Introduction and Background
Recent decades have seen a surge in extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric in many countries and regions, including the Southern African Region. Xenophobia, a form of hatred directed at foreigners, immigrants, and people who are perceived as foreigners, has been flooding social media in recent political climates. The COVID-19 pandemic further amplified xenophobic sentiment in politics, the media, and online, especially toward Chinese people and people of East Asian descent (Shen et al. 2022). Documented harms include “subordination, silencing, fear, victimisation, emotional symptoms, restrictions on freedom, lowering of self-esteem, maintenance of power imbalances (Hinz et al. 2023), “undermining of human dignity” (Williams et al. 2020), increased face-to-face encounters and hate-motivated violence (Gelber & McNamara 2015).
- At the policy level, anti-immigrant sentiment can lead to enforcement policies that shock the conscience. For example, candidate Donald Trump’s notorious statement calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” was widely credited with jump-starting his campaign and marked a path that led directly to anti-Muslim travel bans, family separation, and the United States’ refusal to release immigrants from COVID-ridden detention centres. Political candidates and government leaders have “bully pulpit” options such as modulating speech about immigrants and emphasising positive rather than punitive immigration policy, but the malleability of public sentiment encourages them to take the low road (Stephens- Davidowitz 2017). Inter-governmental bodies and civil society, including academia, are responding to this devastating trend.
- Article 20(2) of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights obliges the States to prohibit by law “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” Nonetheless, legal regimes range from somewhat restrictive toward hate speech (e.g., France) to extremely permissive (e.g. United States). Two United Nations human rights monitoring bodies are preparing to issue detailed guidelines on government obligations to address and eradicate xenophobia. South Africa is one of the first - if not the first - countries to develop a national action plan to address xenophobia. The plan was soon criticised for falling short of the “radically transformative agenda” needed to address escalating violence against immigrants effectively (Dratwa 2024). The African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand has created Xenowatch, an online crowdsourced tracker, and multiple reports on xenophobia in the South African context. Though traditionally a country of origin, Zambia is also a country of transit and a host to migrant communities. Zambia “awoke to [the] scourge” of xenophobia in a 2016 incident of mass violence against Rwandan refugees in Lusaka (Akinola 2018).
- In the U.S. context, Cornell has been working to build an anti-xenophobia research coalition. The key findings of a 2023 conference co-organized by U.S.-based NGO Define American and Cornell Law School included: 1) networked xenophobia dominates digital rhetoric and anti-immigration online narrative ecosystems are going nearly unchallenged; 2) there is a challenge in translating research and theory into advocacy and practice, which is partially attributed to a lack of accessible tools and shared communication between the immigration advocacy and academic communities; 3) it would be fruitful to conduct an asset mapping around immediate research needs from the field; 4) a space is needed to share active research, methodologies, a list of key scholars, narrative testing and relevant resources. Xenophobia is inherently tied to labour, as migration is linked to labour, both in the formal and informal sectors. This is especially true in the Southern African context, where xenophobia is exacerbated by employment scarcity and instability. It is for this reason that the conference will be xenophobia and labour law-focused.
Our primary goals for the 2026 conference in the Southern African Region are to:
- Create a shared understanding of the anti-xenophobia legal framework and policies in the African region, with a particular focus on the Southern African Region and the implementation lessons from the South African experience;
- Assess progress to date in light of the call for a “radically transformative agenda” and obstacles to interdisciplinary approaches to addressing xenophobia
- Develop and disseminate a shared research action plan for interdisciplinary research and scholar-practitioner collaboration to address and eradicate xenophobia in the region, and;
- Publish a peer-reviewed journal or book.
Submission Guidelines
We are calling for abstracts to be submitted from around the globe. Abstract should not exceed 150 words and include up to 5 keywords. Full papers should not exceed 8000 words. All submitted abstracts, papers will go through a double–blind peer– review process with decisions and comments availed to all authors. Final acceptance is only granted upon revising the manuscript in line with the reviewer's comments. Acceptance of the manuscript is subject to review and approval by the publishers. Publication in the proceedings and presentations at the conference are subject to registration and submission of copyright forms. Submit abstracts to suhailv@uj.ac.za
Main Topics
Section 1: Xenophobia and the Law 1.1:Xenophobia and Constitutional challenges 1.2:Judicial responses to xenophobia. 1.3: International and Comparative legal frameworks to codify xenophobia. Section 2: Xenophobia and its Societal Impact 2.1: Regional and international perspectives on xenophobia in the SADC region. 2.2: Accessing public amenities as migrants. 2.3: The impact of xenophobia on immigrants and their families. Section 3: Political Economy and Legal Implication of Xenophobia 3.1: Labour, scarcity, and the politics of development in shaping attitudes towards foreigners. 3.2: Historical economic challenges in South Africa and migration. 3.3: The impact of migrant workers (documented and undocumented) in South Africa. Graduate and Postgraduate Student submissions
- Photo credits: Unsplash (Jacques Nel; Palesa KaDqqy2h; Marwool jx; Marco Chilese; Ye jinghan; kao link; GinghanOscar Omondi, Alex Moliski, Daniel Eledut.