Making sense of place and the role of migrant media:
a South African migrant radio case study
Antoinette Wessels
Department of Communication, Unitec, Auckland
Migrants relate homesickness to a physical place
I miss the smell of the food and the noise of the traffic.
Indian man, from Mumbai
I miss seeing the mountains when I open the curtains in the morning.
Parsi woman, from North India
I miss Burundi, I want to go back home.
19 year Burundian woman, from refugee camp
A sense of place is defined as an emotional, physical and social identity with a place, in which particular people create a sense of belonging through communication, community, culture and routine.
(Adams, 2009; Dürr, 2011 & Howley, 2008)
Migrants lose their sense of place
(Howley; 2008)
Sense of place
Sense of place includes:
• Individual identity
• Collective identity
• Physical, emotional and social identity
• Experience of, and in, physical location
• Communication practices
• Community
• Social networks
• Emotional networks
• Routine
(Adams, 2009; Howley, 2008)
Components of sense of place
2 Directors, 4 regular DJs, Volunteers Facebook, Website
PlanetFM 94.6
Auckland community radio station 38 languages
Caspi & Elias (2010) Prerequisite community media:
Media produced by members of the group for the group
SANZ Live
,.,.,.,.,
The South African migration
79.2 8.9
8.9 2.5
0.5
South Africa: Ethnicity
African White Coloured Indian Other
9 main Bantu language groups Afrikaans or English Afrikaans or English Christian or Muslim English, Hindu
(50%), Muslim (25%) Christian (25%)
South Africa’s population (2015) retrieved from http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/population .htm#.VYXn8vmqqko
54 279 South Africans in New Zealand, 2013
2013 Quickstats about culture and ethnicity, Statistics New Zealand, n.d.)
Just over 50% of them lived in Auckland
(Walrond, 2014)
“Invisible”
Overlooked in academic studies
Skilled migrants: culturally: Western
Appearance: Similarities with other groups in NZ
(Trlin, 2012)
South Africans in New Zealand
Valuable tool for ethnic minorities to regain sense of place
(Howley, 2008)
Radio remains valuable, plays significant role:
Cheap
Easily accessible
Supports identity making
Part of culture and routine of home
(Browne, 2005; Caspi & Elias, 2011; Fairchild, 2009;
Howley, 2008; Matsaganis, Katz & Ball-Rokeach, 2011;
Pietikäinen & Dufva, 2006)
Significance of community media, specifically radio
Case study methodology
Representativeness difficult to prove (Babbie, 2008) Validity? Reservations considered (Johanssen, 2003;
Flavbjerg, 2006; Mariotto, Pinto Zanni & De Moraes, 2014)
Qualitative interviews with Directors, DJs Convenience sampling:
11 participants
In-depth interviews
Quantitative communication ecology questionnaire Content Analysis of 8 radio broadcasts
The study: Community media, in particular radio
Getting off the plane I felt unwelcome; one of the custom guys were very nasty to me.
When I walked in the mall the first time, I felt everything closing down around me, I felt foreign, I felt lost, everything is totally foreign.
We knew no one in Auckland, it was hard.
It was hard taking my children away from their grandmother.
Your new friends will never be the friend that was at your
wedding, that was at your child’s christening, you will never have the friends you had in South Africa.
(Different interviewees)
Expressions of alienation on arrival
Kiwis are different.
Other South Africans ‘speak the same language’.
I don’t have to explain my jokes.
We think the same.
People know your name.
I want other friends, but I want my South African friends.
I make an effort to get to know non-South Africans, but not South Africans; I know I will meet them through SANZ Live.
I see more of my non-South African friends, because we live close to one another and we work together, but my South African friends are different, more like family
When I go to SANZ Live events, it is like a family reunion.
