Introduction

In May 2008 South Africa was horrified as more than 70 people were killed and tens of thousands driven from their homes and displaced, in a country-wide outbreak of xenophobic violence, directed at foreign, mostly African nationals; but also at black South Africans.

The violent outbreak saw a remarkable response by civil society to the crisis. Humanitarian relief was provided by faith-based organisations, trade unions, social movements, non-profit organisations, the general public and others.

In 2009 The Atlantic Philanthropies commissioned Strategy & Tactics (S&T) to assess the response of South African civil society to the xenophobic violence and the implications for the future of civil society. S&T worked in partnership with the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Sociological Research at the University of Johannesburg, the University of the Western Cape and members of the Amandla Forum, and the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Karuti Kanyinga of South Consulting has also joined the team.

In the first phase of the project, 18 papers were written by a range of academics and researchers. The papers looked at the responses of specific sectors such as faith based organisations, trade unions, the ANC, COSATU and the corporate sector. Case studies explore responses where xenophobic violence was extreme – in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape; and places where it was averted, such as Khutsong.

The next phase of the project will include workshops with civil society organisations in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town to be held in January and February 2010. It will also see greater input by migrant civil society organisations and members, and a broader regional perspective looking at ethnic/xenophobic violence in the Great Lakes region and Kenya, as well as civil society responses in those places.

This blog has been created to generate discussion and thinking prior to the workshops. The blog will be hosted until March 2010 and will over the next few months include the executive summaries of the papers that have been written, as well as conference details. We encourage you to engage and share your reflections and opinions on the findings. Once the research is complete, it will be issued as a technical report; a policy booklet with summaries and recommendations; and, later, will be published as a book.