Re-Examining Social Integration in Transnational Contexts: A Migrant-Migrant Analysis

Transmigrants travel with cultural sensibilities from their countries of origin, some of which are well-established. These do not only influence their behaviours as individuals but scholars show that cultural beliefs from home contexts allow for diverse forms of organising within the transnational social space, e.g. hometown associations (HTAs). A category of transmigrants that constantly travel with such cultural beliefs are young men. These travel with entrenched gendered beliefs informed by their societies of origin that are brought to bear in the transnational social space, especially as they engage other masculinities (and femininities) in the new context.

Transmigration-masculinity scholars document the tensions that young men encounter as they live out their home-grown cultural identities as juxtaposed against those of local men in host communities. What is less probed, however, is how transmigrant men employ cultural discourses of masculine behaviour to reaffirm their identities in interactions among themselves.

Drawing on narratives from individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with forty-six young, African, transmigrant men in Johannesburg, this presentation uses the theoretical framework of translocational positionality to show how transmigrant men employ discursive practices of culture to enact masculine respectability among themselves. I argue that to get a fuller comprehension of how social relations operate in the transnational social space and the conflicts that arise thereof, one may not limit the discussion simply to local-migrant perspectives. Rather, inter and intra-migrant cultural appreciations of self are useful to getting richer and more nuanced understandings of existing social relations.

Arguments from the presentation will be useful for informing interventions geared towards enhancing social integration within the transnational social space.