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The passageways in Hillbrow are so dark, quiet, and dangerous. Lots of different crimes happen in or near passages and it is believed that this is where criminals hide themselves. (With permission from Sbu.)
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Many migrants in inner-city Johannesburg survive through unconventional and sometimes criminalized livelihood activities. In this article, we draw on data from a study which applied a participatory visual methodology to work with migrant women who sell sex, and explored the suitability of this approach as a way to engage with a presumed 'hard to re...
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... the participatory photography project, which we describe next, participants produced and shared images, captions, and reflections about their lives in Hillbrow. Their depictions of Hillbrow as a place of decay, violence, fear, and crime, but also as a place of work, family, life, and dreams, highlighted the contradictions and complexity of the suburb (see Figures 1-3). ...
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Citations
... In Lorentzville, women rely on exchanges for essentials like rent and food, particularly for their children, and often as a last resort. Similar findings from Botswana and Zimbabwe reflect a broader regional trend, where socio-economic hardships drive women to transactional sex as a coping mechanism (Dodson andCrush, 2004, 2021;Oliveira and Vearey, 2015). ...
Aims: In this article, we explored the ways that food insecurity, gender, migration, and intimate partner violence
(IPV) intersect with and restrict access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services among women engaging
in sex work in South Africa.
Methods: We draw on broader qualitative data collected between 2022 and 2023 through ethnographic methods.
This article specifically draws on data from in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 participants. Thematic
analysis was employed to examine the socio-economic and structural conditions shaping women’s lived experiences,
focusing on their adaptive strategies to mitigate food insecurity and access SRH services.
Results: We argue that food insecurity drives transactional relationships, with hunger influencing economic
choices while contributing to women’s vulnerability to gender-based violence and limiting their access to SRH
services. This limited access, especially to contraception and abortion, further exacerbates the risks faced by
these women, exposing them to compounded health and social challenges. We show that impoverished inner-city
women experience significant gaps in healthcare and social welfare systems. We emphasize the need to view
women’s actions as adaptive strategies to constrained circumstances.
Conclusion: We underscore the need for comprehensive policy interventions that expand healthcare access for
migrant populations and address the economic vulnerabilities that propel women into transactional sex. Our
findings contribute to the literature on gender, migration, and survival strategies, demonstrating the importance
of intersectional approaches in addressing food insecurity, violence, and reproductive justice.
... While questions about what decolonisation implies in migration studies have been more prevalent, the debate is often not about this rhetoric, but rather subsumed in calls for taking seriously the politics and ethics of the knowledge-producing process involving vulnerable groups. This includes moving towards poststructuralist ethics, shifting power asymmetries in research partnerships (see Jacobsen and Landau 2003;Landau 2019;McGrath and Young 2019), adopting greater reflexivity (the 'reflexive turn') (see Amelina 2021;Dahinden 2016;Nail 2015), and using participatory methods as a panacea for top-down methodological approaches that dominate the field (see Lines et al. 2024;Oliveira and Vearey 2015). Some migration scholars view these practices as ways to navigate the decentring/centring of migration studies. ...
This article proposes the concept of ‘chronopolitics’ as a heuristic for a kind of decolonial imagination in migration studies, one that insists on structural changes as opposed to those relational ones that dominate the field. The article argues that migration scholars should question the coloniality of key concepts they use in their work to understand how the ‘solutions’ they propose (re)embed a colonial world and view. Building on previous critiques of migration studies, the article proposes that a chronopolitical argument to decolonising migration studies reveals the intrinsic connectivity of temporal and geographical linkages, in order to relate migration research epistemologies to ontological problems. This can allow the migration discourse to move beyond the centre, to address the current ‘black burden’ of ambivalent academic positioning and predominant methodological and conceptual approaches to migration studies. In these ways, chronopolitics adds conceptually to an underexplored debate in the field.
... Participatory methods "challenge generic definitions of evidence by providing an extension to what we call evidence," and this can be anything from a photograph to a poem (Vanyoro 2015). This approach works best when dealing with underexplored groups and issues like sex work, gay rights, and migration (Oliveira and Vearey 2015). ...
In this chapter, we explore the tensions of working within “rigged” neoliberal academic spaces (Hendricks 2018) in an attempt to unpack what it means to study Africa’s mobile populations on their own terms. African universities are modeled after institutions of higher learning that emerged in the West (Hendricks 2018, 17). Hendricks (2018, 17) argues that African universities have also “cultivated their hierarchies, racial and gendered power relations, epistemologies, and ethnocentric constructions of what constitutes knowledge, and in which bodies and geographies it is supposedly located and enunciated.” International research partnerships enact, expose, and compound the inequalities, structural constraints, and historically conditioned power relations implicit in the production of knowledge (Landau 2019a, 26). These long-standing patterns of power define culture, labor, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the formal ending of colonial rule and reflect what Maldonado-Torres (2007) terms the “coloniality” of power (Vanyoro, Hadj-Abdou, and Dempster 2019). As female and male Zimbabwean migration scholars, we both find ourselves having to navigate this ambiguous academic space. Focusing on the researcher–participant relationship, we use case studies of our research with Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa and the use of poetry, as well as socially and morally grounded reflexivity, to show what engaging in research that speaks to local concerns and interests entails.
