This study is about refugee integration: how refugees become citizens, and more generally how outsiders become insiders. More specifically, it is about an appropriate conceptual framework for studying and understanding refugee integration processes. I propose that refugee integration be understood as local politics, and that, therefore, refugees and hosts negotiate their relationships with each other based on their respective interests and using a series of material and symbolic exchanges. While this conceptual approach to integration seems self- evident, this empirical, process-oriented, and spatially and temporally specific approach radically departs from the predominant normative assumptions in the policy and academic literature. The thesis sets out and develops how this simple framework, consistently applied, carries analytical correlates which stand in marked contrast to most analyses of refugee integration processes. My argument is supported empirically with a detailed case study of villages in a rural border area of South Africa where many (former) Mozambican refugees are settled since the 1980s. I spent four years (2002-2006) living and conducting field work in this area. The thesis by published (and publishable) works includes five articles covering different aspects of refugee integration as political negotiation. These include: 1) analysing the conceptual dangers and empirical fallacies of approaches to local integration which frame it as a ‘solution’ within the international refugee assistance and protection regime; 2) illustrating how common conceptual and methodological approaches to studying refugees tend to hide the presence of integrated refugees; 3) applying the political negotiation approach across time periods by comparing the integration processes of two ‘waves’ of Mozambicans fleeing conflict into South Africa in the mid-1800s and the 1980s; 4) showing how integration processes, including those related to legal status, often function according to very different logics than intended by national or international legal frameworks and policies targeting refugees; and 5) looking at processes of negotiated integration at the level of the village and how they are spatialised.

The increasing numbers of undocumented foreign nationals in South Africa not only has affected the provision of services provided by the local municipalities and the Department of Home Affairs but is also a huge challenge to the services provided by the South African police. The aim of this study was to explore the police experiences of dealing with undocumented foreign nationals in South Africa. A literature review was conducted to provide an overview of this problem nationally and internationally. Interviews, observations and document analysis were also considered to explore police experiences of dealing with undocumented foreign nationals. The findings of this study show that the South African police are “caught between a rock and a hard place” when dealing with undocumented foreign nationals within the constitutional framework of this country. They receive little support from the government and the relevant stakeholders on this matter, while on the other hand they are exposed to constant threats and lack of compliance from the undocumented foreign nationals and the criminal syndicates that facilitate illegal cross-border movements and the pressure from advocates of human rights principles and the media. These factors lead to increased frustrations among police officials and self-protective measures such as turning a blind eye to this problem. To deal with the problem the Inclusive and Interactive Refugee Management Model, which focuses on constant interaction among stakeholders, is recommended. Inclusive strategies are also recommended for dealing with undocumented foreign nationals. This model supports a Left Realism perspective, which advocates collective responsibility towards human concerns / Police Practice / D. Litt. et Phil. (Police Science)

The increasing numbers of undocumented foreign nationals in South Africa not only has affected the provision of services provided by the local municipalities and the Department of Home Affairs but is also a huge challenge to the services provided by the South African police. The aim of this study was to explore the police experiences of dealing with undocumented foreign nationals in South Africa. A literature review was conducted to provide an overview of this problem nationally and internationally. Interviews, observations and document analysis were also considered to explore police experiences of dealing with undocumented foreign nationals. The findings of this study show that the South African police are “caught between a rock and a hard place” when dealing with undocumented foreign nationals within the constitutional framework of this country. They receive little support from the government and the relevant stakeholders on this matter, while on the other hand they are exposed to constant threats and lack of compliance from the undocumented foreign nationals and the criminal syndicates that facilitate illegal cross-border movements and the pressure from advocates of human rights principles and the media. These factors lead to increased frustrations among police officials and self-protective measures such as turning a blind eye to this problem. To deal with the problem the Inclusive and Interactive Refugee Management Model, which focuses on constant interaction among stakeholders, is recommended. Inclusive strategies are also recommended for dealing with undocumented foreign nationals. This model supports a Left Realism perspective, which advocates collective responsibility towards human concerns / Police Practice / D. Litt. et Phil. (Police Science)