Towards a Constructivist Grounded Theory: Understanding the Transnational Production of Anti-immigrant Sentiments in AfricaSurulola Eke, Queens UniversityResearch Grant, 2023 This project studied the rising rate of anti-immigrant sentiments in African countries. It was inspired by the realization that the attitudes of citizens and governments were increasingly becoming antagonistic toward immigrants in major migrant destinations in Africa such as South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana, and at a time when anti-immigrant sentiments were also rising in Europe and North America. As in other places, there are domestic reasons for growing anti-immigrant sentiments in these African countries. In Ghana, for instance, the media and government claim that Nigerian, Ivorian, and other West African immigrants overstay their visas or establish businesses without obtaining the right residency and business permits. Similarly, in Kenya, the terrorist attack by Al Shabaab at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi stirred up animosity toward residents of Somali descent. Relatedly, South African media are awash with reports of illegal immigrants working in mines and taking up strategic trading spots to the detriment of citizens. While these events, practices, and tendencies can shape attitudes, a prominent theory in international studies known as constructivism teaches us that the way we view things is influenced by a competition of ideas in relation to that thing, not simply by what we can see or observe. In the results of the survey conducted, exposure to rhetoric on immigrants in other countries predicts people’s opposition to immigrants in their own country. Therefore—and considering the facts that we are in a digital age in which different distant “worlds” and societies are connected, and that migration is a global phenomenon—this project aimed to examine whether and how the migration norms resulting from a global competition of ideas influence anti-immigrant sentiments in major migrant destinations in Africa. From speaking purposively with everyday people on the streets of Accra and Kumasi, Ghana, Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya, and Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa; deliberately seeking the experiences and views of postsecondary-educated individuals and journalists; and then developing and administering surveys, the project produced nuanced understandings of growing antiimmigrant sentiments across these cities. The three-phase research found that, consistent with the assumption of the theory of constructivism, there is an ongoing competition of ideas on immigration in African countries with large immigrant populations. These competing ideas—pro-immigrant (neoliberal) on the one hand, and anti-immigrant (nationalist) on the other—are playing out in how people interpret the economic gain or loss of immigration, the necessity or luxury of humanitarianism, and the physical and cultural threat, or lack thereof, posed by immigrants. Most significantly, the study finds that, whereas the influence of the pro-immigrant neoliberal migration norm is weakening, the nationalist anti-immigrant norm is strengthening because there is no global community of pro-migration advocates. Conversely, antimigration sentiment is supported and promoted by a robust global community of nationalists deliberately seeking to influence attitudes in places far and near. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that anti-immigrant sentiments across the case studies are greater in places where migration levels increased at the same time as the influence of the global community of nationalists. Additionally, in the results of the survey conducted, exposure to rhetoric on immigrants in other countries predicts people’s opposition to immigrants in their own country.
