Insiders & Outsiders

Drawing material from Sub-Saharan Africa's two most economically successful nations, this book delves into the paradox of accelerated flows of capital and information, and the social closure and exploitation they generate when people cross national borders. In both countries relative economic progress has lured immigrants to seek a living, often as undocumented 'aliens'. The reaction among ordinary Botswanans and South Africans has been a heightened xenophobia that exploits and excludes. This book is an incisive commentary on a globalizing world that reaches down into the grassroots of southern Africa with consequences that have received little attention. Nyamnjoh documents the new politics of insiders and outsiders in these societies, delivering a telling commentary on the global rhetoric of open societies in an era of increasing closures and exclusions.