‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa:the Need for Mixed Methods Approachesin Policy-Orientated Research

Matthew Sharp

Published online: 10 July 2012# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract Much policy-orientated research in South Africa relies solely on large-scale surveys. Little or no case study research is undertaken as part of studies despitebroad international acknowledgement of the benefits of mixing methods. In the SouthAfrican poverty and demographic literature, strong arguments have been made for theincorporation of case study approaches to arrive at a deeper and more accurateunderstanding of social phenomena. This paper, which draws on an ethnographicstudy of ‘day labourers’ (both South African and foreign) in Cape Town, togetherwith an extensive range of relevant literature, extends this line of argument toresearch on casual employment and relations between South Africans and foreignnationals. It highlights a number of questionable assumptions and superficial analysespresent in previous survey-based research on these topics. It also discusses thepotential contribution of more case study work and some of the practical issuesassociated with linking methodologies in development research.

Keywords Informal economy . Day labour . Xenophobia . Immigration . Policyresearch . Mixed methods research

Large-scale surveys1 have historically been the preferred instruments for policy-oriented research the world over. This is related to a still-dominant technocratic andempiricist approach to development, which is in turn inextricably linked to the fact

Urban Forum (2013) 24:251–268DOI 10.1007/s12132-012-9152-2

1To clarify, large-scale survey refers to a structured questionnaire administered to a target population spreadout over a town/city, province, or the country. Case study refers broadly to a small-scale, contextual and in-depth study (Verschuren 2003). Case study research, involving one or more case studies, can include anarray of research activities generating mostly qualitative but also quantitative data: un-/semi-structuredinterviews, focus groups, participant observation, participatory methods, as well as small-scale quantitativesurveys.Mixed methods research then refers here, first and foremost, to the integration of specific (i.e. casestudy) and general (i.e. large-scale survey) methodologies (see also Barret 2003; Kanbur 2003).

M. Sharp (*)Darmstadt Technical University, Mundus Urbano Office, TUD/FB15 El-Lissitzky Strasse 1, 64287Darmstadt, Germanye-mail: matthew.j.sharp@gmail.com

that governments and multinational donors—with their requirements for rapidlyproduced, standardized ‘facts’—often fund this sort of research (Bulmer 1982;Carvalho and White 1996; Scott 1998). Nevertheless, there has been increasingawareness in the development world of the limitations of stand-alone surveys andof the value of mixed methods approaches, where case studies are used for generatinggrounded hypotheses, cross-checking findings across different scales and broadeningstudies (Bamberger 2000; White 2002; Rao and Woolcock 2003). While linkingmethodologies may not be appropriate for all research questions, in South Africa,many policy-oriented studies that could benefit from engaging more with case studyresearch fail to do so.

This paper picks out the particular problems with this state of affairs with regard totwo overlapping and survey-dominated fields of research: casual employment and‘local-foreigner’2 relations. It draws on a 5-week-long case study of ‘day labour’—ajob-seeking practice which takes place at visible roadside markets—in Cape Town,undertaken in June–July 2010, which first led me to question some of the conven-tional research procedures and conceptual frameworks employed in these tworesearch fields. In making the argument that future survey-based studies would gainconsiderably through more dialogue with case study work, this paper also consol-idates a broad range of empirical and theoretical literature from within South Africaand beyond.

I begin by looking at some relevant methodological debates that have emerged inSouth Africa in recent years, before explaining my own research process. I thenconsider some contentious aspects of, firstly, the ‘day labour’ work and, secondly, the‘xenophobia’ work that has been done up to now and highlight some areas where casestudies could be useful. Finally, I consider some of the practicalities of linkingmethodologies in future policy-orientated research in South Africa.

Methodological Matters

There has been a profusion of large-scale survey research in South Africa, especiallyin the post-apartheid period. Indeed, the sheer quantity of data that has been collectedon poverty, unemployment, public welfare and service delivery has led one prominentsociologist to assert that the country is ‘awash with statistics’ (Seekings 2006, p. 1).For decades, the apartheid state had a ‘mania for measurement’ (Posel 2000) as itgathered reams of statistics to justify its policies. But the hyper-modern post-1994state has been even more enthusiastic about numbers, and its research parastatals,Statistics South Africa and the Human Sciences Research Council, have conductedscores of policy-oriented surveys (Seekings 2006). In parallel, there has also been arapid growth in similar survey-based work coming out of university research institu-tions, which have in the past been dominated by economists (Seekings 2001).

Though there has been an ‘explosion of data’, it has not always been of the highestquality, and as such, this development has ‘not been matched by an unambiguousgrowth in certainty about key trends, processes, or patterns’ (Seekings 2006, p. 2; seealso Bhorat and Kanbur 2006; Seekings 2007). Consequently, questions have been

2 For simplicity’s sake, the term foreigner is used to refer to a black African migrant.

252 M. Sharp

asked about whether this furious collection of data in South Africa is actuallyconstructive, or whether emphasis should instead be placed on the comparativeanalysis of existing data, the improvement of data collection and analytical techni-ques and the ‘weaving together of quantitative and qualitative research’ (Seekings2006, p. 32).

Related to this last point, discussions about the advantages of case studyapproaches and ways of combining surveys and case studies have been steadilyrising to the surface of the South African development literature in the recentpast. In the field of poverty research, for example, Andries du Toit (esp. 2005a,b) has been a spirited advocate of the use of contextual research methods to betterunderstand the nature and causes of deprivation, and a number of mixed-methodprojects aiming to assess poverty dynamics have been carried out across the country(Arnall et al. 2004; Adato et al. 2006; Adato et al. 2007). In demography, a growingbody of literature (Ross 1996; Spiegel et al. 1996; Russell 2003; Hosegood et al.2005) has contested the standardized notion of ‘households’ used in housing andhealth policies, as well as the capacity of large-scale surveys to capture the fluidityand complexity of domestic arrangements. Additionally, a number of studies havecriticized the use of standalone surveys for research on reproductive and sexualpractices (Naidoo 2007), food insecurity (Misselhorn 2005) and foreign migrants(Bloch 2007).

