BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Reordering South African Townships - Laurent Fourchard.  Researche
 r\, Sciences Po Bordeaux.
DTSTART:20101124T170000Z
DTEND:20101124T183000Z
UID:TALK27903@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sharath Srinivasan
DESCRIPTION:South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world
  and this violence is often reported as being prevalent in black and color
 ed townships. The structure of the Colonial and Apartheid state and econom
 y\, the lack of efficient police and social control\, and the emergence of
  gang organizations have been looked at by academics to try to understand 
 why violence is today considered to be part of township life in South Afri
 ca. The aim of this paper is less to challenge this view than to understan
 d how people have tried to produce an orderly township within this context
 . It looks especially at the everyday routine of organizations that operat
 e in Cape Town colored townships and which are locally referred as neighbo
 rhood watches\, safety sector or street committees. From within the townsh
 ip\, there is a large consensus on the necessity to produce a social order
  that needs to both protect and discipline children and youth. Observation
  of night patrols helps to understand how this consensus is accepted and m
 ocked\, perceived by different members as necessary and/ or useless. Reaso
 ns why people get mobilized to spend time and energy without being paid to
  produce this specific kind of order are complicated. Some get involved to
  produce a moral community and defend family life others to challenge a pe
 rception that look at colored areas as crime ridden environment but there 
 are various other political\, social\, economic and religious reasons. The
 re is also no clear opposition between an indigenous people’s view on th
 e township and a stereotyped perception of the township by state officials
 . In many cases\, discourses and practices of neighborhood social control 
 are the result of a not easy co-production between local members and state
  officials. This co-production helps questioning the literature on vigilan
 tism\, community police and more generally on the fabric of the ‘state f
 rom below’ in South Africa and beyond.\n\nThe paper will be followed by 
 a brief introduction of a new three year research programme coordinated by
  Laurent Fourchard on “The politics of xenophobic exclusion: mobilizatio
 ns\, local orders and violence” which includes among other institutions\
 , the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge
 .
LOCATION:Senior Common Room\, POLIS\, 17 Mill Lane
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR