Zimbabwean-Venda migrants in Pretoria described using familiar South African languages to avoid being identified as foreigners in some social encounters.
The research highlights how fear of exclusion can shape everyday decisions about identity.
What researchers studied
Researchers examined the experiences of 15 Zimbabwean-Venda migrants living in Pretoria, purposively selected from a larger study involving 30 people.
The work focused on ordinary interactions rather than only highly publicised episodes of xenophobic violence.
The researchers analysed qualitative accounts through ideas about cultural capital and stigma management.
They explored how participants described experiences of hostility, expectations of possible discrimination and decisions about when to reveal their national origins.
The Zimbabwean-Venda context is distinctive because language and cultural similarities with South African Venda communities can make national identity less immediately obvious.
The study therefore examined language both as a means of communication and as a resource for navigating social boundaries.
What they found
Participants described direct or observed hostility, as well as anticipating exclusion even when an immediate threat was absent.
Those experiences influenced whether they disclosed their Zimbabwean identity in particular settings.
Speaking Tshivenda or other South African languages could help some participants navigate encounters and reduce the visibility of foreignness.
But linguistic similarity did not guarantee acceptance.
The authors describe belonging as conditional: an interaction might feel safer while a person’s foreign origin remained undisclosed.
The findings concern how participants interpreted their experiences.
They do not establish the prevalence of identity concealment among Zimbabwean migrants, nor do they quantify how much language use changes the risk of discrimination.
What it means
The study broadens the discussion of xenophobia beyond physical attacks.
Everyday anticipation of hostility may affect conversations, employment interactions, social relationships and whether people feel able to identify themselves openly.
It also cautions against treating shared language as equivalent to social inclusion. A person may communicate fluently in a local language yet still feel that acceptance depends on hiding a part of their background.
For community organisations and policymakers, the accounts suggest that improving inclusion involves more than responding after violent incidents.
Everyday discrimination and the conditions under which people feel safe to disclose their identities also matter.
Important limitation
The study used a small, purposively selected qualitative sample from Pretoria.
Its findings are context-specific and cannot be used to estimate rates of xenophobia or migrant behaviour across South Africa.
Participants’ recollections and interpretations may differ from independently observed encounters.
The research offers insight into experiences and coping strategies, but does not establish a causal effect of language choice on safety or belonging.
Source Information
Study: Living in the shadows: identity concealment, language and everyday xenophobia among Zimbabwean-Venda migrants in South Africa
Authors: L. Moyo; P. Mutekwe
Journal / Source: Frontiers in Sociology
Published: 3 November 2026
