Security and Disappointment: Policing, Freedom and Xenophobia in South Africa

Abstract

In May 2008, 62 people, most of them foreign nationals, were killed during episodes of public violence in South Africa's major cities. This article accounts for the relationship between the mob violence and policing practices that emerged after apartheid. I argue policing practice has recast much of urban life, in this instance, the disappointments of the poor, into matters of security. Struggling to maintain its bond with the poor, the government signalled, through police practices, that a quotient of South Africans’ freedom was being stolen and that the perpetrators should be punished. It is this that led mobs into the streets, for it gave purchase to the idea that the business of making the city secure was forever unfinished.