Some of the common shortcomings of pure survey research that are highlightedagain and again in these studies—and in the critical international developmentliterature3—include:

1. A weakness of conceptual design related to an inadequate investigation ofrealities on the ground, which is often masked by apparent rigour in technicaldesign such that a whole set of false assumptions and misguided questions arehidden from view (e.g. Russell 2003)

2. A proneness to stereotypical depictions of reality and measurement error as itmay not be clear from the data gathered when questionnaire answers have beenskewed by misinterpretation or the hidden interests of respondents (e.g. Adato etal. 2007)

3. A limited ability to explore complex issues in any depth related to a dependenceon standardized rather than ‘locally relevant’ questions and to the limited trustrespondents may feel towards hired survey administrators (e.g. Naidoo 2007)

The above-mentioned studies have also suggested multiple ways that case studiescan be used to reduce these weaknesses. While only one study (Adato et al. 2007)specifically referred to mixed methods research, a broad definition thereof—asinvolving the use of both survey and case study research either simultaneously orsequentially within a single study or across a set of related studies (see Rao andWoolcock 2003; Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003; Johnson et al. 2007)—may encom-pass all the varied but related methodological recommendations proposed. Theserecommendations can be grouped together into several categories:

3 See, e.g. Kanbur (2002), White (2002), Herring (2003), Rao and Woolcock (2003) and Mayoux andChambers (2005).

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 253

1. Preliminary case study research can be undertaken at a new research site to gainsome basic information about respondents, context-specific issues and potentialdifficulties that could arise with survey administration (e.g. Bloch 2007).

2. Case studies and surveys can be undertaken in parallel, and their results can becompared and cross-checked to assess the validity and interpretation thereof (e.g.Adato et al. 2006).

3. Case studies can be used to examine a set of questions not suited to surveyresearch so as to gain a broader understanding of the research subject (e.g. du Toit2005a).

4. Conversely, it may sometimes be possible to an extent to incorporate insightsfrom previous case study research into large-scale surveys by expanding on thesurvey questionnaire (e.g. Hosegood et al. 2005).

Clearly there is no one-size-fits-all model of doing mixed methods research: Thebest way to go about it is always contingent on the particular research project: on theaims of the project, the level of prior research that has been carried out and time andfinancial constraints. Yet much can be gained from combining case study and surveyresearch in one way or another, and this conversation deserves a higher place on thedevelopment agenda in South Africa.

Cape Town Case Study

My own case study was undertaken at 3-day labour pick-up sites—two in CapeTown’s city centre and a third in the nearby suburb of Woodstock. The numbers ofday labourers at each site varied day to day, but on rainless weekdays, there weresomewhere between 60 and 90 men at all the sites combined.4 At each of the sites, Ispent several days just trying to meet as many of the day labourers as possible and toestablish some rapport with them. This was necessary because, firstly, some of themen5 were suspicious about the purposes of my research (Who was I doing it for?Would they be in the newspaper?), and secondly, at each of the sites, the SouthAfricans stood separately from the foreigners (mostly Zimbabweans, as well as someMozambicans and Malawians) and I had to negotiate this dynamic carefully. After Ihad a sense for the important issues, I conducted 20 survey-type interviews with theday labourers to assess incomes and demographic information. The first 14 of theseinterviews were followed up by in-depth, semi-structured interviews to exploreexperiences and perceptions related to this job-seeking practice. Apart from individ-ual interviews, I participated in many informal group discussions (involving at leastthree quarters of the jobseekers at all the sites), where I tested the key informationgained from interviews. I also conducted seven in-depth interviews with employersand compared the information given about their hiring practices to what the job-seekers had to say. Lastly, I spent a great deal of time just ‘hanging out’ with the men,

4 My research was undertaken in winter; it is likely that in summer and spring, there would be more daylabourers at the pick-up sites for reasons discussed later in the paper.5 There were only male day labourers at the three sites that I visited, though a minority of women doparticipate in this job-seeking practice in South Africa (see, e.g. Blaauw et al. 2006).

254 M. Sharp

observing their everyday activities at and around the pick-up sites and following themto jobs whenever possible to learn more about their working conditions.

‘Day Labour’ Research

The first study carried out on ‘day labour’ in South Africa was actually a small-scalecase study carried out at a single pick-up site in Pretoria (Schenck and Louw 2005).However, the three subsequent papers on this subject have been based on two large-scale quantitative surveys: The papers by Blaauw et al. (2006) and Blaauw andPretorius (2007) were based on a Pretoria-wide survey conducted in 2004 with240-day labourers and administered by 20 hired fieldworkers, and the paper byHarmse et al. (2009) was based on a national census-type survey in 2005/2006conducted by an undefined ‘research team’ with an unspecified number of daylabourers. These surveys have been useful for recording some of the descriptivecharacteristics of the jobseekers and for providing a broad picture of this job-seekingpractice. However, my fieldwork in Cape Town has led me to question some of thefundamental assumptions and findings of this research. It is important to put these onthe table considering it is expressly recommended in one of the papers (Blaauw andPretorius 2007, p. 69) that the Pretoria questionnaire be readministered on a country-wide scale. It seems to me that more work should be done to test the soundness of thissurvey and that case study research could be very useful for investigating crucialdimensions of this labour phenomenon that remain unexplored.

Formal Informal Linkages

There are several indications that previous day labour studies have operated with adual and disarticulated view of the ‘formal and ‘informal’ economies in South Africa,a view which also seems to inform much of the state’s policy focus in South Africa(Devey et al. 2006a). This is problematic because the boundary between these twoheuristic categories is considerably blurred and workers classified as formal in SouthAfrica often display traits of informal work and vice versa (see Skinner 2002; Deveyet al. 2006b).6 Budlender et al. (2001, p. 14, quoted in Devey et al. 2006a), forexample, found that 45 % of workers classified as being in the formal economy haveone or more characteristics of informality—i.e. they either do not have a writtencontract, a permanent position or paid leave. Extensive casualization and external-ization in many sectors of the labour market also contribute to much churning in thelabour market as people move between states of formal and informal employment (aswell as unemployment) over time (Devey et al. 2006a; Valodia et al. 2006). Addi-tionally, such a dualist perspective ignores the ways that formal and informal econo-mies are enmeshed and how the former may depend on and reproduce the latter(Moser 1978; du Toit 2005a). Unfortunately, insights from this critical economicresearch have not been tested in previous day labour studies.

6 For a detailed discussion of how ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ employment is defined in South Africa, seeDevey et al. (2006b) and Valodia et al. (2006).

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 255

Firstly, there seems to be an assumption in previous day labour research that onlyvery short-term jobs are available to day labourers. It appears that the two surveyquestionnaires did not include a question about the duration of the jobs received byday labourers, and all the studies seem to equate day labour with ‘looking for piecejobs’ (Blaauw et al. 2006, p. 463). However, at least for day labourers in Cape Town,circumstances appear to be quite different. Many of the men I interviewed describedhaving repeatedly found ‘contract’ jobs—referring not to jobs with employmentcontracts but to work done for companies that had received business contracts—lasting anywhere from one week to 12 months. Sometimes they also found whatmight be termed ‘permanent’ jobs—in the sense that they were employed indefinitely,but typically with no contract and payment in cash. Indeed, based on what I was toldduring interviews, it was the prospect of getting one of these ‘real’ jobs that keptmany of the men coming back to the pick-up sites.

