CHAPTER 2: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MIGRANTS AND THE HOST
2.6. Entanglement and Conviviality
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diverse group of people who do not fit into our preconceived view of who we are. It is these people who are somewhere in-between that can be called hybrids.
Hybridity as a means of integration is therefore, more complex than cultural mix explanations. Simply put, "the hybrid is not the opposite of hierarchy and hegemony, but of binary and dichotomy" (Schneider 1997: 43). Hybridity not only removes the boundaries of culture, but also widens the margins of diversity. It could therefore have the dual effect of either inclusion or integration or more groups to exclude.
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seek an intersecting space, a site where these differences overlap in order to understand the nature of such complex relationships. Nuttall (2009) further explains how the boundaries of diversity are overcome within this close proximity. In her words, entanglement theories are
a means by which to draw into our analyses those sites in which what was once thought of as separate – identities, spaces, histories – come together or find points of intersection in unexpected ways. It is an idea which signals largely unexplored terrains of mutuality, wrought from a common, though often coercive and confrontational, experience (Nuttall 2009: 11).
Although differences exist, they are not always clearly socially defined in the real world;
categorizing them is problematic as there are grey areas where similarities and differences mingle. These grey areas provide a nuanced picture and understanding of relations between different groups, which in the context of this study, would be between South Africans and African migrants.
This can be related to the idea of conviviality which argues that identity is not closed but open and ever-changing. Nyamnjoh (2015: 11-12) describes conviviality as a disposition that goes beyond tolerance and “stresses the pursuit of sameness and commonalities by bridging divides and facilitating interconnections… and an attitude towards identities and identification as open-ended pursuits.” Like entanglement, it acknowledges diversity and understands that differences are incomplete and that, if tolerated and accepted, they make a complete whole. In other words, attaining homogeneity is not a successful end but rather success would be the tolerance of diversity. Gilroy (2004: xi) adds that “the radical openness that brings conviviality alive makes nonsense of closed, fixed and reified identity and turns attention toward the always-unpredictable mechanisms of identification” (Gilroy 2004: xi).
He adds that in a multicultural world,
it is important to ask what critical perspectives might nurture the ability and the desire to live with difference on an increasingly divided but also convergent planet? We need to know what sorts of insight and reflection might actually help increasingly differentiated societies and anxious individuals to cope successfully with the challenges involved in dwelling
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comfortably in proximity to the unfamiliar without becoming fearful and hostile (Gilroy 2004: 3).
Clearly, interaction is inevitable due to the close proximity of differences which in a way threatens boundaries. Therefore, such close proximity can enable the creation of a convivial culture in an environment characterized by diversity. Gilroy (2006: 4) defines convivial culture as a “social pattern in which different metropolitan groups dwell in close proximity, but where their racial, linguistic and religious particularities do not… add up to discontinuities of experience or insuperable problems of communication”. Simply put, differences exist but do not always hinder the development of relationships. In other words, people are very different but are also very similar. Ironically, what makes them so different are their multiple identities that also make them similar because they allow them to intersect and interact, thereby creating an interdependent relationship. This does not necessarily imply that entanglement or conviviality removes tensions and hostility towards differences.
However, it creates an environment which enables “different groups and individuals to focus on commonalities that intercut the dimensions of fixed difference which may cause fear and anxiety about the other” (Rzepnikowska 2013: 4). Some geographic spaces encourage the formation of a convivial culture towards diversity. Amin (2012: 79) describes such spaces as
“sites for coming to terms with ethnic difference”. These sites encourage a convivial culture towards diversity as a result of the interaction of host members and “unknown strangers”
which ultimately blurs the lines of diversity. Amin (2002: 959) depicts these spaces as
“micro-publics of everyday social contact and encounter”. These sites encourage frequent interactions. Examples include workplaces, religious settings, sports clubs and school. Carter and Jones (1989: 169) term such places interactive spaces, which are breeding grounds for the formation of networks. This notion is closely linked to the contact hypothesis theory, which assumes that sustained interaction between diverse groups in various sites ultimately results in less prejudice (Dixon et al 2005: 697). It argues that frequent contact and interaction between culturally diverse people will eventually lead to the evanescence of their cultural boundaries, thereby creating a sense of inclusion. In other words, contact between groups can reduce prejudice over time and therefore foster acceptance and improve relations in ways that enable integration of the out-group.
