Protection from Violence: Making Space Public in the Streets of Johannesburg

Abstract

Violence consistently undermines efforts to make space public. However, this does not mean that violence and public space can be meaningfully studied in isolation from one another. Rather, it may mean that we need to be even more closely attuned to the reasons why the process of making space public frequently springs from – and results in – violent acts. I argue that we can better understand how violence makes (and un-makes) public space if we pay more attention to the concept of ‘protection’. Protection relationships can create contexts in which public dialogue can occur, but relations of protection are themselves the object of contestation and dialogue, and the dynamics of protection can promote unequal, arbitrary outcomes. I illustrate and further explore this dilemma by examining an ‘extreme’ case, where achieving protection constitutes the core public problem at hand: the neighbourhoods of Hillbrow and Berea in inner-city Johannesburg, South Africa. I use this exploratory case study to call for more attention to the manner in which violence feeds into the ongoing process of making space public.