Other evidence exists suggesting that it is not just in Cape Town where daylabourers may find longer-terms jobs. In a study of foreigner involvement in theconstruction industry in Johannesburg (Rogerson 1999, p. 12), it was found that 37 %of foreign workers interviewed had acquired their jobs at roadside pick-up sites.Though the study described the employment that the foreigners got as ‘irregular’ and‘unstable’, it was certainly more than just piece work: In fact, only 16 % of the meninterviewed reported that their first construction jobs lasted less than 6 months (ibid.).

The above calls into question a major conclusion of previous day labour studies:that being a day labourer is ‘not a viable alternative to full-time employment’(Blaauw et al. 2006, p. 466; see also Blaauw and Pretorius 2007). I sympathize withwhat is perhaps the underlying point here: that day labourers do not make ‘easymoney’ through doing piece work (as is sometimes the stereotype) and that they faceconsiderable hardships related to income insecurity. But if they can actually get workthat is no different from what many ‘formal’ workers in South Africa have—and,over a period of time, may move into and out of employment involving a standardwork week7—then this claim is misleading. Further research is needed here, but whatI expect will be found is that ‘day labour’ is a misnomer. A more accurate terminol-ogy—and one that I adopt henceforth in this paper—might refer to this labourpractice as ‘roadside job-seeking’ and its participants as ‘roadside jobseekers’.

Relatedly, one of the important questions about this labour practice that remainsunexamined concerns the relationship between roadside job-seeking and labourbrokers. In my own case study, when the jobseekers found work on constructionsites, they were often not recruited directly by a construction company but by asubcontracted labour broker. As a number of other studies describe (Rogerson 1999;van Eck 2010), this sort of arrangement allows companies to avoid any contractualrelationship with the workers themselves; indeed, it is for this reason that some arehappy to have foreign nationals in their workforces as they can ‘just turn a blind eye’to their possible ‘illegality’. However, the men in my study expressed some seriousmisgivings towards labour brokers in general, many of whom they regarded as‘robbers’. In fact, many had tried going to the offices of some more establishedlabour brokers but informed me that when they offered work, it was invariably forexploitative wages.

7 This is known to be the case with ‘day labourers’ in the USA (see, e.g. Theodore et al. 2006, p. 411).

256 M. Sharp

Calculating Income

Another issue that requires more careful attention is the income that is earned byroadside jobseekers. Blaauw et al. (2006) do well to acknowledge that accuratelycalculating an average income earned by roadside jobseekers is very difficult—because of substantial fluctuations in the fortunes of these jobseekers, related primar-ily to the fierce competition at pick-up sites for jobs and to the seasonal nature of theconstruction industry (Blaauw et al. 2006, p. 467). Though figures are presented forwhat jobseekers in Pretoria reported to have earned the month before the survey, theauthors are explicit about these figures not being representative. But this disclaimer ismissing from the Blaauw and Pretorius (2007) paper, and in the Harmse et al. (2009,p. 366) paper, the average amounts that are earned for a day’s work at a pick-up siteare used as proxies for the average long-term income earned at the site with noconsideration as to how often jobseekers find work.

It is undoubtedly both the case that information on income for roadside jobseekerswould be very valuable and that it is extremely challenging to collect. In addition tothe problems arising from the highly variable month-to-month earnings of jobseekers,the usual inaccuracies in income surveys arising from memory fallibility and inten-tional deception (e.g. Moore et al. 1997) are likely to be exacerbated in a situationwhere respondents have no fixed income, are often living a hand-to-mouth existenceand may wish to gain the sympathy of researchers. It is vital then that results fromthese surveys are presented cautiously. If more accuracy is sought, smaller-scale butmore detailed longitudinal income surveys, where information about the paymentsfrom specific jobs is regularly retrieved from roadside jobseekers, could be veryeffective for verifying income data from large-scale surveys.

Foreigner Involvement

Lastly, future research should focus more on foreigner involvement in roadside job-seeking in South Africa. Previous survey-based studies seem to have overlookedthem for the most part. The national census that was carried out just counted theoverall number of roadside jobseekers, and no mention was made of foreign job-seekers in the resultant study (Harmse et al. 2009). There may have been practicalreasons for this: Employment-related surveys in South Africa will tend to under-capture often undocumented foreigners who wish to avoid being identified andenumerated (Skinner 2006; Jacobsen and Landau 2003). Certainly in my own casestudy I encountered considerable reluctance on the part of the foreigners to admit theydid not have South African citizenship. Initially suspicious of my motives, they atfirst claimed that they were South African, but it later turned out that the jobseekers atthe pick-up sites I visited were predominantly foreign. Though the number of foreignroadside jobseekers in Cape Town in 2010 is of course not directly comparable to thatin Pretoria when the survey there was undertaken in 2004, it is at least worth pointingout the huge variance here—according to the Blaauw et al. (2006, p. 462) paper, only12 % of the population of roadside jobseekers in Pretoria was foreign in 2004.

Relatedly, foreign jobseekers’ situations and motivations for looking for work asroadside jobseekers should not just be assumed to be the same as those of SouthAfricans. A shortage of skills, a shrinking formal sector and a lack of work ethic may

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 257

be some of the major push factors behind South Africans’ involvement in roadsidejob-seeking, but this is not the case for all jobseekers who look for work in this wayas Blaauw et al. (2006) imply. It is not the absence of job opportunities whichprimarily constrains foreigners, but immigration legislation (see also Crush 1999;Amisi et al. 2011). Official work permits are impossible to (legally) obtain for thosewithout skills in specific professions, and there is a massive backlog of refugeeapplications for asylum seeker permits at the Department of Home Affairs.8 Con-sequently, contract-based formal sector jobs are unavailable to many foreigners. Inthis context, survey questions about previous formal sector employment in SouthAfrica, for example, may not be apposite for both South Africans and foreigners.Indeed, the trend towards informalization in the South African economy may have avery different meaning for foreigners than it does for most South Africans, i.e. it mayactually increase work opportunities for foreigners rather than decreasing them(Crush 1999).

