"Those people" - Political Construction of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in South Africa. Consequences for the realization of their socio-economic rights.

Abstract: The thesis explores how the political discourse on refugees and asylum seekers is produced within portfolio committee meetings at the South African parliament. A critical discourse analysis investigates how statements of delegates of the Department of Home Affairs and Social Development foster unequal power relations and construct social identities perpetuating the on-going discourse on refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. Motives such as abuse, the high numbers of asylum seekers and a burdening of South Africa`s resources are employed in order to justify political actions limiting the refugees’ and asylum seekers’ access to the asylum system and the country itself. Furthermore, delegates draw upon concepts of human rights and, primarily, of citizenship in order to validate their claims and position themselves. Qualitative interviews with refugees and asylum seekers in Cape Town as well as previous scholarly work shed light on dialectical relations between the parliamentary meetings and social consequences for refugees and asylum seekers, deriving out of the constructed discourse. They reveal the lack of timely issuance of refugee Identity Documents and the Department of Home Affairs’ failure to verify refugees’ and asylum seekers’ documentation. These shortcomings result in excessive barriers for both refugees and asylum seekers to access financial institutions and receive social benefits. They thus attest to a severe hindrance in realizing the refugees’ and asylum seekers’ legal entitlements specifically regarding their socio-economic rights.