Scale, governance and the maintenance of privileged control: The case of road closures in Johannesburg’s Northern Suburbs

Dirsuweit, Teresa; Wafer, Alex

doi:10.1007/bf02681236

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In seeking to ensure the safety and pleasure of the tourist, the authorities' removal of "non-consumers" provides only a partial visibility of South African life. Such practices in the city centre are mirrored in the development of gated communities and road closures in South African suburban life, where visible policing serves to keep out (and in so doing, to inscribe) the dangerous other while keeping in the safe and known (for discussions of these issues see Dirsuweit andWafer 2006 andDirsuweit 2007).…”

Section: Long Street-a Rose-tinted Window On the Citymentioning

confidence: 98%

Performing the Primitive in the Postcolony: Nyoni’s Kraal in Cape Town

Hammett

Jayawardane

2009

Urban Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The production of particular spaces for tourist consumption of the "exotic" other involves the performance of particular conceptualizations of people and places that recreates theatrical versions of the primitive. Through analysis of one such space-Nyoni's Kraal in Cape Town-we contend that both hosts and visitors are complicit in the construction of these spaces and imaginaries. To this end, practices of social and spatial policing as well as performativity and representations of cultural constructs of an "authentic Africa" are deployed in the projection of a specific form of constructed, "benign" multiculturalism. We contend that such practices reproduce a mythical idyll of Africa for consumption that recreates-rather than questions-colonial power structures, and therefore remain imbued with the inequitable and uncertain outcomes of modernity.Keywords Urban tourism . Primitivism . Exoticism . Multiculturalism . Postcolonialism . Cape Town Patrick Conner, in Exotic Worlds-European Fantasies, a review of a collective of museum exhibits that took place in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1988, correlates the European desire to re-investigate exotica to the then relatively new field of postcolonial criticism. Connor considers these exotica as representative objects about "exotic" spaces and people created by and for Europeans, and as emblematic Urban Forum (

show abstract

Section: Long Street-a Rose-tinted Window On the Citymentioning

confidence: 98%

Performing the Primitive in the Postcolony: Nyoni’s Kraal in Cape Town

Hammett

Jayawardane

2009

Urban Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…But beyond recourse to using force, Bad Boyz gain legitimacy by being seen to serve a wider social good and 'community', rather than narrow, exclusive interests. Private security has a notorious reputation for doing the latter; in predominantly white suburbs in South Africa, this is certainly the case, as poor black people have come to be targeted and removed from upper-and middle-class neighbourhoods, and unequal landscapes of security and safety have become the norm (Bénit-Gbaffou, 2006Clarno and Murray, 2013;Dirsuweit, 2007;Dirsuweit and Wafer, 2006;Landman, 2006).…”

Section: Private Security and Everyday Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday security: privatized policing, local legitimacy and atmospheres of control

Mosselson

2018

Urban Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper I examine the tactics, underpinning logics and forms of legitimacy through which urban security is produced and maintained in a volatile urban environment. I argue that urban security is produced through subtle, everyday practices, as much as it relies on the use of force.Research from Johannesburg's inner-city reveals that even powerful actors, such as private security personnel, have to engage in contingent, everyday practices which adapt to the sociospatial realities they are confronted with in order to effectively create regimes of security and order. The article makes a novel contribution by combining literature from policing and security studies with work on gentrification, ambient power and the privatization of public space. It also draws on original empirical research carried out in inner-city Johannesburg over an extended period of time. The central goal of the article is to shift analytic lenses to examine the ways in which social and spatial realities shape security and policing practices and agendas, and to broaden our understanding of the rationales, logics and meanings of urban security, particularly in volatile, conflictual urban spaces (mostly, but not exclusively) in the Global South.

show abstract

“…In many northern suburbs, residents have torn up sidewalks and replaced them with ivy in order to decrease pedestrian traffic. RAs have also closed roads, erected gates, and hired private security companies to regulate access to their neighborhoods (Dirsuweit ; Dirsuweit and Wafer ; Lemanski, Landman and Durington ).…”

Section: Residents’ Associations and Gated Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rescaling White Space in Post‐apartheid Johannesburg

Clarno

2013

Antipode

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper traces three political mobilizations in the wealthy suburbs of Johannesburg: a boycott of redistributive tax policies, the creation of gated communities and residents' associations, and the demand for residential city improvement districts (CIDs). I argue that state rescaling and networked governance are constituted through struggles over governmental power. I also argue for more attention to race in the political economy of scale. Struggles over the scalar, networked, and territorial dimensions of governance are constitutive moments in the shifting articulation of race, class, and space. An analysis of articulation highlights the role of territory, identity and imagination in the production of space, demonstrates that neoliberal forms of networked governance are products of struggle, and reiterates the feminist argument that governmental interventions are about more than just capital accumulation.

show abstract

Scale, governance and the maintenance of privileged control: The case of road closures in Johannesburg’s Northern Suburbs

Cited by 21 publications

References 13 publications

Performing the Primitive in the Postcolony: Nyoni’s Kraal in Cape Town

Performing the Primitive in the Postcolony: Nyoni’s Kraal in Cape Town

Everyday security: privatized policing, local legitimacy and atmospheres of control

Rescaling White Space in Post‐apartheid Johannesburg

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About