Full Description
How are residents of South Africa's townships responding to socio-economic inequality and a pervasive sense that the country's democratic transition has not delivered on its constitutional promises of social justice?
Based on extensive fieldwork, this book challenges beliefs that the agency of township residents is limited to waiting for handouts or demanding delivery from the state, showing how they are instead assisting themselves by taking advantage of the opportunities, menyetla, available. In the kasi, or urban townships, where almost half of the urban population lives, there is limited state-enforced order; while the lex constitutional may be the law of the land, the lex lokasi governs day-to-day life in the township. The book opens with a description of life in townships and the interconnected crises facing the country before examining commonly practiced township menyetla to illustrate how the lex lokasi operates: stealing electricity, informal charges to access the Social Relief of Distress grant, fare evasion on the Metrorail, the illicit sale of alcohol during COVID-19 prohibition, medical aid scams, and looting.
Exploring how this looting from below protects those looting from above, it provides a different perspective to the view that state capture is the primary cause of the country's current entropic trajectory and that the application of the much-vaunted constitution can bring South Africa back on track.
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations & Racial Categories
Introduction: Looting from Below
1. South Africa's entropic trajectory
2. The apartheid township
3. The post-apartheid township
4. A crisis of social order: the lex constitutional and the lex lokasi
5. Izinyoka: stealing electricity
6. A fleeting monyetla: the Social Relief of Distress grant
7: Mangobers: riding the Metrorail for free
8. Lockdown liquor: the sale of alcohol during COVID-19 prohibition
9. Therapeutic fraud: medical aid scams
10. The lockdown looting of the Metrorail
11. The July unrest: looting, agency and legal fetishism
12. Conclusion: part-time criminals secure corrupt elites
Glossary
Bibliography
