Vulnerability, Mobility and Place: Alexandra and Central Johannesburg Pilot Study

There are high levels of mobility into South Africa’s cities, both from within the country and from across its borders. Urbanisation creates demands on services and the potential for social conflict within the urban spaces to which people are moving. Given that it is impossible to deter people from moving to the country’s urban centres, there is an acute need to regularly monitor and assess the potential for violent conflict and the vulnerabilities people face in relation to achieving liveable income levels, access to services, and protection by the law.

Even while a move to an urban area often means improved income opportunities and service access for those who move, urban residents also face both humanitarian and developmental challenges. Consequently, there is a need to define vulnerability profiles of urban residents in ways that inform and assist in effectively targeting both immediate (i.e. ‘humanitarian’) and long-term (i.e. ‘developmental’) interventions. Mobility, internal or international, may in some ways increase vulnerability, or it may act as a protective factor. The relationship between mobility and vulnerability cannot be assumed but must be established empirically.

To these ends, this report summarises the findings of a pilot survey aimed at empirically assessing vulnerability levels and factors causing vulnerability as related to migration to the city. A further motivation for this study was to assess levels of violence and vulnerability experienced by individuals who had been affected or displaced by the wide-spread violence against foreign nationals in May 2008, especially those displaced within communities rather than to high profile displacement camps. The study was conducted as a collaboration between the Forced Migration Studies Programme of the University of the Witwatersrand (FMSP), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), and the South African Red Cross Society (SARCS). Research was conducted in Alexandra Township and three neighbourhoods in Johannesburg’s inner city (Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville) from 3 February to 3 March 2009. There were 2028 respondents overall, with 1006 in Alexandra and 1022 in the inner city. In each location, the sample was divided into foreign-born, South African-born recent arrivals to the city and South African-born longterm residents.

This report is a collaborative project of:

• The South African Red Cross Society (SARCS) and
• The Forced Migration Studies Programme at Wits University (FMSP)

With the support of:

• The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)
• The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)