Posts In: Johannesburg
What does ‘home’ mean in the context of the urban housing crisis?
maHp/ACMS Associate Researcher Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon was recently invited by The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University to help answer the question: What does ‘home’ mean in the context of the urban housing crisis? Watch the full webinar here.
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WEBINAR: Migrants and Vulnerabilities during the Covid-19 Pandemic
The University of the Witwatersrand’s Humanities Graduate Centre and the RReal Covid Project will be hosting this webinar titled Migrants and Vulnerabilities during the Covid-19 Pandemic on Monday, 12 October 2020, 14:00-15:30 SAST.
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Marooned: Transgender Asylum Seekers in Johannesburg
In this chapter, drawing on research work begun with transgender refugees in 2012, maHp/ACMS postdoctoral researcher B Camminga unpacks what it may mean for transgender people, who can no longer move directly to Cape Town, to have to stay in Johannesburg.
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Moving Words: Exploring mobility and urban inclusion through poetry based methods
Find out more about the Moving Words Project, which is a two-year collaboration between the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Edinburgh.
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The City Otherwise: The deferred emergency of occupation of inner-city Johannesburg
This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Johannesburg between 2011 and 2019 in inner-city unlawful occupations and temporary emergency accommodation sites. These are often referred to as “hijacked buildings”…
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OP-ED: Covid-19 lockdown needs to protect inner-city communities
ACMS/maHp associate researcher Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, and the general secretary of the Inner-City Federation Siyabonga Mahlangu argue that it is critical the police and army deployment for the Covid-19 lockdown not result in the persecution of residents of unlawful occupations.
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Woman is the thread: maHp intern covers the Mwangaza Mama book launch
maHp intern Elena Olivieri blogs about the launch of the Mwangaza Mama project book.
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Mwangaza Mama (2019)
Mwangaza Mama is a creative storytelling project that was undertaken in collaboration with a small group of cross-border migrant women living in Johannesburg. Inspired by previous MoVE work, the main aim of the two-year project was to learn more about migrant women’s everyday experiences of the city by including them in the production of knowledge about issues that affect them.
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PHOTOVOICE: ‘Trolley Pullers’ in Jo’burg
Street Photographer and maHp artist fellow Madoda Mkhobeni in conversation with MA student Esther V. Kraler about documenting the daily life struggles of ‘Trolley Pullers’ who reside in inner-city Johannesburg and Soweto.
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maHp on AMLive/SAfm “bad buildings” news insert
maHp associate Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon was recently interviewed for this AMLive/SAfm insert on “bad buildings” in Johannesburg, produced by Candice Nolan of SABCNews. [Permission to share this podcast was granted by the producer.]
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300 000 Joburg housing backlog
Wilhelm-Solomon and Thabo Maisela, the mayor of Johannesburg’s special advisor for priority projects, held an in-depth discussion on the housing crisis in Johannesburg with 702’s radio talk show host Eusebius McKaiser.
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Meaningful Engagement, Not Militarisation, Is The Way Forward for Mashaba’s Johannesburg
Anthropologist Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon shares his insights on Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba’s visits to so-called “hijacked buildings” in the city.
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Metropolitan nomads: a journey through Jo’burg’s “little Mogadishu”
This article takes an intimate look at the everyday life of Somali migrants in Johannesburg, where collective stories of migration and survival interweave with individual desires and hopes of seeking a better life outside a country shattered by decades of internal conflict.
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Work and wellbeing on the urban periphery
The latest maHp research collaboration with Security at the Margins (SeaM) sought to understand the labour and health/wellbeing conditions that informal artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) communities on the periphery of Johannesburg reside in (download the full report here).
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(Well)Being in the City: a focus on health and migration in Johannesburg
In this issue, insights into how migration and mobility are mediating health within an African urban context are brought together.The papers bring the voices of different urban migrant groups to the fore and provide fresh perspectives on approaches for exploring how to research and respond to migration, mobility, and urban health in southern Africa. Advocating for mixed method and multi-disciplinary approaches, the papers provide important contributions to multi-disciplinary thinking around complex social issues.
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Poking the wound – research, stories and process – thinking through the complexities
maHp/ACMS postdoctoral researcher Becky Walker’s latest blog reflections on her current arts-based research project with migrant women/mothers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi who live in inner-city Johannesburg, and are seeking asylum.
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Urban Health in Johannesburg: Migration, Exclusion and Inequality
Cities of the global south—including Johannesburg—are associated with unplanned and unmanaged urban growth; poor urban governance (which is predominantly reactive rather than proactive); migration and mobility; and the resultant pressure on access to adequate services, including water, sanitation, housing, and healthcare.
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In the Shadow of a State: Self-Settlement Strategies and Informal Governance Amongst Somalis in Johannesburg
This article explores the role of informal governance and institutions in the self-settlement strategies of Somalis in South Africa.
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Shifting Families
This project examines the intersection of migration and family using multi-sited case studies in Johannesburg (South Africa), Fes (Morocco), and Berlin (Germany). The main aim of this project is to interrogate the notions and dynamics of African migrant families in the context of contemporary and multi-directional migration flows in three urban spaces.
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Selling Sex, Mothering and “Keeping Well” in the City: Reflecting on the Everyday Experiences of Cross-Border Migrant Women Who Sell Sex in Johannesburg
Drawing from interviews with non-national or cross-border migrant women who sell sex on a regular basis, this paper explores experiences of selling sex, motherhood and ‘keeping well’ through the lens of the city.
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“At Your Own Risk”: Narratives of Migrant Sex Workers in Johannesburg
Existing evidence indicates that cross-border migrant women sex workers in South Africa are often marginalized by state and non-state actors professing to assist them. Trafficking discourses frequently conflate migrant sex workers with…
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I am more than just a sex worker but you have to also know that I sell sex and it’s okay: Lived Experiences of Migrant Sex Workers in Inner-City Johannesburg, South Africa
A perceived opportunity for improved livelihoods has made Johannesburg a target destination for many internal migrants moving within the borders of South Africa, as well as for cross-border migrants from around the continent and beyond.
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Cultural Causations and Expressions of Distress: a Caste Study of Buufis Amongst Somalis in Johannesburg
Buufis is a well-known concept among Somalis at home and in the diaspora, although its meaning shifts across time and space. Literally meaning ‘to blow, or inflate’ in Somali, buufis initially referred to the dream of resettlement among Somalis in refugee camps in Kenya in the early 1990s…
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Between a rock and a hard place: Informal artisanal gold mining in Johannesburg
On the western periphery of Johannesburg, with the famous skyline of the city silhouetted in the early morning sun, Bongani is beginning another day of work.
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