From East Harlem to Cape Town: Tupac Shakur’s legacy as a globalised oppositional repertoire

Ethnography ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146613812092337
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziewanski
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
East Harlem ◽  
Shared Experiences ◽  
Street Culture ◽  
Cultural Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

For marginalised people living in Cape Town, South Africa, rapper Tupac Shakur represents a globalised oppositional repertoire that people draw on for strength and esteem. The study focused on 22 purposefully sampled interviews from township communities throughout Cape Town, which were conducted within a broader multi-year research project that focused on street culture and gangs in the city. Perhaps the most obvious narrative emerging from the research was that of male gang members connecting to the defiant masculine aggression often projected through Tupac’s music. But research also found that gang girls can also draw on the oppositional power he embodies as a street soldier, leveraging it in order to push back against their physical and material insecurity through performances of street culture. There are also ways that Tupac, as the globalised ghetto prophet, serves as a cultural resource for those trying to resist the streets and participation in gangs. The continued resonance of his legacy and image among township residents in Cape Town hints at the links they find in common with disenfranchised groups in American ghettos, and the myriad of similarly segregated urban spaces around the world. Many such groups pursue common cultural strategies to counter their shared experiences with disenfranchisement and disempowerment.

scholarly journals Patterns of blunt force homicide in the West Metropole of the City of Cape Town, South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 113 (5/6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtnee Clark ◽  
Calvin G. Mole ◽  
Marise Heyns ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The West ◽  
Blunt Force ◽  
Blunt Force Trauma ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Salt River ◽  
The City ◽  
Ballistic Trauma

There is currently a lack of information regarding the prevalence of and characteristics associated with blunt force trauma related homicides in South Africa. Information relating to the patterns of blunt force trauma could assist in the development and implementation of interventions targeted at specific areas or individuals as well as direct future research towards areas in need of investigation. This study is a 5-year retrospective review of autopsy reports obtained from Salt River Mortuary (Cape Town, South Africa). The prevalence of blunt force trauma was considered for unnatural deaths with a focus on homicide. The patterns of homicidal blunt force trauma are also presented. A total of 15 519 autopsy cases was analysed. In 1198 (7.72%) of these cases, the cause of death was found to be blunt force trauma and 828 (5.32%) of these cases were classified as homicides. Approximately 11% of blunt force homicide cases occurred in combination with sharp and/or ballistic trauma. Men from poor socio-economic areas were shown to be most at risk of blunt force homicide in the City of Cape Town.

scholarly journals Perspectives of wild medicine harvesters from Cape Town, South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 113 (9/10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Petersen ◽  
Andrew M. Reid ◽  
Eugene J. Moll ◽  
Marc T. Hockings
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
National Park ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Cape Floristic Region ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Economic Survival ◽  
Wild Resources ◽  
The City

Cape Town is a fast-growing cityscape in the Cape Floristic Region in South Africa with 24 formally protected conservation areas including the World Heritage Table Mountain National Park. These sites have been protected and managed as critical sites for local biodiversity, representing potentially one-third of all Cape Floristic Region flora species and 18% of South Africa’s plant diversity. Cape Town is also inhabited by a rapidly growing culturally and economically diverse citizenry with distinct and potentially conflicting perspectives on access to, and management of, local natural resources. In a qualitative study of 58 locally resident traditional healers of distinct cultural groups, we examined motivations underlying the generally illicit activity of harvesting of wild resources from Cape Town protected areas. Resource harvester motivations primarily link to local economic survival, health care and cultural links to particular resources and practices, ‘access for all’ outlooks, and wholesale profit-seeking perspectives. We describe these motivations, contrast them with the current formal, legal and institutional perspectives for biodiversity protection in the city, and propose managerial interventions that may improve sustainability of ongoing harvest activities.

scholarly journals Urban social movements in South Africa today: Its meaning for theological education and the church

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan F. De Beer
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Theological Education ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Urban Social Movements ◽  
Gustavo Gutierrez ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

In the past decade, significant social movements emerged in South Africa, in response to specific urban challenges of injustice or exclusion. This article will interrogate the meaning of such urban social movements for theological education and the church. Departing from a firm conviction that such movements are irruptions of the poor, in the way described by Gustavo Gutierrez and others, and that movements of liberation residing with, or in a commitment to, the poor, should be the locus of our theological reflection, this article suggests that there is much to be gained from the praxis of urban social movements, in disrupting, informing and shaping the praxis of both theological education and the church. I will give special consideration to Ndifuna Ukwazi and the Reclaim the City campaign in Cape Town, the Social Justice Coalition in Cape Town, and Abahlali baseMjondolo based in Durban, considering these as some of the most important and exciting examples of liberatory praxes in South Africa today. I argue that theological education and educators, and a church committed to the Jesus who came ‘to liberate the oppressed’, ignore these irruptions of the Spirit at our own peril.

scholarly journals Faith community as a centre of liberationist praxis in the city

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elina Hankela
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
New South ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Faith Community ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Theologians speak of the silence of churches’ prophetic voice in the ‘new’ South Africa, whilst the country features amongst the socio-economically most unequal countries in the world, and the urban areas in particular continue to be characterised by segregation. In this context I ask: where is liberation theology? I spell out my reading of some of the recent voices in the liberationist discourse. In dialogue with these scholars I, firstly, argue for the faith community to be made a conscious centre of liberationist debates and praxis. Secondly, I do this by suggesting two theoretical building blocks (i.e. critical deconstruction and radical friendship) for local faith communities that wish to grow in a liberationist fashion.

