Social Capital as Survival Strategy for Immigrants in South Africa: A Conceptual Framework

Social survival strategies are premised on relations anchored around ethnicity, culture, nationality, and language. Out of this strategy is the concept of social capital which is defined as the link that allow people to discover opportunities as well as employment based in social relationships with previous migrants. There is no doubt that foreign nationals utilise different forms of social capital to achieve different means--the reliance on family at the point of entry to access shelter and employment opportunities whereas they access friendships and networks within the employment circles to access other employment opportunities. The aim of this research is to detail how foreign nationals employ social capital networks as a survival strategy in South African urban townships using Diepsloot, found in the northwest of Johannesburg, as a case study. It is an important study because there is a lack of literature linking social capital as a survival strategy. We focus on social capital because it is a propeller--at least at initial and transition stages of migration--to access other forms of survival strategies. This paper, before all else, derives a conceptual framework that should guide the empirical part of such a research.