Johannesburg – A new academic study has found that social cohesion, long promoted as the primary solution to xenophobic violence in South Africa, can itself become a driver of attacks on foreign nationals under certain conditions, challenging decades of conventional thinking among policymakers and civil society organisations.
The research, published in the journal Social Dynamics by Jean Pierre Misago of the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, draws on nearly two decades of fieldwork across more than 51 case studies in Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, involving more than 1 212 participants.
The findings carry direct relevance for Eswatini and the broader SADC region, where thousands of Swazi nationals and other migrants live and work in South Africa’s townships and informal settlements, areas the study identifies as the primary sites of xenophobic violence. 
Misago argues that three intersecting factors transform ordinary community bonds into what he calls “exclusionary cohesion,” a form of social solidarity that actively works to violently drive out foreign nationals rather than coexist with them.
The first factor is migration-induced diversity, which brings different ethnic and national identities into close contact in already strained communities. While diversity is not inherently conflictual, the study finds that in areas marked by severe poverty and weak governance, the presence of foreign nationals is widely perceived as a threat to local livelihoods. Residents in the study areas consistently accused foreign nationals of taking jobs, occupying spaza shops, burdening public services and contributing to crime.
A resident interviewed in Mamelodi put it this way: “The issue of economy, our people are now saying these people are taking our jobs, our spaza shops are now owned by people from outside the country. Then there is this issue of services because we are too many, they are using our clinics and hospitals; we don’t have access to our facilities like we used to previously. There is also this issue of crime, most of the time I see them on the TV they are pastors and scamming our people and all those things that also contribute to the tension.”
The second factor is what Misago terms deprivation-induced collective discontent. Severe socio-economic hardships, including unemployment, poor housing, inadequate public services and rising crime, are routinely blamed on foreign nationals by political leaders and officials rather than on systemic failures. This political scapegoating, the study finds, converts widespread frustration into organised hostility. A Khayelitsha resident described the mood: “Most of our people are unemployed; people who work are foreign nationals. Like the people of Zimbabwe or Lesotho. I would say that the people in charge of the jobs are foreigners. I don’t want to hide that fact. That is the problem. That is why we were saying let’s minimise these people. So, they live a comfortable life. These are painful things for people. That can make a mess at any time.”
A Diepsloot resident was blunter about the political dimension: “I think the main drivers are politicians. Because they want to rule, they look for different ways of gaining public attention and support and one of the reasons would be blaming outsiders for the problems faced in this community. It is all about power. Politicians will always tell you want you want to hear even if it is not true.”
The third factor is local governance deficits. Where official leadership structures are absent, corrupt or ineffective, the study finds that informal violent groups step in to fill the vacuum. These groups, which include formations such as the Dunoon Taxi Association, the Big 5 in Makause, and Mamelodi Concerned Residents, mobilise community members against foreign nationals and present xenophobic violence as a legitimate form of community self-defence. Where governance is stronger, the study finds, xenophobic violence is less likely to occur even under similar socio-economic conditions.
The study introduces two new analytical concepts. The first is exclusionary cohesion, which describes the process by which ordinary inward-looking community bonds become outward-looking mechanisms of violent exclusion. The second is deprivation-induced cohesion, which extends the sociological concept of social closure to explain how shared economic grievances create solidarity among locals at the expense of foreign residents.
Misago argues that years of social cohesion programmes by government and organisations such as the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the International Organization for Migration and Freedom House have failed to stop xenophobic violence precisely because they are based on a misreading of how social cohesion actually operates in poor South African communities. The deadly xenophobic attacks in Addo in the Eastern Cape in May 2025, which left migrants dead and displaced, served as the most recent reminder of the ongoing threat.
The study calls on policymakers to stop treating social cohesion as a straightforward solution and instead address the underlying conditions that make exclusionary cohesion possible, including poverty, failing service delivery, and the political scapegoating of migrants.
