Haven or hell? Discordant representations of Johannesburg in testimonies of Cameroonian forced migrants

Abstract

This article examines the way Cameroonian forced migrants in Johannesburg attempt to represent the city in a collection of testimonies about their exilic experiences. It critically investigates how these experiences are used as a prism through which forced migrants formulate impressions about this post-apartheid space. The article seeks to scrutinise Cameroonian reconstructions of Johannesburg in two distinct registers: a socio-political space defined by the politics of exclusion, rejection and disillusionment and an economic space with endless opportunities for economic growth. The article is therefore an analysis of the way subjective and collective experiences of displacement have forged a slew of discrepant impressions about post-apartheid Johannesburg and how these discrepant migrant narratives are brought to bear on broader discourses such as the construction of identity, politics of space and the construction of memory. The article is framed around the conceptual premise that the asymmetrical renditions produced by Cameroonians emerge from the hallmarks of post-apartheid Johannesburg such as xenophobia, nativism and racism as well as visible economic possibilities.