Structural Injustice, Political Misrecognition, and Xenophobic Mobilization in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Toward a Justice-Based Theory of Social Cohesion in the Global South

This study investigates the relationship between structural injustice, political belonging, and xenophobic mobilization in post-apartheid South Africa. While anti-migrant hostility is frequently explained through migration pressures, economic competition, or cultural difference, this research argues that such explanations often overlook the deeper structural conditions that shape public responses to migration. Drawing on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that integrates structural violence, distributive justice, recognition theory, postcolonial citizenship, and postcolonial political thought, the study develops the concept of political misrecognition to explain how structural grievances become redirected toward migrants. Political misrecognition refers to the process through which the visible manifestations of social distress are mistaken for their underlying causes, resulting in migrants becoming symbolic targets for frustrations generated by persistent inequality, unemployment, exclusion, and institutional shortcomings. Using post-apartheid South Africa as a critical case, the study demonstrates that xenophobic mobilization is better understood as a manifestation of unresolved structural injustice than as a direct consequence of migration itself. Particular attention is given to the roles of socioeconomic insecurity, contested belonging, citizenship narratives, and contemporary anti-migrant mobilizations such as Operation Dudula. Beyond South Africa, the research advances a justice-based theory of social cohesion for the Global South. It argues that sustainable social cohesion cannot be achieved through exclusionary responses to migration but requires institutions and social arrangements grounded in justice, recognition, human dignity, and inclusive belonging. Drawing on Ubuntu, neighborliness, and the Christian concept of Imago Dei, the study proposes a normative framework for reimagining social cohesion beyond fear, scapegoating, and exclusion. This work contributes to scholarship in migration studies, peace and conflict studies, political theory, postcolonial studies, social cohesion research, and religion and society.