Living within and beyond Johannesburg: Exclusion, Religion and Emerging forms of Being

Drawing on original survey data and interviews, this article explores forms of exclusion, solidarity, and mutual recognition taking shape in Johannesburg among the city's new arrivals and long-term residents. It begins by highlighting three aspects of migrant life in central Johannesburg that situate affiliations with religion, kin, and space. The first is the relative absence of a self-defined and dominant host community; the second is the presence of a virulent and often violent nativism; and lastly, the strategies of recent arrivals to be both part of and apart from the city. In exploring these elements, the article suggests that religion is one of a number of strategies for negotiating inclusion and belonging while transcending ethnic, national and transnational paradigms. Central to these ambitions is ensuring partial inclusion in a transforming society without becoming bounded by it. Rather than reiterating a coherent or consistent philosophy, these are syncretic and ever-evolving amalgams of rhetorical and organisational tools drawing on a diversity of more established discourses and value systems. Through these articulations, migrants are inventing a new language of belonging that may generate unexpected, unpredictable, yet lasting categories of collective membership.