Localising anxieties: Ghanaian and Malawian immigrants, rising xenophobia, and social capital in Botswana

Dijk, R.A. van (2002)

Research paper

This report discusses some of the findings of exploratory research among Ghanaian and Malawian migrants in Gaborone, Botswana, which was carried out in March and November 2001. Over the last two decades, Botswana has been the focus of immigration from Ghana and Malawi. In recent years, this African immigration has been followed, as elsewhere, by the introduction of a charismatic and popular form of Christianity known as Pentecostalism. The position of Ghanaians and Malawians has been debated in the public media in the context of wider discussions on foreigners in Tswana society. Lately, these debates have hardened in tone, and the Botswana government is increasingly taking measures against the privileges these immigrants may have enjoyed. The report looks in particular at the ideological, i.e. religious dimensions of the Ghanaian and Malawian predicament in this tense context with the aim of formulating further research questions. [ASC Leiden abstract]

• Botswana
• Baptist Church
• immigrants
• Ghanaians
• Malawians

• All authors: Dijk, R.A. van
• Date: 2002
• Title of host publication: ASC Working Paper Series
• Issue: 49
• Name: 49