Discussion

Certainly a lot more work remains to be done on roadside job-seeking in SouthAfrica. But it would be a mistake to simply replicate problematic survey-basedstudies on a wider scale without careful reflection on the questionnaire to be usedand indeed on the question of what this sort of quantitative research might achieve byitself. More case study research could be very productive for arriving at a betterunderstanding of some of the hidden characteristics and underlying mechanisms ofthis job-seeking practice and of the circumstances and strategies of its participants.Ethnographic-type studies focused on foreigner involvement in roadside job-seeking,small-scale longitudinal income surveys and a range of other case study approachescould be utilized.

‘Xenophobia’ Research

In the case of research in South Africa on so-called xenophobic attitudes and practices—a topic which has received much academic interest especially after the shocking attacksof May 2008 in which 62 people were killed and over 200,000 displaced (CoRMSA2008, p. 7)—there has been both survey and case study research, though little criticalengagement between the two. Many of the most high profile studies (Minnaar andHough 1996; Mattes et al. 1999; Crush 2000; Crush and Pendelton 2004; Crush2008; GCRO 2009) have taken the form of large-scale attitude surveys, which haveaimed to gauge the perceptions of a wide range of South Africans towards an array ofrelated issues—including immigration, the rights of refugees, the idea that foreignerscause crime and so on—and to offer policy recommendations about how to counter-act ‘xenophobic’ attitudes and violence. These attitude surveys have been central inhighlighting antipathy towards foreigners in South Africa, and the numerical

8 Of the 66,578 Zimbabwean asylum applicants between 2000 and April 2008, 710 were granted refugeestatus, some 4,000 were rejected and over 62,000 cases were left pending (CoRMSA 2007, p. 13, quoted inKriger 2010).

258 M. Sharp

information and statistical analysis produced may be the best way of getting thegovernment’s attention. However, this paper argues that on their own, these relativelysuperficial surveys are not very helpful for arriving at a nuanced conception of thissocial phenomenon and its causes and that much could be gained from incorporatingfindings from in-depth case studies.

Conceptualising ‘Xenophobia’

Strictly speaking, ‘xenophobia’ refers to the irrational fear or hatred of foreignersbecause they are foreign (Harris 2002, p. 170; Steenkamp 2009, p. 439). Thus, theconcept implies a pathological, deep-seated and very strong prejudice, which is aconsequence of ignorance and entirely without basis (Beck 1992; Harris 2002). Yet inSouth Africa, there is an unfortunate tendency to label all opposition to immigrationand immigrants as xenophobic: This is the case in both the popular media—which isoften prone to sensationalism—and in most academic studies on the subject.

On the most basic level, what is often overlooked is that an attitude which opposesimmigration need not be motivated by prejudice against immigrants. As Palmer(1996) argues about the Canadian case, it may also be a consequence (at least inpart) of a genuine belief that immigration makes things worse—that it increasesunemployment, for example, or puts a strain on healthcare. Thus, ascribing xenopho-bia to someone who falls into the latter category is mistaken (see also Beck 1992).

However, analyses accompanying South African attitude surveys have tended notto make the above distinction.9 As an example, respondents were asked in one surveywhether they thought there were ‘too many’, ‘too few’ or ‘the right number’ offoreigners entering South Africa, and when the majority chose ‘too many’, this wastaken as signifying a high level of ‘xenophobia’ (Crush and Pendelton 2004, p. 33).In another survey, respondents read the statement that ‘foreigners are taking benefitsthat are meant for South Africans’ and were asked to rate their response on a five-point scale. The 69 % of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed with thisstatement were considered to be ‘xenophobic’ (see Everatt 2011, p. 15). With thissort of reasoning, it is no surprise that these studies tend to conclude with claims that‘xenophobic attitudes’ are ‘deeply entrenched’ in South Africa (Crush 2008, p. 41) orthat ‘the majority’ of South Africans display a ‘distinct aversion’ to foreigners (Crush2000, p. 112).

In the wake of these studies, a slew of explanations have been offered for theostensibly extraordinarily high levels of prejudice towards foreigners in the country.One hypothesis is that South Africans are suspicious of foreigners because theyrepresent the ‘unknown’ after the apartheid isolation years (Morris 1998). Anotheris that the former see and treat the latter as ‘inferior’ because the rest of Africa isviewed as primitive, poverty-stricken and corrupt (Nyamnjoh 2006; Neocosmos2008). Much has also been said about the role of the popular media in perpetuatingnegative stereotypes about foreigners taking jobs en-masse and bringing crime anddisease to South Africa (Danso and McDonald 2001; Nyamnjoh 2010). All of thesetheories may have some explanatory value, but there is much they miss out on too.

9 The one notable exception is Mattes et al. (1999).

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 259

Evidence from Cape Town

Certainly in my own case study research, it would be inaccurate to call the apparenthostility of the South African jobseekers towards their foreign counterparts ‘xeno-phobic’. Initially this did appear to be the case though: At all the pick-up sites, Ivisited the South African men stood apart from the foreigners, and on many occa-sions, I heard the South Africans talk badly about them. The South African jobseekerswould often refer to the foreigners as kwerekwere, a pejorative term effectivelymeaning ‘stutterers’ and implying ignorance and cultural backwardness (Nyamnjoh2006, p. 39). Some also claimed that the foreigners were caught up in crime and thatthey were without manners—that they came ‘from the bush’. However, this appa-rently irrational but verbally expressed mindset towards foreigners turned out to be atodds with the behaviour of the South African jobseekers, who, for the most part,seemed to get on quite well with the foreigners seeking work alongside them. In fact,members of the two groups often sat and chatted together away from the distinct‘territories’. Moreover, it became clear that the South Africans who were ‘regular’jobseekers—i.e. they had been coming to site for many months and often years—were well acquainted and often on friendly terms with the ‘regular’ foreigner. In laterin-depth interviews, most of the South Africans were considerably less slanderoustowards the foreigners. The former even seemed to be quite sympathetic to the plightsof the latter, though most maintained that the foreigners should leave the pick-upsites.

Aside from some casually uttered comments, there was little evidence to actuallysuggest the South African jobseekers were deeply prejudiced towards the foreigners.What did emerge as much more salient though was a widespread perception thatforeigners were ‘stealing jobs’. I heard this refrain countless times from the SouthAfricans, expressed with what seemed to be real antagonism. In fact, it was onlyreally when the South Africans were vying with the foreigners for the attention ofemployers at the pick-up sites that tempers flared between the groups. While I neverwitnessed any violence myself, I heard many accounts of South Africans initiatingfights with foreigners after the former had lost out on jobs to the latter. Several factorsshould be considered in relation to these tensions.

