Associational life in Cape Town is a mechanism for migrants from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to find belonging in South Africa. We trace the internal politics of associational membership from 2000 to 2019 to illustrate how membership in eastern Congolese associations has minimized community ties to other foreign Africans and South Africans. An increase in election violence in the DRC, divided into pro- and anti-combattant camps, and the threat of xenophobic violence in South Africa have led to a closing of ranks that presumes only other eastern Congolese can be trusted. In tracing gender, class and language cleavages, we find that eastern DRC associational life reproduces the xenophobia associational membership is intended to ameliorate.
