Crossing the border: immigrant student identities in Swaziland schools

This paper sets out to explore how the resettlement of immigrant students in a host country and schooling context influenced the constitution, negotiation and representation of their identities. Data capture included a mix of semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, observations and a researcher journal. Data were analyzed by means of the content analysis method. Findings were fivefold. First, the sociocultural context influenced the way immigrant students constructed their identities. Second, categorization was based on phenotypical features, accent, negative attitudes and stereotypical perceptions of immigrants by Swaziland society. Third negotiated identities were multiple in nature and rooted in their culture of origin. Fourth, self-determination was a strong trait of immigrants; reflected in their work ethic, in the resolution of culture conflicts, and in their drive to achieve linguistic competency. And fifth, psychosocial passing was consistent with second generation immigrants. New knowledge generated from this study revealed that African immigrants preferred to be clustered with Mozambican immigrants, as it provided solid ground from which they negotiated identities in Swaziland schools. Mozambican immigrants recruited other African immigrants into their cluster, which they referred to as the ‘Chico nation’. And, the culture of non-Christian immigrants was suppressed to promote Christian religious beliefs and values.