies allow rituals to be transformed on the basis of migrants' desire to be involved. With a focus on birth, marriage and death rituals I show how these rituals vary within societies and how 'outsiders' may find the performances meaningless because strands of m...
This paper provides an ethnographic reading of how Congolese women, in particular aslyum seekers ... more This paper provides an ethnographic reading of how Congolese women, in particular aslyum seekers with temporary permits, navigate Cape Town's informal urban economy. We argue that the intersections of temporary permit status and gender, as well as the particularities of diaspora flows and settlements, compound the precarity of everyday life. We engage with how precarity shapes and is shaped by what we define as “working practices.” These practices include the everyday livelihood tactics sustained on shoestring budgets and transnational networks. We also show how, in moments of compounded crises – including the COVID-19 pandemic – marginal gains and transnational networks are rendered more fragile. In these traumatic moments, working practices extend to include the practices of hope and reliance on prayer as social ways of contending with exacerbated precarity.
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Papers by Henrietta Nyamnjoh