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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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From ‘Policeman’ to ‘Private Security Officer’: Transformations of Identity in South Africa’s Security Sector
| Panel |
34. Post-apartheid: ethnographies of the South African transition
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| Paper ID | 514 |
| Author(s) |
Kirsch, Thomas
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | One important aspect of the South African transition concerns transformations in the ‘security’ sector. During the apartheid era, ‘security’ agencies of the state—such as the police—were actively involved in acts of repression and gross human rights violations. Governments in postapartheid South Africa are therefore confronted with the challenge of transforming a ‘security’ apparatus whose legitimacy had become highly questionable during the days of apartheid. The paper deals with a specific group of social actors who are part of these recent transformations, namely former members of apartheid police forces who nowadays work in private security companies. Being one of the fastest growing industries in South Africa, the private security industry has become a professional refuge for people previously employed in the apartheid ‘security’ sector (police, military, intelligence services). On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork in the Eastern Cape Province, the paper explores how these social actors interpret transitional processes in South Africa’s ‘security’ sector, what they perceive to be continuities and/or discontinuities in their occupation, and in what way the former policemen’s new professional identities as ‘private security officers’ are linked to globally circulating discourses on securitization and neo-liberal self-responsibility.
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