... These scholars rely more on poststructuralist ethics and calls for shifting power asymmetries in research partnerships (see Jacobsen & Landau, 2003;Landau, 2019;McGrath & Young, 2019). This work is also subsumed in the "reflexive turn" as the field has taken seriously the politics and ethics of the knowledge-producing process involving vulnerable groups (see Amelina, 2021;Dahinden, 2016;Nail, 2015) This is done by using participatory methods, for example, to counter-act top-down methodological approaches that have dominated the field (see Oliveira & Vearey, 2015). ...
This chapter explores how the distinction(s) implied by the term “fieldwork’”, gives rise to false and misleading dichotomies that are not so useful to any decolonial migration praxis that tries to undo the bureaucratic damage of hegemonic ideas about research ethics. It argues that the dichotomies of “home” and the “field” conjured by this term negate an intermediate space between these two extremes in which social relationships, kinship ties and social value define the possible extent of the risk of migration research to further marginalise or protect migrants. The opposing possibilities arise from the interaction of these social attributes to the extent that they mediate a definition of ethical responsibility that is meaningful in particular contexts. This lends, in turn, a novel meaning to power and reciprocity that necessitates a paradigm shift in the kinds of ethics procedures as well as considerations in partnerships on migration studies that presume that power relationships are evened out when research is undertaken by African researchers working in African academic institutions.
... Our interpretation that our workshop was successful was supported by the success of earlier academics who effectively implemented photo voice projects with sex workers by adhering to the same academic beliefs as our own (i.e. Cheng, 2013;Oliveira and Vearey, 2015). Hence, this supported our certainty that photo voice was one of the most powerful ways to do feminist engaged research from a sex workers' perspective. ...
... In thinking about developing these ethical guidelines for researchers, we suggest that the principles of participatory action research (PAR) should underline project approach and design. Built up over 20 years, sex work research now has a solid baseline of collaborative research which has peer researchers involved in the research process (see Garcia-Moreno et al., 2005;Guha, 2019;Oliveira, 2019;Oliveira and Vearey, 2015;Richter et al., 2014;Rickard, 2003;Schuler, 2017;Scorgie et al., 2013;Wahab, 2003;Yingwana, 2017Yingwana, , 2018. Building on the feminist praxis thinking from Maggie O'Neill (2001, the democratic inclusion of participants in the research process is key. ...
Doing research in the field of sex work studies throws up challenges. Among these are the restrictions and regulatory issues placed on researchers by institutional ethical review processes. We draw on academic research and our personal experiences as two researchers who have been involved with many sex work research projects to illustrate how sex work researchers face a set of challenges relating to ethics – we define these as institutional ethics challenges rather than ethical challenges. They are the challenges associated with applying for and obtaining ethical approval from research institutions and funders to conduct research on stigmatised and potentially criminalised topics. This article has three aims. First, to discuss the institutional ethics challenges that sex work researchers may encounter when applying for ethical clearance. Second, to assist researchers in making a case for their research by communicating the value of doing research on sex work in contexts where it remains criminalised and by placing the assumed risks associated with sex work research into perspective. Finally, to offer a pathway forward regarding how, guided by co-produced research protocols, researchers and sex work Communities can find common ground for good practice to enhance collaboration and foster genuinely ethical research.
... Yet, when it comes to dissemination, power often plays out in different ways. For example, participants may select materials that do not reflect what the researcher believes to be important, or the imperatives of research ethics may mean that researchers are unwilling to make certain materials public (Oliveira & Vearey, 2015). ...
... For a detailed description of 'Hidden Spaces' please seeVearey, 2010 9 For a detailed description of 'Working the City' please seeOliveira & Vearey, 2015; Vearey et al., 2011. 10 http://www.sweat.org.za/what-we-do/sisonke/ ...
In this paper, we explore the seductive nature of a participatory approach to research with marginalized migrant populations in South Africa. We outline the opportunities offered by such an approach while at the same time emphasizing the need for caution by showing how the ambitions of participatory research can sometimes be (mis)applied as a panacea for all of the tensions inherent in knowledge-production processes, including those associated with the extractive nature of research. We do this by drawing on our experiences in the development, implementation, and utilization of arts-based research undertaken in collaboration with international and domestic migrants in South Africa as part of the MoVE (method.visual.explore) project based at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), Wits University. Established in 2013, MoVE explores the idea of ‘participatory’ migration research. We reflect on how we were initially seduced by the idea of participation and show how we are working to strengthen our research praxis through continuously interrogating and reconfiguring our understanding of the opportunities—and limitations—associated with a participatory approach to research.
... Whilst reflecting global trendswith cross-border migrants comprising between three and 4% of the South African population [3,4] migrants are unevenly distributed across the country. Cities such as Johannesburg, and certain inner-city suburbs, such as Hillbrow, are home to a higher density of internal migrants and non-nationals than other parts of the country [5]. ...
Johannesburg is home to a diverse migrant population and a range of urban health challenges. Locally informed and implemented responses to migration and health that are sensitive to the particular needs of diverse migrant groups are urgently required. In the absence of a coordinated response to migration and health in the city, the Johannesburg Migrant Health Forum (MHF) – an unfunded informal working group of civil society actors – was established in 2008. We assess the impact, contributions and challenges of the MHF on the development of local-level responses to migration and urban health in Johannesburg to date. In this Commentary, we draw on data from participant observation in MHF meetings and activities, a review of core MHF documents, and semi-structured interviews conducted with 15 MHF members.
The MHF is contributing to the development of local-level migration and health responses in Johannesburg in three key ways: (1) tracking poor quality or denial of public services to migrants; (2) diverse organisational membership linking the policy process with community experiences; and (3) improving service delivery to migrant clients through participation of diverse service providers and civil society organisations in the Forum. Our findings indicate that the MHF has a vital role to play in supporting the development of appropriate local responses to migration and health in a context of continued – and increasing – migration, and against the backdrop of rising anti-immigrant sentiments.
... Many non-national migrants, especially those who are undocumented, enter the informal and often unregulated sector and work as domestic workers, street vendors, and sex workers (Oliveira and Vearey, 2015;Vearey et al, 2011). Such migrants, including women like Heather and Christine, are part of an increasing population of 'urban poor': individuals who travel to cities like Johannesburg but struggle to access the benefits of the city and, as a result, find themselves living and working on the peripherysocially, economically and physically (for example, see Vearey et al, 2010;Vearey, 2013). ...
... While non-national migrant sex workers have been shown to experience some advantages compared to their nonmigrant counterpartsincluding higher education levels and earning more money per clientthey also report facing high levels of risk and violence, in particular abuse and brutality from the police, challenges in accessing healthcare, and less frequent condom use (Richter et al, 2014). Thus the criminalisation of sex work intersects with the stigmatisation of and discrimination against those who are seen to 'not belong' (Oliveira, 2016;Oliveira and Vearey, 2015;Walker, 2016). ...
... This meant that all of the women had learnt to navigate, on a daily basis, the "hidden spaces" (Vearey, 2010) of the cityspaces that highlight the complexities and often marginalisation of the urban environment, where we find migrant populations who are "physically, socially, politically and in some ways economically, hidden from the functioning of the (formal) city" (Vearey, 2010:40). These are spaces that pose both opportunity and riskand, significantly, offer insight into how the (lack of) documentation and thus residing in SA illegally can compound the risks that nonnationals face, particularly if they also sell sex for a living (Oliveira and Vearey, 2015;Vearey, 2013). ...
This article explores the intersecting vulnerabilities of non-national migrant mothers who sell sex in Johannesburg, South Africa – one of the most unequal cities in the world. Migrants who struggle to access the benefits of the city live and work in precarious peripheral spaces where they experience intersecting vulnerabilities associated with gender norms, race, and nationality. These vulnerabilities manifest as abuse, discrimination, criminalisation, and multiple levels of structural and direct violence. Migrant women who sell sex also face stigma and moralising associated with the illegal sale of sex, being foreign, and being a single parent. Drawing on ethnographic work with non-national migrant mothers who sell sex in Johannesburg, and from ongoing work exploring research, policy and programmatic responses to migration, sex work and health, we use an analytical lens of intersectionality to explore the daily challenges associated with encountering and negotiating intersecting vulnerabilities. We consider how these vulnerabilities form entanglements (drawing on Munoz, 2016) and are (re)produced and embodied in everyday practice in the city. We explore how they shift in significance and impact depending on context and social location, and argue for a nuanced approach to understanding migration and the sale of sex that recognises these intersecting vulnerabilities – and entanglements.
... While there are no published studies documenting HIV prevalence among male cross-border migrants in South Africa, HIV prevalence was reported as 8 % among female cross-border migrants in Cape Town, although estimates ranged widely by country of origin [14]. Female cross-border migrants have been shown to be at an elevated risk for sexual violence while traveling to and after settling in South Africa [15,16], and limited employment opportunities have resulted in transactional sex becoming a main survival tool after women arrive in South Africa [17,18]. ...
Female cross-border migrants experience elevated risks for HIV, and migrants in South Africa may face additional risks due to the country’s underlying HIV prevalence. These risks may be mitigated by the receipt of social support. A behavioral risk-factor survey was administered using respondent-driven sampling. Multivariable regression models assessed the relationships between social support and two HIV outcomes: HIV serostatus and perceived HIV status. Low social support was not significantly associated with HIV status (aOR = 1.03, 95 % CI 0.43–2.46), but was significantly related to a perception of being HIV positive (aPR = 1.36, 95 % CI 1.04–1.78). Age, marital status, and education level were significantly associated with HIV serostatus. Illegal border-crossing, length of time in South Africa, anal sex, and transactional sex were significantly associated with aperception of being HIV positive. Future research should investigate how HIV risks and the receipt of social support change throughout the migration process.