Firstly, it is essential to recognize the role of economic circumstances in thesetensions. There was much material deprivation at the pick-up sites I visited and oftenthe men struggled to put enough money together to buy some food to share betweenthem. The major problem here was that there were many more jobseekers than jobsavailable at these sites. Moreover, there were no orderly mechanisms for distributingwork at the pick-up sites: The men did not queue to get jobs but very literallycompeted with each other to gain the attention of employers. In this context, ill-feeling and conflict were bound to arise.

Secondly, some, but not all, of the South African jobseekers expressed the opinionthat the foreigners should not have been looking for work alongside them at all—anopinion which can be related to a larger context of normatively charged conceptionsof citizenship and entitlement. The effects of a pervasive nationalist discourse inSouth Africa have been analysed in much more depth elsewhere (see, e.g. Crush1999; Neocosmos [2006] 2010), but to put it briefly, many of the South Africanjobseekers seemed to have bought into the idea, or at least to have gone along with it

260 M. Sharp

because of their desperation that foreigners (at least those without documentation)had no right to work in South Africa. It needs to be pointed out here though thatexpressing such a view should not be seen xenophobic per se—i.e. an illogicalprejudice against foreigners should not be assumed—as this idea is of course manifestin the very legislation that governs the border (Harris 2002; Neocosmos [2006] 2010;Sharp 2008).

The third factor behind these tensions was more context-specific. All of the verbalreports I gathered in the field suggested the same thing: that employers using the pick-up sites for the most part preferred foreigners over South Africans, which meant thatthe former got relatively more jobs than the latter. This situation in itself was enoughto generate some animosity towards the foreigners, but additionally some SouthAfricans conferred blame on the foreigners themselves because it was assumed thatthe latter were working for lower wages than they (although this was not necessarilythe case always).10

The above example goes to show that what appears to be xenophobia can be morecomplex than it first seems. While South Africans might seem to regard social andcultural differences as important and may seem to hold very stereotypical views offoreigners—as was the case with the South African roadside jobseekers who partici-pated in my research—this may sometimes be more calculated than genuine, a self-conscious way of creating distance and of justifying why foreigners should leave thecountry for instrumental purposes.11 I am convinced that if the South African road-side jobseekers I met were approached by someone conducting a questionnaire andasked whether or not their foreign counterparts commit crime,12 every one of themwould answer in the affirmative. Perhaps this, though, would not so much reflect theirdeep-rooted bigotry towards foreigners but that the stereotype about foreigners beingcriminals is easily accessible13 and useful for backing up their overriding position thatforeigners should leave the country. For the same reason, the attribution of negativecharacteristics to foreigners in an attitude survey should not be considered separatelyfrom an expressed view, for example, that foreigners take jobs.14 In fact, thistendency for South Africans’ expressed attitudes towards foreigners in surveys tobe more negative than their actual behaviour has been picked up by several otherstudies (Dodson and Oelefse 2000, pp. 141–142; Everatt 2011, p. 16). Given this,researchers should be very careful about making policy recommendations based on

10 While such an assumption may have had some basis, employers also seemed to prefer foreigners becauseof a complicated confluence of popular stereotyping and rational discrimination (see also Rogerson 1999;Crush 1999)—as well as prejudice against working class Black South Africans, which can be related to thehistory of racial apartheid.11 For theory on the self-conscious manipulation of cultural boundaries, see, e.g. Harrison (1999).12 This question is specific and therefore quite straightforward to answer. However, in a large-scale,quantitative attitude surveys, the corresponding question might be ‘Do foreigners commit crime in SouthAfrica?’, which is highly ambiguous given that it is perfectly possible to hold that a select group offoreigners are criminally oriented, while all the others are not.13 It is generally accepted that there is no static underlying evaluation behind respondents’ answers to attitudequestions (Sudman et al. 1996; Tourangeau et al. 2000). Survey responses are based on information—including vague impressions and general values—that is readily available (Sudman et al. 1996, p. 72).Thus, the widespread xenophobia discourse is likely to significantly affect respondents’ answers to surveyquestions, without necessarily affecting their essential feelings towards foreigners.14 For this well-known problem related to methodological individualism in attitude surveys, see, e.g. Zallerand Feldman 1992.

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 261

the collection of popular quasi-prejudices (see also Neocosmos [2006] 2010, p. 128;Sharp 2008; Amisi et al. 2011, p. 66).

Contextualising Anti-migrant Attitudes and Violence

The example from my case study also demonstrates that very particular contextualfactors can play a part in anti-migrant sentiment (see also Dodson and Oelefse 2000;Charmen and Piper 2012). Unfortunately, these cannot be picked up by large-scaleattitude surveys, which often homogenise diverse perceptions towards foreigners(Neocosmos [2006] 2010). Even if these surveys work in a ‘composite xenophobiascore’ system to try to establish a ‘xenophobic profile’ in South Africa and expandtheir Likert scales, this is not going to go very far towards achieving a moresophisticated analysis. When the Southern African Migration Project adopted thesemeasures in 2008, it ended up with the following results: White people in SouthAfrica are supposedly more ‘xenophobic’ than black people and pensioners more‘xenophobic’ than both the employed and unemployed (Crush 2008, pp. 33–36). Yetthese results are counter-intuitive since ‘composite xenophobic scores’ appear to havebeen garnered from questions about the association of foreigners with unemployment,disease and crime, all these negative phenomena surely affecting white people andpensioners much less than other groups. Indeed, no explanation is offered for thesefindings, which is just as well since nothing can be deduced from the data alone (seealso Neocosmos [2006] 2010).

Given that large-scale attitude surveys can only pick up on tensions in a verygeneral and abstract way, they are also, by themselves, not going to help muchin finding out what is behind anti-immigrant violence. Attitude surveys may toan extent be suggestive of behaviour, yet there is rather a big differencebetween preferring a group of people to not be in one’s country and beingdisposed to violently remove—and even kill—them (see also Neocosmos [2006]2010; Sharp 2008). Hence, case studies are also needed for examining the specificcauses of and context behind violence in the areas where it breaks out (Misago et al.2009).

Indeed, several very useful case studies have already been undertaken on thistopic. Dodson and Oelefse’s (2000) case study in Mizamoyethu in Cape Town,following up on an earlier attitude survey, examined the particular local factors—including competition over employment in the fishing industry and the township’shistory—behind conflict between South Africans and foreigners. The study ofMisago etal. (2009) established that leadership conflicts were a very important factor in the2008 attacks—that the violence was not simply the result of anti-foreigner resentmentboiling over but was to a large extent organized and planned by informal leadershipgroups (pp. 38–40). Likewise, Amisi et al. (2011) found that a lack of leadership wasa major short-term factor for the inadequate response of certain communities to anti-foreigner violence in Durban, while also showing how a host of structuralproblems—including unemployment, poverty and poor service delivery—playedinto the violence. These sorts of studies can contribute much to the formulationof localized policy responses, while their nuanced perspectives on hostility anddiscrimination towards foreigners should lead us to reassess narrow, overlygeneralised conceptions of ‘xenophobia’.

