The politics of xenophobic exclusion in Africa: mobilisations, local orders and violence

As the African population continues to grow and move, the continent’s societies have seen increasing social, cultural, linguistic and economic heterogeneity. Cities and metropolitan areas have now reached a crossroads where local authorities have little effective control over the socio-economic processes which they have been charged to manage. Long-term and more recent voluntary and forced movements and forms of inclusion and exclusion going along with them contribute to a rapidly evolving redistribution of power and space that is at once highly visible but yet poorly understood. What makes this particularly visible today in several countries across the continent is the fact that exclusion has taken the form of violent attacks targeting more specifically foreigners or groups identified as ethnic, political, or religious outsiders. This project aimed to document these phenomena in two specific areas: that of the changing social dynamics at work in the continent between hosts and strangers, nationals and foreigners and that of the role of the State in managing cultural diversity and socio-economic differentiation. Three research questions guided the work: 1. The historicity of politics and place in the production of xenophobic exclusion and violence; 2. Forms of mobilisation, counter-mobilisation and demobilisation and 3. The question of State retreat or embeddedness.