Policing and Boundaries in a Violent Society

A South African Case Study

Guy Lamb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367748159
• eBook ISBN: 9781000536041
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores how social and territorial boundaries have influenced the approaches and practices of the South Africa Police Service (SAPS). By means of a historical analysis of South Africa, this book introduces a new concept, 'police frontierism', which illuminates the nature of the relationships between the police, policing and boundaries, and can potentially be used for future case study research.

Drawing on a wealth of research, this book examines how social and territorial boundaries strongly influenced police practices and behaviour in South Africa, and how social delineations amplify and distort existing police prejudices against those communities on the other side of the boundary. Focusing on cases of high-density police operations, public-order policing and the recent policing of the COVID-19 lockdown, this book argues that poor economic conditions combined with an increased militarisation of the SAPS and a decline in public trust in the police will result in boundaries continuing to fundamentally inform police work in South Africa.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in policing in post-colonial societies characterised by high levels of violence, as well as police work and police militarization.

Chapter 1Boundaries, the police, and police work: A conceptualisation

DOI: 10.4324/9781003159681-2

This chapter comprises a literature review that seeks to ascertain the state of knowledge on the relationship between various boundary manifestations and the police. In particular, it seeks to assess the extent to which theory, evidence and analyses have contributed to our understanding of the ways in which the many facets of police work. The pertinent scholarship is diverse and is scattered across several academic disciplines, such as criminology, geography, history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political studies. Given this considerable diversity and multiplicity of the publications on this topic, it was not possible to explore every nook and cranny of academic writing on boundaries and the police. Hence, this chapter principally appraises the relevant criminology and human geography literature, but also takes into consideration key texts from other academic fields, where appropriate.

In this regard, this chapter reviews the literature that relates to the following six policing-related themes namely: pre-professional policing; colonial policing; national territorial borders and policing; police culture; counterinsurgency policing; and place-based policing. In doing so, it will seek to identify common characteristics and dynamics concerning the relationship between boundaries and the police that will frame and inform the South African case study in the later chapters of this book. Given that firearm control is a key consideration of this book, the literature on the relationship between firearm availability, policing, and boundaries is also considered in this chapter.

Across all the themes there is a distinct Anglo-American bias in the literature given that the study of the police and boundaries have traditionally been dominated by scholars from North American and British universities. There are, however, some publications that focus on other geographical contexts, particularly Latin America and Australia, which will also be included in this literature review. The modest body of research on policing and the police in South Africa, which is predominantly historical and ethnographic in nature, has also been included and referenced where applicable in this chapter.

1.1 Boundaries, frontiers, and the ‘cleaning’ work of the police

Boundaries have the capacity to, amongst other faculties, delineate, limit, and control interactions between people, as well as access to resources and opportunities within social spaces (Lamont & Molnár, 2002; Minghi, 1963). Boundaries can occur naturally (such as rivers); can be erected (such as walls); or can even be imagined or socially constructed (such as informal borders between neighbourhoods). As noted by the influential human geographer David Sibley, socially constructed or socially defined boundaries are dynamic spatial expressions of power, which often facilitate the “relegation of weaker groups in society to less desirable environments” (Sibley, 1995, p. ix). Furthermore, such boundaries can become instruments of ‘purification’ where they are employed to conserve homogeneity, as well as emphasise and reject difference (Sibley, 1988).

Hence boundaries emphasise and enforce the difference and distinctiveness of communities on both sides of boundaries. This often results in the emergence of an ‘us’ and ‘them’ abject differentiation, which often translates into a social ordering expressed in terms of inclusion and exclusion (Newman & Paasi, 1998; Yuval-Davis & Stoetzler, 2002). This process is often referred to as ‘othering’, a social construction that leads to the depersonalisation, stigmatisation, and vilification of the weaker community by the stronger community (Sibley, 1998; van Houtum & van Naerssen, 2002).

A frontier, which is also referred to as a ‘borderland’ (Kristof, 1959), is an area that is in close proximity to and coupled with a territorial boundary demarcating the edge of a collective of people or an area inhabited by people. The internal dynamics of a frontier are intimately affected by the existence of the boundary, and conversely the nature of the frontier often determines the future outcomes for the boundary (Newman, 2003; Newman & Paasi, 1998). For instance, frontier dynamics have the potential to reinforce, propel or even eliminate the boundary. Hence, it is entirely conceivable that institutions that operate within the frontier are fundamentally influenced by the immediacy of the boundary, as well as the frontier conditions.

The term frontier has been most widely utilised in the historical literature on colonisation to describe areas on the territorial threshold of settler authority “where there is a lack of a single source of legitimate authority” (Legassick, 2010, p. 6). It acts as a buffer between the edge of the relative safety of the ‘civilised’ colony and the dangerous ‘wilderness’, and is a fluid space between two divergent worlds (Anderson, 1996; Forbes, 1968; Turner, 1921). Frontiers have also received some attention in the field of international relations in the context of international border management and conflict (Prescott & Triggs, 2008; Ruggie, 1993). In recent years the frontier concept has been more widely applied in a variety of other academic disciplines, particularly in relation to urbanisation and city governance where the spaces occupied by the poor and marginalised are regarded as places of savagery and disorder (Garreau, 1992; Gray & Mooney, 2011; Leitner, Peck, & Sheppard, 2007; Smith, 1996).

Territorial rules and norms (or territoriality), which dictate the conditions under which people may interact and access resources and opportunities, are conceivably embedded within boundaries (Anderson & O'Dowd, 1999; Lyman & Scott, 1967). Transgressions of these rules and norms can result in forms of negative communication or punitive action from those authorities that uphold the boundaries. Consequently, boundaries are intrinsically instruments of social power and control, as they have the potential to impact on the movement of people and on their available choices (Paasi, 1998; Sack, 1986, 1993). Hence, space is generally “domesticated” by government and civic authorities (Mbembé & Rendall, 2000, p. 261) by creating and upholding boundaries as a method of governing (Cooper, 1998; Ferguson & Gupta, 2002; Kettl, 2006).

Zygmunt Bauman's scholarship in relation to purity and ‘order-building’ is particularly relevant for intellectualising about the role of the police in relation to...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsements Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Boundaries, the police, and police work: A conceptualisation
• 2 Policing and boundaries in South Africa prior to 1948
• 3 The South African Police and the policing of apartheid
• 4 Violent crime, firearms, and post-apartheid police work
• 5 Public order policing
• 6 SAPS high-density policing operations
• 7 COVID and policing in South Africa
• 8 Conclusion
• Index