262 M. Sharp

Discussion

To sum up, there has been too much reification of anti-immigrant and anti-immigration sentiment in policy-oriented research in South Africa. As Dodson andOelefse (2000, p. 145) argue, ‘there is no simple two way opposition between“locals” and “foreigners”’ but rather ‘a complex geography of acceptance anddiscrimination, inclusion and exclusion’. Acknowledging this is not to downplaythe problems that foreigners face in South Africa. Certainly there is a significantamount of hostility towards and discrimination against foreigners—it just occurs formultiple and often complex reasons, which need to be understood if policy is to bemost effective. Identity does of course play a part here, but it is a fluid construct and isenacted and improvised according to people’s needs (Hall 1991; Kearney 1995).Thus, a more critical interpretation of self-reporting in attitude surveys is needed, andcase studies should be used to disaggregate anti-immigration and anti-immigrantsentiments, examining which South Africans are opposed to what about immigrationand/or immigrants and why.

Discussion and Recommendations

The argument and evidence presented in this paper support a case for the reconsid-eration of case studies as a fundamental tool for research on casual employment andlocal foreigner relations in South Africa. The paper has shown that previous survey-based studies have been prone to some questionable assumptions and to homogeniserespondents and that case studies could be very useful for arriving at a more nuanced,contextually relevant picture of things. The basic idea is that research should follow adialogic process which utilizes the differences between these methodologies toachieve more accurate and relevant information to be used for addressing pressingsocial problems. But what of the practicalities involved?

A major hurdle acknowledged in the literature on mixed methods is institutionalinertia and prejudice, which tend to reproduce conventional divisions between dis-ciplines and methodologies (e.g. Mayoux and Chambers 2005). Certainly this mayapply in South Africa where the state seems committed to a particular model ofdevelopment that privileges survey methods and macro-level statistical analyses(Seekings 2006). There may also be other issues here. Case study research can betime-consuming and requires skilled researchers carefully trained to carry outopened-ended research: to ask unstructured questions, record responses and assesscontextual information. It is of course far easier for a research team to draw up astructured questionnaire which can then be administered by any number of hiredhands.

However, the status quo cannot be defended with an argument about a shortage ofresources. If large-scale surveys suffer from serious inadequacies, then not much is tobe gained by administering them repeatedly and on ever larger scales (as, forexample, was the intention with the surveys on roadside job-seeking). The problemthough is that the state seems to put a premium on ‘scientific representativeness’ andmeasurement, and small-scale case studies may not be viewed as ‘rigorous’ enoughfor policy-making.

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 263

One possible response is for researchers to make their case study work moretransparent (Ritchie and Spencer 1994; Baxter and Eyles 1997). Very often policy-oriented case studies do not include an adequately detailed methods section,and thus, readers are not able to follow the research approach and criticize it ifnecessary. It may not be to everyone’s liking, but if case studies are to gaincredibility in policy circles, they should include thorough explanations ofmethods of data collection and analysis. Additionally, if conditions permit, casestudies may make use of sampling techniques to improve the generalisability oftheir findings (e.g. Kozel and Parker 2000).

It is vital though that case studies are not overly restricted by these sorts ofstandardized methods and schedules (Booth 2003). In order to complement the highlyprestructured form of large-scale survey questionnaires, case studies should beexploratory (Bailey et al. 1999; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004). Thus, interviewsshould be open-ended, and space should be given for questions to evolve as theresearch proceeds. Additionally, researchers should be able to follow leads at will andmake use of various research activities depending on what they find.

Equally important is for case study research to remain critical. The risk ofmainstreaming case study research, as du Toit (2005b, pp. 11–12) argues, is that itbecomes trapped in a reductionist, power-blind imaginary of policy-making. In thelong tradition of critical sociology in South Africa, case study research must mean-ingfully engage with the intricacies of political economy and power relations. This isnot to write-off the role of agency but is essential for the design of relevant policiesthat go beyond technicist short-term solutions and tackle the roots of developmentissues (Du Toit 2005b; Amisi et al. 2011).

Finally, if there is to be a move away from the orthodoxy of stand-alone large-scalesurveys in South African policy-oriented research towards a paradigm more amenableto mixed methods approaches, it will be driven by the academy. There are someencouraging signs with several university research institutions subscribing to a codeof multi-disciplinarity and producing high-quality, innovative work. Yet in manydevelopment fields, research remains fragmented and there is an apparent hesitancyon the part of researchers to critically scrutinize others’methodological approaches. Ifmixed methods research is to gain a proper foothold in policy circles in South Africa,then there needs to be greater dialogue between academic researchers and moreconcerted pressure placed on state institutions.

Acknowledgments Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the South African City StudiesConference at the University of Cape Town, 7–9 September 2011, and at the Youth Forum of theUrban Revolutions Conference at Tarumanangara University, Jakarta, 16–20 March 2012. Thankyou to participants at these events for their feedback. Thank you also to Mallikya Shakya, JohnSharp and an anonymous reviewer for valuable written comments. I am also grateful to AndrewSpiegel for supervising the original research project and to George Ellis for funding it. All viewsexpressed are my own.

References

Adato, M., Carter, M. R., & May, J. (2006). Exploring poverty traps and social exclusion in South Africausing qualitative and quantitative data. The Journal of Development Studies, 42(2), 226–247.

264 M. Sharp

Adato, M., Lund, F., & Mhlongo, P. (2007). Methodological innovations in research on the dynamics ofpoverty: a longitudinal study in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. World Development, 35(2), 247–263.

Amisi, B., Bond, P., Cele, N., & Ngwane, T. (2011). Xenophobia and civil society: Durban’s structuredsocial divisions. Politikon, 38(1), 59–83.

Arnall, A., Furtado, J., Ghazoul, J., & de Swardt, C. (2004). Perceptions of informal safety nets: a casestudy from a South African informal sector. Development Southern Africa, 21(3), 443–460.

Bailey, C., White, C., & Pain, R. (1999). Evaluating qualitative research: dealing with the tension between‘science’ and ‘creativity’. Area, 31(2), 169–183.

