Perhaps, one can begin the discussion here by asking under what conditions one may anticipate contestations and oppositionality among migrant men within host contexts. If one returns to the diverse intersectionalities that cause fragmentations among men back in their contexts of origin, one may begin to see a pathway to answering this question. Self-understandings of class and social positionalities back
home are factors that have real implications for migrant-migrant contestations within host contexts. In a study carried out by Bolt (2010) among migrant, African male fruit pickers at a farm in Grootplaas, South Africa, an observation was that the apparent solidarity among the migrant men was marred by internal divisions. On the one hand, he observed that Venda men were constantly stereotyped as ignorant and crude by their Shona and Ndebele counterparts, revealing ethnic tensions in this site.
On the other hand, one being educated or a professional before the migratory process created classed conflicts in the relationships among young Shona men themselves. Bolt (2010: 278) argues that ‘middle-class sensibilities’ among the latter group of men was a constant source of fragmentation and contestations among them. This was sometimes hinged on the previous professional status, education, and intellectual development of some of the men. This sometimes made them portray attitudes of better self-restraint that existed in juxtaposition against those seen to be unpolished or lacking self-control. The outcome was observable points of divergence on the farm that diminished camaraderie among them, leading to pockets of alienated masculine identities within this host context migrant space.
Taking the question of the diversity and interplay of ethnicities within home and host contexts further, and indeed its associated nationality facet, Guarnizo et al (1999) observed that among migrant men from Colombia living in Los Angeles and California, there were entrenched levels of mistrust among co-ethnics. They explain that one reason for this was that these men had in fact lived in large urban areas back in Colombia before migrating where people in fact experience social isolation, anomie, and low levels of solidarity. Such fragmentations are then carried into the host context on migrating. In a closely-linked scenario, Datta et al (2008: 25), in a cross-national study with young men in London, observed that ‘ethnic hierarchies’ existed among them. They explain that ‘a number drew upon negative stereotypes to denigrate other ethnic groups so as to increase their own sense of self-worth while also compensating for the threats to their own masculinities’. In particular, Polish construction workers presented themselves as ‘ideal migrants’ based on their ‘Europeanness’ to show superiority over their other migrant counterparts, which effectively led to anti-polish sentiments from men from other countries.
It was pointed out above how scholars argue that the bodies of local women in South Africa exist as sites of contestations between local and migrant masculinities (Nkeelah, 2011; Gqola, 2008). Yet, Owen (2014) documents a similar scenario among Congolese migrant men in Muizenberg, Cape Town. Connected to the already discussed understandings that men are supposed to protect women, Owen (2014) analyses the embodied masculine struggles among these men as visible not only in masculine beliefs around the protection of women in public spaces, but also how their bodies existed as a gendered site of tension for these men over questions of possession. In the face of xenophobic attitudes from South African men therefore, ‘their bodies speak to each other as Congolese men’ too and ‘their behaviours are sanctioned or vetoed by other Congolese men across age and social class’ (Owen, 2014: 47).
From the foregoing one gets a glimpse, not only into the potential for migrant-migrant tensions within host contexts from such rare studies, but also how masculine sensibilities from home contexts feed into self-constructions and co-constructions within the social spaces that migrant men occupy. A significant extrapolation from the above is that originating from the same ethnic or national group is not necessarily enough to foster migrant ties within host nations. If one thinks of the fact that the men in the current study emerge from a diversity of ethnic origins and nationalities, one can indeed anticipate opposition and contestation within the South African host context among them based on these. Yet, such opposition or contestation will not only be based on these factors as young men will always be divided by other intersectionalities including those of class, power, gender, and so on.
In what was discussed about South African masculinities above, young men portray senses of being tough and in control, and also are prone to use violence to maintain masculine respectability (Ratele, 2008b; Morrell, 2001). Yet, Pype’s (2007) study discussed in Chapter two about the importance of men’s bodies in the constructions of Congolese masculinities and how different groups maintain self-respect through similar notions of toughness and violence speak to this reality. The same thinking may be applied to the Somali reality where men understand themselves as protectors and defenders of families and groups against other men (Kleist, 2010; Hassan, 2000). If men, then, enter into the South African host context with such home context
notions of power and resistance, and confront other realities that question their senses of masculinity, one opines that the possibility for contestations and oppositions become manifest.
Moodie and Ndatshe’s (1994) point about the compound system in the South African gold mines reveals a complex manifestation of power and resistance between black miners and white apartheid bosses, but more importantly among African migrant men themselves. This was observed, for instance, in the opposition and contestations that existed between black superiors and black workers despite instances of solidarity but also the question of age and hierarchy for masculinities is raised again (Moodie, 1994). He points out the reality of homosexual relations in the gold mines as a result of long absences from spouses and how the prerogative of penetration was usually reserved to the older man in such relationships, indicating recognition of masculine hierarchy in the process while revealing the contestations that arose from this with sexual partners and other men. Age and positionings within a masculine hierarchy become important for how men understand themselves as men and the roles they are expected to play within masculine relations, and this was pointed out as a critical factor for appreciating masculinity in the countries in this study. As indicated in Chapter two already, one suggests that migrant men will continue to understand themselves in this light within host contexts in their relations with other migrant men, hence the potential for contestations and opposition within the South African host context.
Finally, the discussion points out that like local masculine identities, migrant men also experience feelings of social and economic exclusion (Itzigsohn, 2015). In fact, I suggest that to a greater extent, it was such patterns of exclusion that led many young migrant men to seek better opportunities in host contexts in the first place. Yet, as shown already, the host context presents its own realities and difficulties that locate migrant men in positions of liminality and marginality. Certainly, this can only heighten the sense of frustration they felt back at home. The prospective for masculine contestations, then, becomes viable not simply in terms of voicing out frustrations or picking fights with other migrant men, but more so in the kind of activities or practices that some may get involved in the host context that result in
opposition, constructions and co-constructions with other migrant men (Pringle & Whitinui, 2009; Guarnizo et al, 1999).
In effect, migrant identities may occupy liminal spaces in the South African context where their lived existences and understandings of masculine respectability are continually under threat and contested by local realities and identities (Vahed & Desai, 2013). Yet, it would be reductionist to assume that they are simply victims of xenophobia and incapable of enactments of agency in the gendered relationships that they are involved in within the host contexts that they enter into, or that such agentic moves are enacted only in response to local realities or identities as visible in the xenophobia literature. If Matshaka (2009) is right that the reinvention of respectable migrant masculinities is a continuous process of response to the culture and conceptions of dominant masculine articulations in the host community, this would necessarily include responses to masculine cultures and articulations of masculinity of men from other contexts. This would be true so far as one is not operating on the assumption that migrant men are a unified category (Anthias, 2012). Hence, migrant men, as self-relational beings, do not only construct and reconstruct their identities in relation to contestations and oppositions from local masculinities, but also construct themselves and co-construct each other; such a reality is also one marred by tensions and oppositionality. This is the crux of the argument in the current thesis. In the next section, I discuss the theoretical framework for the study that assists in advancing this central argument.