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Protagonists this school of thought argue that certain conditions need to be present in order for contact to foster interaction and reduce prejudice. These include that contact be “intimate, cooperative and oriented towards the achievement of a shared goal. Moreover, it should occur between people of equal status” (Dixon and Durrheim 2003:1). Intimate intergroup contact implies that the personal interaction between the in-group and the out-group is informal so that they can learn to understand each other (Pettigrew 1998).It develops through
“deep communication: sustained, reciprocal, escalating conversations in which two friends come to know each other in a meaningful way” (Everett and Onu 2013: n.p.). In order to ensure that contact between the two groups is cooperative towards a common goal, they need to work together as a team; this common drive would supersede their differences (Dixon and Durrheim 2003). Finally, equal status implies that intergroup interaction is founded on equality, that is, there is no discrimination and the groups perceive themselves as equal (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Studies such as that by Hamberger and Hewstone (1997) have shown that where these conditions were present, prejudice evaporated and convivial relationships developed.
However, earlier study by Dixon and Durrheim (2003) revealed that contact between the in- group and out-group often results in the reestablishment of racial boundaries. While they do not reject the ideas of contact theory, they argue that it oversimplifies the dynamics of diverse groups and does not take into cognizance the opposite effect contact may have. In their words,
…intergroup contact in everyday life rarely occurs under ideal circumstances…
Naturally occurring interaction between groups is generally more infrequent and superficial than the ideal type…A problem with research on the contact hypothesis is that it tends to detach intergroup dynamics from their societal contexts, focusing on factors within the immediate environment of interaction that are easily manipulated and measured (Dixon and Durrheim 2003: 2).
Scholars such as Pettigrew and Tropp (2008) have also argued that the premise that contact fosters tolerance and creates conviviality is not always a given. In essence, it has been argued that contact has the dual effect of tolerance and prejudice. Durrheim et al (2014) explain that beyond the reduction of prejudice, are paradoxical effects of intergroup contact which include recategorization, anxiety reduction, and promotion of empathy. Pettigrew (1998: 75)
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explains that “recategorization adopts an inclusive strategy that highlights similarities among the interactants and obscures the ‘we’ and ‘they’ boundary”. This implies that, differences and prejudice are overcome when there is intergroup contact within micro-public space.
Nevertheless, the fall out is that this concord reduces the attitude of the out-group towards reducing discrimination. This spectrum was captured in Dixon et al’s (2013) study on race relations between White and Black South Africans in post-apartheid South Africa. They found that intergroup contact led to concord between Black and White South Africans but amongst black people, it “diminished their political perceptions of own group relative deprivation and discrimination and decreased support for policies designed to redress the legacy of apartheid” (Dixon et al 2013: 243). The second paradoxical effect, anxiety reduction, posits that intergroup contact reduces anxiety between the two groups and ultimately leads to concord (Pettigrew 2008). On the other hand, Turner et al (2007: 428) argue that in some cases, when there is intergroup contact, rather than reducing anxiety; their anxiety potentially produces conflict and hostility. Finally, contact theory argues that intergroup contact produces empathic qualities that include care, compassion and sympathy for the out-group. This leads to self-other merging, where the in-group looks beyond their diversities and sees the out-group as similar to itself (Dovidio et al 2013). However, studies have shown that contact between diverse groups has led to antipathy which perpetuates the
“us” and “them” divide, rather than self-other merging. This is in light of the fact that, “the mere presence of the out-group causes negative reactions, possibly because proximity increases the salience of the out-group, thereby activating negative stereotypes” (Enos 2014:
3700).
While Nuttall’s (2009) idea of entanglement, Gilroy’s (2004) idea of conviviality and the contact hypothesis have been applied to explain race relations and how racial and class differences influence relations, they can also be used to explain the nature of interactions and integration of migrants into various host communities. Nuttall (2009) and Gilroy argue that rather than focusing on differences and how these differences prevent interaction, the spaces where these differences intersect in their interactions should be explored. This can help to explain how diversities intersect rather than categorizing or grouping them. Intersections and convivial relations are propagated by frequent contact, which makes differences evanesce.
However, this is not always the case since, as noted above, it can foster prejudice. The two extreme explanations of contact theory do not undermine its ability to foster tolerance; rather
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they recognize its dichotomous character of also propagating prejudice; this is highlighted in the chapters that present this study’s results. In the context of the current study, they are also useful in showing that the relationship between migrants and members of the host community cannot be explained in an explicit antagonistic or exclusive manner but rather in a complicated sense where differences and sameness are not fixed and do not always hinder interaction and social relationships, no matter how complex they may be. Based on the foregoing, migrant and host relationships are an entanglement of identities characterized by differences and similarities. This is because identity is a “complex social construct encompassing various constantly (re) negotiated aspects, such as race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender and sexuality, the meanings attached to these are inevitably subject to shifts and changes through migration” (Ashby and Diener 2014: 5).