Blaming the Other: Migrancy and Populism in Contemporary South Africa

For the Ruth First Fellowships, of which African Studies is a sponsor, we seek new, younger voices to address a pressing, current issue in the tradition of Ruth First’s activist research. In 2019, we put together two concerning trends: calls for action from a wide range of public figures to deal with undocumented migrants, and the rise of a new brand of populist politics. This potentially toxic mix gave us our theme: Migrancy and Populism, and we posed the question, ‘Is our Politics Normalising the Language of Xenophobia?’ Nickolaus Bauer was one of two fellows who were appointed, and he delivered the Ruth First Memorial Lecture in August 2019, with a keynote address by Prof. Achille Mbembe. For his lecture entitled ‘Blaming The Other: Migrancy and Populism in Contemporary South Africa’, Bauer interviewed the people of Johannesburg’s inner city to gather their views on migrants, showing that the views of ordinary South Africans are not always what we – or the politicians who represent them – expect them to be.