Citation

Sharp J. Anthropol. Today 2008; 24(4): 1-3.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-8322.2008.00597.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

There are many circumstances in which South Africans and foreigners from elsewhere in Africa pursue shared interests peacefully. Anthropological field research points to a range of these circumstances, which have largely been ignored by commentators attempting to explain the episode of mass‘xenophobic’violence that wracked South African cities and towns in May 2008. Explanations such as the one criticised in this article focus on the xenophobic attitudes of ordinary South Africans, and link these attitudes to competition for resources between locals who are poor and their equally poor counterparts from further north.