Leaving Gangs in Cape Town: Disengagement as Role Exit

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-535
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziewanski
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Life History ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Gang Violence ◽  
Role Exit ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The World ◽  
Study Offer

A lack of scholarship on gang leaving in Cape Town, South Africa creates the impression that joining gangs is a death sentence. However, this paper shows that gang members can disengage, even amidst the scarcity of an emerging city. It combines life history research with Ebaugh’s (2013) role exit theory in an analysis of the disengagements of 24 former gang participants. Research considers the various stages of out-of-gang transitions, profiling the drivers and impediments to gang exit. Specific focus is placed on understanding how violence both catalyzes and challenges out-of-gang transition during the differential processes of disengagement. Findings indicate a lengthy and challenging transitional process from the point the first doubts emerge to the time a person successfully becomes an ex-gangster. Progress through different phases of gang exit is generally uneven and unpredictable, and carried out in a context with significant social, economic, and security challenges. Still, those interviewed for this study offer compelling examples to show that disengagement is possible. Their journeys yield insights that can be leveraged to design better informed efforts to reduce gang violence—whether in Cape Town, or in other similarly inequality prone and insecure cities around the world.

Femme Fatales: Girl Gangsters and Violent Street Culture in Cape Town

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 438-463
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziewanski
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Violent Victimization ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
Street Culture ◽  
Income Status ◽  
Cultural Performances

This article examines the ways that 21 girl gangsters perform violent street culture in Cape Town, South Africa. It examines their participation in the city’s township gangs, with a particular focus on female involvement in gang-related acts of aggression and violence. Research looks to move beyond portrayals of girl gangsters in Cape Town as either victims or accessories. It shows how they leverage street cultural performances in reaction to intersectional oppression, and in an attempt to empower themselves. Young women in this study joined gangs and took part in violence for many of the same reasons that men do—protection, income, status, and so on—as well as due to threats of sexual violence faced specifically by females. But street cultural participation for females in Cape Town also often perpetuates cycles of violent victimization, incarceration, and substance abuse that keep girl gangsters trapped in a life on the streets. In this way, females in this study broke from the binary view of girl gangsterism as either totally liberating or totally injurious, embodying both simultaneously.

scholarly journals The ongoing challenge of restorative justice in South Africa: How and why wealthy suburban congregations are responding to poverty and inequality

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine F. Bowers du Toit ◽  
Grace Nkomo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Lay Leaders ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The World ◽  
Basic Features

South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world and any discussion around poverty and the church’s response cannot exclude this reality. This article attempts to analyse the response of wealthy, ‘majority white’ suburban congregations in the southern suburbs of Cape Town to issues of poverty and inequality. This is attempted through the lense of restorative justice, which is broadly explored and defined through a threefold perspective of reconciliation, reparations and restitution. The first part explores a description of the basic features of poverty and inequality in South Africa today, followed by a discussion on restorative justice. This is followed by the case study, which gives the views of clergy and lay leaders with regard to their congregations’ perspectives and responses to poverty and inequality within the context of restorative justice. Findings from the case study begin to plot a tentative ‘way forward’ as to how our reality can more constructively be engaged from the perspective of congregational involvement in reconstruction of our society.

scholarly journals The transport of atmospheric NO<sub>x</sub> and HNO<sub>3</sub> over Cape Town

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 559-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. Abiodun ◽  
A. M. Ojumu ◽  
S. Jenner ◽  
T. V. Ojumu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Atmospheric Pollutants ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
High Concentration ◽  
Budget Analysis ◽  
The City ◽  
Pollution Events

Abstract. Cape Town, the most popular tourist city in Africa, usually experiences air pollution with unpleasant odour in winter. Previous studies have associated the pollution with local emission of pollutants within the city. The present study examines the transport of atmospheric pollutants (NOx and HNO3) over South Africa and shows how the transport of pollutants from the Mpumalanga Highveld, a major South African industrial area, may contribute to the pollution in Cape Town. The study analysed observation data (2001–2008) from the Cape Town air-quality network and simulation data (2001–2004) from a regional climate model (RegCM) over southern Africa. The simulation accounts for the influence of complex topography, atmospheric conditions, and atmospheric chemistry on emission and transport of pollutants over southern Africa. Flux budget analysis was used to examine whether Cape Town is a source or sink for NOx and HNO3 during the extreme pollution events. The results show that extreme pollution events in Cape Town are associated with the lower level (surface – 850 hPa) transport of NOx from the Mpumalanga Highveld to Cape Town, and with a tongue of high concentration of HNO3 that extends from the Mpumalanga Highveld to Cape Town along the south coast of South Africa. The prevailing atmospheric conditions during the extreme pollution events feature an upper-level (700 hPa) anticyclone over South Africa and a lower-level col over Cape Town. The anticyclone induces a strong subsidence motion, which prevents vertical mixing of the pollutants and caps high concentration of pollutants close to the surface as they are transported from the Mpumalanga Highveld toward Cape Town. The col accumulates the pollutants over the city. This study shows that Cape Town can be a sink for the NOx and HNO3 during extreme pollution events and suggests that the accumulation of pollutants transported from other areas (e.g. the Mpumalanga Highveld) may contribute to the air pollution in Cape Town.

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