Governing Mobility Through Exemptions
Cross-National Dependencies, Immigration Policy, and Migrant Labour in South African Historical Perspective
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2371124 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Xolani Tshabalala (0000-0002-4715-8513, Linköping University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 55-69 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/08969205231225404 |
| OpenAlex | W4391282021 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 39 |
Over the last century, the South African state has periodically engaged in the practice of 'exempting' various migrants from their otherwise irregular immigration statuses. Always backed by official legislation, exemptions represent one way by which dominant capitalist interests have relied on the legitimacy of the state to meet their labour needs by sometimes employing undocumented migrants from the Southern African region. Through insights from sub-imperialism and bordering, this paper discusses historical case examples from policy articulations, parliamentary debates, secondary literature and archival materials. By exploring cross-national relationships of exploitation and differentiation, the paper argues that exemptions should be understood as attempts by which the contradictions of ubiquitous informal cross-border mobility and employment in a regime of unfree regional movement might be resolved. Exemptions also attest to the challenge of governing human mobility in a region invested with a historically vast infrastructure of producing, attracting as well as exploiting cheap migrant labour
Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Immigration · Immigration policy · Labour economics · Migrant workers · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Work, culture, and identity
Theory of the Border
Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor
Silence and Invisibility
Zimbabwe's Migrants and South Africa's Border Farms
The Borders of "Europe"
Insiders and Outsiders
South Africa
South African multinational corporations, Nepad and competing regional claims on Post- Apartheid Southern Africa
Regional free movement of people
Bankrupt Africa
Political Economy of Informalization
Apartheid and the organised labour movement
(Sub)imperial South Africa? Reframing the Debate1
Zimbabwean Farm Workers in Northern South Africa
An unsettled belonging
Unscrambling the Scramble for Southern Africa
Migrant Labour and South African Expansion, 1920–1950
Bio(necro)polis
The Human-As-Waste, the Labor Theory of Value and Disposability in Contemporary Capitalism
The South African War (1899–1902)
Mines and Labour Migrants in Southern Africa
Colonialism and development in the contemporary world
Hyenas of the Limpopo
Lord Milner and the South African State
New labour frontiers for old
Introduction to Special Issue
New Regional Imaginaries in Post-Apartheid Southern Africa - Retail Workers at a Shopping Mall in Zambia
Citizen and Subject
Everyday Bordering in the Nordic Countries
Under the Rainbow
South Africa pushed to the limit
Waged Entrepreneurs, Policed Informality
The Ban on "Tropical Natives" and the Promotion of Illegal Migration in Pre-Apartheid South Africa
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |