Between the lines of power

I was born without a left hand. It’s not always the first thing people notice, but eventually their eyes drift downward and settle. Some stare for too long. Others pretend not to see. I’ve learned to read the moment people realise I’m different. What I have not learned is where I belong. My difference is both visible and invisible, both a fact of my body and a question in the minds of others.

I was also born in Zimbabwe. My family came to South Africa when I was three years old. This is the only home I have ever truly known. I speak isiXhosa better than I speak Shona. I have studied and grown up here. But even after more than two decades, I am still legally a refugee. I live in a country that I am part of, but not fully permitted to claim.

These two facts, my left hand and my refugee status, seem unrelated on the surface. But they shape my life in strangely similar ways. In both cases, I exist in between categories. I am not disabled enough to be recognised as such, nor fully able-bodied. I am not undocumented, but also not considered fully South African. I live at the edge of definitions. And it is in this in-between space that I have learned to understand how power works, not just through laws and systems, but through assumptions and silences.

The Rules of Belonging

In South African law, disability is defined as a long-term or recurring physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a person’s ability to perform daily activities. That word, substantially, sits like a gatekeeper. I can type, dress myself, cook, and carry things. But each of these actions comes with its own set of workarounds, adjustments, and hidden effort. Because I have learned to manage, I am often told I don’t “qualify.” I don’t look disabled. I’m too functional. My ability to adapt is seen as proof that I don’t need support, but adaptation is not the absence of struggle, it is the result of it.

I have been excluded from bursaries and opportunities meant for people with disabilities because I don’t tick the right boxes. My difference is real, but it doesn’t fit the forms. And so, I am left out, not because my challenges don’t exist, but because they don’t conform to what people expect disability to look like. This is not uncommon. Studies estimate that around 60% of South Africans living with a disability are not formally recognised by support systems because their impairments do not meet conventional thresholds.

This experience mirrors how I live as a refugee. On paper, I am protected under South African law, but in reality, my existence is framed as temporary, even though I have lived here since early childhood. My refugee permit expires every few years. I wait in long lines at Home Affairs, face delays in renewing documents, and often get excluded from programmes because they are for “South African citizens only.” I know that refugees can apply for permanent residence after five years, but the system is slow, difficult to navigate, and often unresponsive. Many never hear back. The law makes it possible. The process makes it almost impossible. In fact, UNHRC reports that South Africa hosts more than 250 000 refugees and asylum seekers, but only a small fraction successfully transition to permanent residence, leaving many in perpetual limbo.

Living in this constant state of renewal and uncertainty has shaped how I see belonging. I have always worked hard, studied hard, volunteered, built relationships, and contributed to the society around me. But in the eyes of the system, I am still a guest. Still waiting to be fully let in.

When Identity Becomes a Border

I used to think of my hand and my refugee status as separate things. One was about my body. The other was about politics and paperwork. But over time, I realised they are both forms of identity that the world has struggled to categorise. What links them is the way they both invite misrecognition. I am constantly seen, but wrongly. People assume I am fully able-bodied because I appear independent. People assume I am a foreigner because of where I was born. Both readings erase parts of who I am.

In both cases, I am asked to explain myself. I am asked to prove that I belong. And yet, the more I explain, the more complicated I seem to others. I am too Zimbabwean to be South African, too South African to be foreign. Too able to be disabled, too different to be the same. These contradictions are not accidental. They are built into the systems around us. Laws, policies and social attitudes often rely on neat categories. You are either in or out. Citizen or non-citizen. Disabled or not. Qualified or not. But human life is rarely that simple.

Quiet Forms of Exclusion

Exclusion is not always loud. Sometimes it arrives as a small checkbox that you cannot tick. Sometimes it’s a computer form that won’t accept your refugee ID. Sometimes it’s a bursary that says “citizens only” in small print. These quiet denials are just as powerful as open discrimination. They are harder to name, and harder to fight.

When I was younger, I used to wonder if the problem was me. If I was simply not trying hard enough, not adapting fast enough, not accepting things as they were. But I have come to realise that the problem is structural. It is not that I do not belong. It is that the system has not made space for people like me.

Across Southern Africa, there are thousands of others who live in between categories. People whose lives do not fit the definitions. Migrants who have built homes in new countries but still lack full recognition. Disabled people who are invisible to systems because they do not use mobility aids or meet conventional thresholds. These people are not rare. We are simply not being seen.

Rethinking Inclusion

To truly challenge power, we must rethink how inclusion works. It is not enough to pass progressive laws if the processes behind them remain inaccessible. It is not enough to recognise disability in theory while denying support to those who do not appear disabled enough. Inclusion must mean more than ticking boxes. It must mean seeing people as they are, even when they are hard to categorise.

Permanent residence should not be an unreachable dream for refugees who have lived and contributed here for decades. Disability support should not be limited to those who meet an arbitrary standard of visible struggle. We need to build systems that respond to the complexity of real lives, and we need to speak, even when the world prefers silence.

Writing this is my way of refusing to be erased. I am not asking for pity. I am asking for recognition. For policy that reflects the people it claims to serve. For systems that understand that identity is not a straight line. To live in between is not a failure, it is a vantage point. It allows you to see the blind spots in how power operates. It forces you to question the rules others take for granted. And it teaches you to imagine a world where belonging is not something you must earn through hardship or perfection, but something you already have by virtue of being here.

I belong. Not because I was born in the right place or have the right kind of body. But because I am here. I participate. I contribute. I exist. That should be enough.

Kimberly Mabaso is doing her LLM. She is a Canon Collins alumna who is passionate about the administration of justice. She is a member of the Black Lawyers Association and tutors high school students in her spare time.

This essay was awarded the top prize in the Canon Collins Troubling Power Essay Competition.