Bamberger, M. (Ed.). (2000). Integrating quantitative and qualitative research in development projects.Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Barret, C. (2003). Integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches: lessons from the pastoral riskmanagement project. In R. Kanbur (Ed.), Q-Squared: combining qualitative and quantitative methodsof poverty appraisal (pp. 90–96). Delhi: Permanent Black.

Baxter, J., & Eyles, J. (1997). Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: establishing rigor ininterview analysis. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 22(4), 505–525.

Beck, R. (1992) ‘Xenophobia’: scrabble winner; debate stopper. The Social Contract, Spring Issue, 144–148Bhorat, H., & Kanbur, R. (2006). Poverty and well-being in post-apartheid South Africa. In H. Bhorat & R.

Kanbur (Eds.), Poverty and policy in post-apartheid South Africa (pp. 1–17). Pretoria: HumanSciences Research Council.

Blaauw, P., Louw, H., & Schenck, R. (2006). The employment history of day labourers in South Africa andthe income they earn—a case study of day labourers in Pretoria. South African Journal of Economicand Management Sciences, 9(4), 458–471.

Blaauw, P., & Pretorius, A. (2007). Day labourers in Pretoria—entrepreneurial spirit in action or survivorsin a cul de sac. South African Journal of Human Resource Management, 5(1), 61–70.

Bloch, A. (2007). Methodological challenges for national and multi-sited comparative survey research.Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), 230–247.

Booth, D. (2003). Towards a better combination of the quantitative and the qualitative: some design issuesfrom Pakistan’s participatory poverty assessment. In R. Kanbur (Ed.), Q-Squared: combining qual-itative and quantitative methods of poverty appraisal (pp. 97–103). Delhi: Permanent Black.

Budlender, D., Buwembo, P., Chobokoane, N., & Shabalala, N. (2001). The informal economy: statisticaldata and research findings country case study: South Africa. Paper produced for Women in InformalEmployment Globalising and Organising, Durban.

Bulmer, M. (1982). The uses of social research. London: Allen & Unwin.Carvalho, S. & White, H. (1996) Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to poverty measure-

ment and analysis. World Bank technical paper no. 366. Washington, DC: World Bank.Charmen, A. & Piper, L. (2012) Conflict and cohesion in the informal economy: a reassessment of the

mobilization of xenophobic violence in the case of spaza shops in Delft South, Cape Town, SouthAfrica. Draft available at: www.livelihoods.org.za

Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA) (2007) Protecting refugees & asylumseekers. Annual report 2007. Johannesburg: CoRMSA.

CoRMSA. (2008). Protecting refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in South Africa. Johannesburg:CoRMSA.

Crush, J. (1999). The discourse and dimensions of irregularity in South Africa. International Migration, 37(1), 125–142.

Crush, J. (2000). The dark side of democracy: migration, xenophobia and human rights in South Africa.International Migration, 38(6), 103–133.

Crush, J. (2008) The perfect storm: the realities of xenophobia in contemporary South Africa. SAMPmigration policy paper 50. Cape Town: Idasa.

Crush, J. & Pendelton, W. (2004) Regionalizing xenophobia? Citizen attitudes to immigration and refugeepolicy in Southern Africa. SAMP migration policy paper 30. Cape Town: Idasa.

Danso, R., & McDonald, D. (2001). Writing xenophobia: immigration and the print media in post apartheidSouth Africa. Africa Today, 48(3), 114–137.

Devey, R., Skinner, C. & Valodia, I. (2006a) Second best? Trends and linkages in the informal economy inSouth Africa. School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu–Natal (UKZN), working paper06/102. Durban: UKZN.

Devey, R., Skinner, C., & Valodia, I. (2006b). Definitions, data and the informal economy inSouth Africa: a critical analysis. In V. Padayachee (Ed.), The development decade? Economicand social change in South Africa, 1994–2004 (pp. 302–332). Cape Town: Human Sciences ResearchCouncil.

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 265

Dodson, B., & Oelefse, C. (2000). Shades of xenophobia: in-migrants and immigrants in Mizamoyethu,South Africa. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 34(1), 124–148.

Du Toit, A. (2005a) Chronic and structural poverty in South Africa: challenges for action and research.Chronic Poverty and Development Policy paper no. 6. Cape Town: Programme for Land and AgrarianStudies (PLAAS).

Du Toit, A. (2005b) Poverty measurement blues: some reflections on the space for understanding“chronic” and “structural” poverty in South Africa. Chronic Poverty and Development Policy seriesno. 6. Cape Town: PLAAS.

Everatt, D. (2011). Xenophobia, state and society in South Africa, 2008–2010. Politikon, 38(1), 7–36.Gauteng City-Region Observatory. (2009). Quality of life survey. Johannesburg: GCRO.Hall, S. (1991). Old and new identities, old and new ethnicities. In A. D. King (Ed.), Culture, globalization

and the world-system (pp. 41–68). Houndmills: Macmillan.Harmse, A., Blaauw, P., & Schenck, C. (2009). Day labourers, unemployment and socio-economic

development in South Africa. Urban Forum, 20(4), 363–377.Harris, B. (2002). Xenophobia: a new pathology for a new South Africa? In D. Hook & G. Eagle (Eds.),

Psychopathology and social prejudice (pp. 169–184). Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.Harrison, S. (1999). Cultural boundaries. Anthropology Today, 15(5), 10–13.Herring, R. (2003). Data as a social product: problems in qualitative and quantitative work. In R. Kanbur

(Ed.), Q-squared: combining qualitative and quantitative methods of poverty appraisal (pp. 90–96).Delhi: Permanent Black.

Hosegood, V., Benzler, J., & Solarsh, G. (2005). Population mobility and household dynamics in ruralSouth Africa: implications for demographic and health research. Southern African Journal of Demog-raphy, 10(1/2), 43–68.

Jacobsen, K., & Landau, L. (2003). The dual imperative in refugee research: some methodologicaland ethical considerations in social science research on forced migration. Disasters, 27(3), 185–206.

Johnson, R. B., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Mixed methods: a research paradigm whose time has come.Educational Researcher, 33(7), 14–26.

Johnson, R. B., Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Turner, L. A. (2007). Toward a definition of mixed methodsresearch. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1, 112–133.

Kanbur, R. (2002). Economics, social science and development. World Development, 30, 477–486.Kanbur, R. (2003). Qualitative and quantitative poverty appraisal: the state of play and some questions. In

R. Kanbur (Ed.), Q-squared: combining qualitative and quantitative methods of poverty appraisal (pp.1–21). Delhi: Permanent Black.

Kearney, M. (1995). The local and the global: the anthropology of globalization and transnationalism.Anthropology Quarterly, 68(1), 547–565.

