Punitive Welfare on the Margins of the State: Narratives of Punishment and (In)Justice in Masiphumelele

Abstract

While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state punishment, there is less work on how punishment is constituted from below in contexts of inequality. This article analyses the discourse around incidents of lethal collective violence that occurred in 2015 in a former black township in South Africa. I use this as a lens for examining how punitive forms of popular justice interact with state punishment. Whether via the slow violence of structural inequality or the viscerally corporeal high rates of interpersonal violence, my interviewees were intimately acquainted with violence. Although they supported long-term imprisonment, none of them came across as stereotypical right-wing populists. Instead, they adopted complex positions, calling for a type of punitive welfarism, which combined harsh solutions to crime with explicit recognition of the importance of dealing with ‘root causes’. I argue that when the state is perceived to be failing to both impose punishment and provide welfare, violence becomes a technology of exchange, which simultaneously seeks both more punishment and more welfare. The result is an assemblage of exclusionary penal forms.

Civic‐Led Banishment in South Africa: Punishment, Authority, and Spatialised Precarity

“…The mixture of state oppression and neglect (not least in the sphere of policing) that characterises these spaces has resulted in a multitude of problems. It is precisely because of this neglectful absence that many perceive a punitive state as a stand-in for substantive justice (Caldeira and Holston 1999;Koch 2019;Super 2021). Being aware that we were writing about experiences we had not lived, we sought to maximise the capacity of our interviewees to "object to what is said about them" (Mosse 2004) within interviews, in informal conversation, and through feedback at community meetings.…”

“…At its most extreme, instigators seek complete socio-spatial erasure (i.e. death) (Super 2016(Super , 2021. While death represents the most extreme form of permanent removal, less extreme but nonetheless permanent removals include the banishment of a person from a particular space and all the social networks embedded within (or flowing through) that space.…”

“…These events were precipitated by the brutal rape and murder of a 13-year-old boy. At a mass meeting, attended by around 800 people, a collective decision was taken to delegate a group of young men to find the offenders and purge the area of drug dealers (see Super 2021). Mobilising under "#drugsmustfall", vigilantes destroyed the shacks of suspected drug-dealers and instigated forced evictions from formal (bricks and mortar) houses over a period of three months, in the name of "the community".…”

“…In actuality, socio-spatial expulsion, to a greater or lesser extent, underpins both state and civic-led punishment. Viewed this way, opposition to bail, the pursuit of mandatory minimum sentencing, the instigation of civic-led banishment and even the extra-judicial killing of suspected criminals are all efforts to pursue varying degrees of socio-spatial expulsion or ways of distancing the "moral community" from the criminal "other" (Super 2021). The discourse and practices around imprisonment are also, like the discourses and practices of punitive forms of popular justice, based on the removal of the offender from their community (Super 2021).…”

“…We conclude by demonstrating that a socio-spatial analysis of punishment takes us beyond understandings of punishment that are organised around categories of state/ non-state, violent/non-violent, or legal/non-legal and loosens the hold of these organising concepts. Exploring all forms of punishment through the lens of sociospatial expulsion enables a conversation about punishment in general, and the extent to which it is grounded in symbolic or actual expulsion (Dubber 2006;Super 2021). By highlighting the socio-expulsive nature of punishment, specifically long-term imprisonment, we tap into the conversation (and possibilities) of penal abolitionism.…”