Where does South Africa’s Afrophobic violence come from? The standard responses to this question suggest that poverty and joblessness are primary causes. But this view underestimates the legacies of migrant labour and the influence of persistent double-rootedness on the politics of our cities.

South Africa is 60% urbanised and this will rise to more than 70% by 2030. The image produced is of a one-way flow of people from the rural areas to the cities, but this is a skewed picture because it ignores continuing intra-regional migration and urbanisation.

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