Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
South Africans living overseas are in the UK (and those living in the UK have the most
interest in and are the most likely to return to South Africa).
AlthoughpeoplehavemovedbackandforthbetweenBritainandSouthAfricaforthe
whole of the latter's history as a European colony, the period since the end of apartheid,
which took place between 1990 and 1994, is the focus of this article. This is particu-
larly important because, since theearly 1990s,SouthAfrica hasreinserted itself intothe
international community through the repeal of apartheid-era sanctions, its reentry into
the Commonwealth, and the dramatic liberalization of its economy, and there are now
roughly 1 million fewer whites in South Africa than in the mid-1990s. Thus the juridic-
al ability, the desire, and the economic pathways enabling and encouraging white South
Africanstomoveoverseashavealldrastically increasedduringSouthAfrica'spostcolo-
nial period.
Scales of Availability
In Kalra et al.'s (2005) assessment of what they call white diasporas, these authors dis-
cuss whiteness as a “passport of privilege” that enables privileged ease of movement
for white bodies around the globe. The notion of a passport of privilege can, however,
be deepened and extended by attending to the ways in which white bodies themselves
emerge as products of this very mobility. In this phrase, privilege shouldn't be under-
stood as some sort of transcendent advantage universally accrued to whiteness through
the structures of the contemporary episteme. Instead, it makes more sense to turn to the
“passport” half of the phrase, which must be taken, in fact, at face value, as real, with
material effects that accrue contingently to some bodies by virtue of overlapping his-
torical layers of access to economic and social capital. As Neumayer indicates, there
is a “great degree of inequality of access to foreign spaces” (2006, 78). The visa and
overseas citizenship regimes of rich countries not only partly explain the inequality of
transnational motility but also constitute a means for states to engage diaspora popu-
lations in particular projects of governance (see Dickinson and Bailey 2007), such as
filling gaps in the labor market with bodies that appear less foreign, or promoting in-
vestment from overseas citizens.
There are a variety of avenues, embedded in South Africa's colonial history with Bri-
tain, available to South Africans, and particularly to whites, to enter the UK and work.
The Working Holiday Visa, though recently scrapped for South Africans, was avail-
able between 1994 and 2009 to Commonwealth citizens aged seventeen to thirty who
planned an extended holiday in the UK for up to two years. Recipients could work but
the holiday needed to be the primary reason for entering the country; as many as 17,000
South Africans took part annually. Working holiday visas could not be extended but an
opportunity was offered for South African citizens to find employers who would spon-
