Anti-Foreigner Protests and the Problem of Broken Native Belonging

The anti-foreigner wave sweeping three continents is being read as a story about hatred. Underneath it is something the science of belonging can name, and there may be solution in sight.

In Johannesburg, a pregnant woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo has taught her children a drill. If the marchers come, she tells them, run and hide, because there is nothing she can do to protect them. She has been turned away from clinics where protesters now stand at the doors deciding who deserves care. She fled one country to survive. She is…