Presenter: Dr Jean Pierre Misago
Date: Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Time: 12:30 – 13:45
Venue: ACMS Seminar Room (2163), Solomon Mahlangu House (2nd floor), East Campus, Wits University (directions)
Zoom link: https://tinyurl.com/3dwkccpp, Meeting ID: 957 8662 4514, Passcode: 012731
RSVP: Email ntokozo.yingwana@wits.ac.za

Abstract:
Drawing on nearly two decades of multi-case and comparative qualitative research, this article examines the relationship between social cohesion and xenophobic violence in South Africa. Echoing emerging scholarship, it challenges the conventional wisdom that social cohesion is inherently a solution to violence. It demonstrates that under certain conditions, social cohesion is linked to xenophobic violence, not as a solution but as a driver. It indeed argues that intersections between i) migration-induced diversity; ii) severe socio-economic deprivation; and iii) local governance deficits turn already pervasive bonding cohesion into ‘exclusionary cohesion’, thereby rendering aspects of social cohesion (i.e. social cohesion itself) a driver of xenophobic violence. The article makes three scholarly contributions. First, it introduces two concepts – ‘exclusionary cohesion’ and ‘deprivation-induced cohesion’ (an extension of social closure) – that capture the essence of aspects of social cohesion making it a driver of xenophobic violence in South Africa. Second, it lends voice to calls for reconceptualising social cohesion by providing additional empirical evidence that its conventional understandings have become increasingly anachronistic. Third, it extends the debate on the relationship between social cohesion and violence by beginning to identify factors or conditions that link specific forms of cohesion to specific forms of violence. Practically, it joins others in cautioning policymakers against ‘romanticising’ social cohesion as a straightforward solution to xenophobic violence and calls for interventions that not only promote non-violent forms of cohesion but also address the conditions that make exclusionary cohesion possible.

About the researcher/presenter:
Jean Pierre Misago is a Senior Researcher and Co-Director at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology (University of Zimbabwe, 2001); an MA in Forced Migration Studies (Wits University, 2005); an MA in Humanitarian Assistance (Tufts University, 2008); a Certificate in Humanitarian Studies & Field Practice (Harvard University & Tufts University, 2008); a PhD in Migration and Displacement (Wits University, 2016); and a Certificate in Ethnicity, Conflict and Inequality in Global Perspective (Brown University, 2017). His research focuses on the effects of migration on identity and belonging; xenophobia and violent outsider exclusion; and the governance of migration and human mobility at different levels. He has published a significant and growing number of articles in international journals, book chapters in edited volumes, and research reports. He teaches Honours and MA Migration and Displacement courses and supervises Honours, MA and PhD students at ACMS.