Kozel, V., & Parker, B. (2000). Integrated approaches to poverty assessment in India. In M. Bamberger(Ed.), Integrating quantitative and qualitative research in development projects (pp. 59–68). Wash-ington, DC: The World Bank.

Kriger, N. (2010). The politics of legal status for Zimbabweans in South Africa. In J. McGregor & R.Primorac (Eds.), Zimbabwe’s new diaspora: displacement and the cultural politics of survival (pp. 77–100). USA: Berghahn Books.

Mattes, R., D. Taylor, D. McDonald, A. Poore & W. Richmond. (1999) Still waiting for the barbarians: SAattitudes to immigrants and immigration. SAMP migration policy series 14. Cape Town: Idasa andKingston.

Mayoux, L., & Chambers, R. (2005). Reversing the paradigm: quantification, participatory methods andpro-poor impact assessment. Journal of International Development, 17, 271–298.

Minnaar, A., & Hough, M. (1996). Who goes there? Perspectives on clandestine migration and illegalaliens in South Africa. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.

Misago, J. P., Landau, L., & Monson, T. (2009). Towards tolerance, law and dignity: addressing violenceagainst foreign nationals in South Africa. Pretoria: International Organization for Migration.

Misselhorn, A. (2005). What drives food insecurity in southern Africa? A meta analysis of householdeconomy studies. Global Environmental Change, 15, 33–42.

Moore, J., Stinson, L. & Wellnaik, E. Jr. (1997) Income measurement error in surveys: a review. Statisticalresearch report. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Morris, A. (1998). “Our fellow Africans make our lives hell”: the lives of Congolese and Nigerians living inJohannesburg. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(6), 1116–1136.

Moser, C. N. (1978). Informal sector or petty commodity production: dualism or independence in urbandevelopment. World Development, 6, 1041–1064.

266 M. Sharp

Naidoo, K. (2007) Researching reproduction: reflections on qualitative methodology in a transformingsociety. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), 12. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0801121

Neocosmos, M. (2008). The politics of fear and the fear of politics: thinking about xenophobia in SouthAfrica. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 43(6), 586–594.

Neocosmos, M. [2006] (2010) From ‘foreign natives’ to ‘native foreigners’: explaining xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa (2nd ed.). Senegal: Codesria

Nyamnjoh, F. (2006). Insiders & outsiders. Dakar: Codesria.Nyamnjoh, F. (2010). Racism, ethnicity and the media in Africa: reflections inspired by studies of

xenophobia in Cameroon and South Africa. Africa Spectrum, 45(1), 57–93.Palmer, D. (1996). Determinants of Canadian attitudes towards immigration: more than just racism?

Canadian Journal of Behavioural Sciences, 28(3), 180–192.Posel, D. (2000). A mania for measurement: statistics and statecraft in the transition to apartheid. In S.

Dubow (Ed.), Science and society in Southern Africa (pp. 116–142). Manchester: Manchester Uni-versity Press.

Rao, V., &Woolcock, M. (2003). Integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches in program evaluation.In F. Bourguignon & L. Pereira da Silva (Eds.), The impact of economic policies on poverty andincome distribution (pp. 165–190). New York: Oxford University Press.

Ritchie, J., & Spencer, L. (1994). Qualitative analysis for applied policy research. In A. Bryman & R. G.Burgess (Eds.), Analyzing qualitative data (pp. 173–194). London: Routledge.

Rogerson, C. (1999) Building skills: cross-border migrants and the South African construction industry.SAMP migration policy series 11. Cape Town: Idasa.

Ross, F. (1996). Diffusing domesticity: domestic fluidity in Die Bos. Social Dynamics, 22(1), 55–71.Russell, M. (2003). Understanding black households: the problem. Social Dynamics, 29(2), 5–47.Schenck, R., & Louw, H. (2005). An exploratory study on day labourers in Elardus Park Pretoria. Social

Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 41(1), 84–95.Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed.

New Haven: Yale University Press.Seekings, J. (2001). The uneven development of quantitative social science in South Africa. Social

Dynamics, 27(1), 1–36.Seekings, J. (2006) Facts, myths and controversies: the measurement and analysis of poverty and inequality

after apartheid. In Paper prepared for the ‘After Apartheid’ Conference, Cape Town, 11–12 August.Seekings, J. (2007) Poverty and inequality after apartheid. Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR)

working paper no. 200. Cape Town: CSSRSharp, J. (2008). “Fortress South Africa”: xenophobic violence in South Africa. Anthropology Today, 24(4),

1–3.Skinner, C. (2002) Understanding formal and informal economy labour market dynamics: a conceptual

and statistical review with reference to South Africa. School of Development Studies, University ofKwaZulu Natal, research report no. 50. Durban: UKZN.

Skinner, C. (2006). Falling though the policy gaps? Evidence from the informal economy in Durban, SouthAfrica. Urban Forum, 2(17), 125–148.

Spiegel, A., Watson, V., & Wilkinson, P. (1996). Domestic diversity and fluidity among some Africanhouseholds in Greater Cape Town. Social Dynamics, 22(1), 7–30.

Steenkamp, C. (2009). Xenophobia in South Africa: what does it say about trust? The Round Table, 98(403), 439–447.

Sudman, S., Bradburn, N., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Thinking about answers: the application of cognitiveprocesses to survey methodology. USA: Josey-Bass.

Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (2003). Major issues and controversies in the use of mixed methods in thesocial and behavioural sciences. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods insocial and behavioural research (pp. 3–50). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Theodore, N., Valenzuala, A., & Meléndez, E. (2006). La Esquina (The Corner): Day labourers on themargins of New York's formal economy. Working USA: The Journal of Labour and Society, 9, 407–423.

Tourangeau, R., Rips, L., & Rasinksi, K. (2000). The psychology of survey response. USA: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Valodia, I., Lebani, L., Skinner, C., & Devey, R. (2006). Low-waged and informal work in South Africa.Transformation, 60, 90–126.

Van Eck, B. (2010). Temporary employment services (labour brokers) in South Africa and Namibia. P.E.R,2(13), 107–126.

‘Day Labour’ and ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa 267

Verschuren, P. J. M. (2003). Case study as a research strategy: some ambiguities and opportunities.International Journal of Social Science Research Methodology, 6(2), 121–139.

White, H. (2002). Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches in poverty analysis. WorldDevelopment, 30(3), 511–522.

Zaller, J., & Feldman, A. (1992). A simple question of survey response: answering questions versusrevealing preferences. American Journal of Political Science, 36(3), 579–61.

268 M. Sharp