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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Local Attitudes towards Citizenship and Foreigners in Botswana: An Appraisal of Recent Press Stories |
Author: | Nyamnjoh, Francis B. |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 28 |
Issue: | 4 |
Period: | December |
Pages: | 755-775 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Botswana |
Subjects: | press foreigners nationality Literature, Mass Media and the Press Ethnic and Race Relations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Law, Human Rights and Violence |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/823350 |
Abstract: | A major characteristic of Africa's second liberation struggles since the 1980s has been a growing obsession with belonging and the questioning of conventional assumptions about nationality and citizenship almost everywhere. In Botswana, identity politics are increasingly important, alongside more exclusionary ideas of nationality and citizenship, as minority claims for greater cultural recognition and plurality are countered by majoritarian efforts to maintain the status quo of an inherited colonial hierarchy of ethnic groupings. In other words, minority clamour for recognition and representation is countered by greater and sometimes aggressive reaffirmation of age-old exclusions informed by colonial registers of inequalities amongst the subjected. This development is paralleled by increased awareness and distinction between 'locals' and 'foreigners', with an emphasis on opportunities and economic entitlements. Apart from official measures to restrict further access to citizenship by foreigners, public attitudes towards foreigners are hardening generally. This article examines local attitudes towards foreigners as represented in newspapers. It documents ongoing tensions over entitlements among majority and minority ethnic groups in Botswana as the background for understanding changing and hardening attitudes towards foreigners in general, and certain categories of foreigners in particular. Notes, ref., sum. (Journal abstract) |