Maintaining Order in Townships: Gangsterism and Community Resilience in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which communities in black townships deal with gang violence in post-apartheid Cape Town, South Africa, against the background of inadequate or absent state responses. It draws on ethnographic research conducted in townships in the Cape Metropole between 2016 and 2018. It explains how communities in black townships, through their street committees, utilize and draw on both violent and peace-making opportunities and strategies to deal with gang violence. While the dominant discourse is that violence can destroy local community structures, the article demonstrates that the community response to gang violence involves the adaptation and development of resilient localized structures coordinated by local people themselves to deal with inefficient state response.