Other comments
(Different interviewees)
Radio broadcasts:
Music and topics Events:
Artists from South Africa
Group reservations and sport events Club nights – music and dancing
Black tie – once a year, very formal, jazz artists from SA Braai Day
Community work: SA and NZ
SANZ Live activities
“Music is a metaphor for identity” (Frith, 1996, p109) Dance
• enlivens a situation
• shared memories from home
• specific example of communication in a physical place
• face-to-face communication
• local socialisation
• Mobile form of ethnic identity
• Trans-national communication, not confined by borders
• Mechanism for bringing together members of an ethnic identity when specific genre of music is played outside of its natural geographic location
(Adams, 2009 & Frith, 1996)
Music as mobile form of ethnic identity
x X X X X X X X
Jazz, Soul, R&B – preferred genre
Played during broadcasts, Black Tie, Club nights – sell outs!!!
Dancing: the bob and ‘langarm’
SANZ Live music choice
In ter nat iona l el ec tropo p In ter nat iona l ja zz & so ul & R &B C ape/ Sout h Af ric an Jaz z So ut h Af ric an el ec tropo p So ut h Af ric an R ap So ut h Af ric an Po p Af ric an ar tis ts /mu sic Loc al N Z
D1 and DJ1 (SANZ Live Juniors)
55 11 1 3 2
DJ2 and DJ3 4 32 8 3 3 3
Migrant need: retain cultural traditions (Wong, 2012)
Heritage Day / Braai Day
21 September – less political than Freedom Day Idea originated from Bishop Desmond Tutu
Government commissioner now in charge
Has become a type of symbol of togetherness in the “new South Africa”
People come together and ‘braai’
Braai Day
Braai Day: The smell of wood fires reminds me of home
Open Fires at Braai day
Top: a wood fire being in a 45l gallon drum and meat on a grid (‘konka’)
(Author photo)
Left: 2013 a “Potjie” competition (iron pot)
Facebook with permission
Braai Day: I loved the Boeresport!
Top left: Boy’s egg and spoon race Bottom left: Women’s sack race with jumping castle in the
background
Top right: Men’s tug of war
Author photos
We are all South African Kiwis now, but we celebrate our South African Kiwiness [at Braai Day].
When we went there [Braai Day] it was more Coloured people and
English speaking Coloured people. I do think that South Africans are so diverse and the Coloured community play a big role in our psyche of being South African … and you sort of miss that diversity … the minstrel bands and the specific dishes … and …. their specific Cape Coloured
accent, so it was sort of reassuring to know that they are around and where you can go to get that food and dishes … (Participant 3)
I loved the Afrikaans at Barry Hilton. (Participant 1)
Through my volunteer work I got to know many different South Africans that I never met in South Africa. (Participant 9)
It does not matter what race you are anymore, in Auckland we are just South Africans. SANZ Live is for all South Africans. (Director 2)
Braai Day: Emotional identity: New hybrid identity
2 Saturdays before Christmas:
gifts and breakfast for Ronald
MacDonald House.
(Image from SANZ Live Facebook, with permission
)
Community work: New Zealand
Community support: South Africa
Far left: The Facebook
announcement of the Xenophobia focused broadcast on 25 April.
Left: logo of The Trauma Centre Above: The invitation and
announcement of the Mother’s Day
lunch in aid of the Trauma Centre
From SANZ Live Facebook – with
permission
Create new routine Network facilitator Social identity
Assisted to build new identity/hybrid identity
“there is no going ‘home’ again”
(Hall, 1993, p362) cited in Wong (2012)
Expressed pleasure of participants to mix with South Africans from other ethnicities.
Is “Nation building” continuing outside of South Africa?
SANZ Live success: sense of place
Representative of SANZ Live
Not representative of SA demography 2 nd and 3 rd generation migrants
Comparison with role of other Planet FM radio programmes Big issue: To do a meta study of South Africans difficult
No requirement for migrants to state South African ethnicity
Further research
Picture reference list
India journey.com
http://jica-
ri.jica.go.jp/topic/takeuchi_and_maswana_presented_their_research_at_the_conference_of_japa n_association_for_african_stu.html
http://planetden.com/food/street-food-india
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