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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Securing African Business Spaces: Everyday Policing in Mines, Harbours, and Amusement Areas
| Panel |
11. Alternative policing - new initiatives or established patterns of self-help?
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| Paper ID | 574 |
| Author(s) |
Hentschel, Christine ; Hönke, Jana
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | “South Africa is the murder capital of the world” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2006) and the most important economy in Africa. Confronted with the limited capacities of the South African state to deliver security, companies have developed their own “self help” strategies to secure their businesses and surrounding areas. In this paper we are investigating the policing of four economically and geographically defined spaces: the platinum mines in the Southeast of Limpopo province, the Klerksdorp Goldfields, the Durban harbour area, and the new Durban amusement district around “the Point”. We investigate how order is being produced in these spaces and how economic actors such as mining, shipping or brewing companies act as central security organisers, replacing, competing or working together with the state. Based on field research (conducting expert interviews, analysing company reports, press statements, local by-laws, joint security projects with other local actors, etc.) we first map various definitions of crime in its temporal and spatial specifications. Second we analyse the particular strategies that are meant to render these spaces, and their business operations, crime free and ask what the effects of these security measures are on groups such as workers, “the company”, customers, and “the community”. Third, we show how companies collaborate or compete with other security actors, such as “the state”, or citizens’ initiatives. The South African state has never put into practice the Weberian ideal of security provision for all of its population across its territory. In this paper we investigate the new forms of spatial fragmentation of the provision of security, which emerged after the end of apartheid. With a typology of policing based on strategies of security provision, our study will offer an alternative analytical approach towards policing in states that are often referred to as “weak” or “failing”. We do not join the discussion on “what is not”, but on what actually is and how it works. |
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