Beyond Confinement
Cape Gangsters and the Sub-Saharan Trade of Stolen Electronics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2143184 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brandaan Huigen (0000-0002-1457-6276, Freie Universität Berlin, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 554-575 |
| Publication date | 2023-05-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ethnos (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0014-1844 • E-ISSN: 1469-588X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00141844.2021.1887914 |
| OpenAlex | W3132627665 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 39 |
Instead of being perceived as confined to oppressive spaces in South Africa, detached from mainstream society, in this article I show that gangsters in Cape Town have harnessed liberalisation since the 1990s to become players in the market economy. This is illustrated by means of two criminal practices that support the illicit trade in electronics: residential burgling and transnational smuggling. By tracing the circulation of stolen electronics, gangsters and their migrant collaborators are shown to use flexible procedures to prevent detection and custody. These procedures capitalise on the changes brought by liberalisation, allowing for the efficient flow of electronics consignments to distant African cities and villages. It is argued that thinking through these procedures allows for a nuanced understanding of contemporary gang dynamics beyond confinement
Cape · Criminology · Electronics · Liberalization · Mainstream · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Engineering · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Sex work and related issues
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Argonauts of the Western Pacific
Entanglement
The cultural biography of things
Congo-Paris
Johannesburg
Food, malls and the politics of consumption
Crime and Punishment on the Margins of the Postapartheid State
Rotten trade
Territorialising homes
Spatializing commodity chains
Violent Crime in South Africa
Embodying neoliberalism
From the Ninevites to the hard livings gang
West African Criminal Networks in South and Southern Africa
South Africa Pushed to the Limit
At the limits of spatial governmentality
From Bounded to Flexible Citizenship
Straddling the Divides
Afterword
"Divining" the city
Zombie Media
Commodity Fetishism in Organs Trafficking
Consumption and Political Economy
The political economy of technofetishism
Capetonian back streets
The Anthropology of Crime and Criminalization
The Archaeology of Illegal and Illicit Economies
[Not] talking like a Motorola'
Introduction
Awkward Entanglements
Looking beyond the urban poor in South Africa
Wandering women
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |