Citation

Kynoch G. J. South Afr. Stud. 2008; 34(3): 629-645.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/03057070802259878

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In an attempt to move beyond the parochial character of the otherwise rich historiography of urban South Africa, this article compares the level of violent crime, gang conflict and vigilantism in the segregated townships and mining compounds surrounding South African cities, particularly Johannesburg, in the period to 1960, with that of African neighbourhoods in colonial cities elsewhere on the continent. The evidence suggests that concepts of South African exceptionalism need to take account of the extraordinary degree of urban violence that distinguished South Africa from its colonial contemporaries. A brutalising mining environment, combined with racial ordinances that criminalised Africans and coloureds and exposed vast numbers of men to prison and prison gangs, produced a culture of urban violence unique in colonial Africa.