Gail Super
Biographic Data
| ID | 315904 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gail Super |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gail |
| FAMILY NAME | Super |
| SIGNATURE | SUPER G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4616-4890 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Porous Penality and the Myth of Liberal Punishment: Lessons from South Africa
Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state’s legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at e…
Fractured Militancy: Precarious Resistance in South Africa after Racial Inclusion
Penal Violence in Spaces of Precarity
Drawing on Walter Benjamin's argument that liberal law is founded on and preserved through violence and on Hannah Arendt's and Frantz Fanon's ideas on the unpredictability of violence, this article uses the term penal violence to highlight the violence of lawful (state) punishment and the overlaps between different forms of lawful state violence and extralegal/extrajudicial violence. Focusing on South Africa, I argue that there is an ever-present…
Cars, compounds and containers: Judicial and extrajudicial infrastructures of punishment in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ South Africa
This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in South Africa. I argue that car trunks, shacks, containers, and other everyday receptacles function as the underside of official institutions, such as prisons and police lock-ups, and bear historical imprints of the extrajudicial punishments inflicted on black bodies during colonialism and apartheid. I focus on two techniques: forcing someone into the tru…
Violence and bordering on the margins of the State: A view from South Africa and the southern border of Spain
This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in informal settlements in former black townships in South Africa. These violent bordering processes expose the violent injustices that constitute the boundaries of lawful (liberal) law, and the violence that sovereigns use to secure territories. Drawing on Walter Benjamin we make three main theoretical arguments. First, that the bordering processes in ou…
Civic‐Led Banishment in South Africa: Punishment, Authority, and Spatialised Precarity
Civic‐led banishment, a fundamentally spatial punishment, is an understudied phenomenon in South Africa and beyond. We define it as “a punitive spatial practice, enacted by non‐state actors in response to alleged criminality or deviance, which attempts varying degrees of socio‐spatial expulsion over time”. This definition lays the framework for a socio‐spatial analysis of punishment, and yields insights into the exercise of socio‐spatial control …
Punitive Welfare on the Margins of the State: Narratives of Punishment and (In)Justice in Masiphumelele
While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state punishment, there is less work on how punishment is constituted from below in contexts of inequality. This article analyses the discourse around incidents of lethal collective violence that occurred in 2015 in a former black township in South Africa. I use this as a lens for examining how punitive forms of popular justice interact with state punishmen…
Three warnings and you’re out’: Banishment and precarious penality in South Africa’s informal settlements
This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa. My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements. I refer to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents experience on a daily basis. The pap…
What’s in a name and why it matters: A historical analysis of the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power in South Africa
This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power. I ask how shifting political contexts shape the construction of the ‘vigilante’ and the legitimation (or not) of vigilante violence. Based on a historical analysis of how the terms ‘vigilante’, ‘vigilantism’ and ‘mob justice’ are used in mainstream discourse in South Africa the article tracks the political transformations that took place in the Sou…
Christine Hentschel, Security in the Bubble: Navigating Crime in Urban South Africa
Punishment, violence, and grassroots democracy in South Africa—The politics of populist punitiveness
This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of democratic ‘community’ based criminal justice initiatives, in tandem with long-term imprisonment, in the context of vigilantism in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. I argue that vigilante practices are part of a continuum of community-based crime prevention and punishment practices, where the legal and illegal are blurred, …
Volatile Sovereignty: Governing Crime through the Community in Khayelitsha
This paper asks what crime prevention looks like for residents in informal settlements in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. It engages with the idea of vigilantism and hybrid policing formations, analyzing the overlaps and intersections between legal community-based crime prevention initiatives, and local 'punitive practices'. The focus is not on the intensely violent spectacle of 'mob justice', where suspects are kille…
Punishment and the body in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ South Africa: A story of punitivist humanism
This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It frames punishment as a form of governance which is both connected to, and separate from, the Anglo/American/European examples that are generally referred to in the literature. The shift from corporal and capital punishment to the use of long-term imprisonment is discussed within a framework that emphasizes how both the apartheid and post-apartheid state…
Like Some Rough Beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem to be Born: A Historical Perspective on the Institution of the Prison in South Africa, 1976-2004
This paper looks at official discourse on imprisonment under the apartheid and post-apartheid governments, comparing the ways that both regimes have justified the existence of the prison in South Africa. The period covered is from 1976 to 2004. The author shows how the ANC government has attempted to reinvent the prison as a means of establishing order in post-apartheid South Africa and that the demise of apartheid and advent of democracy have be…
The Spectacle of Crime in the 'New' South Africa: A Historical Perspective (1976-2004)
This article is concerned with the spectacle of crime in the ‘new’ South Africa. I offer a sociological explanation for why crime plays such an important role in governance in South Africa. I identify both continuities and shifts between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ techniques of rule, showing how the very construction of crime and controversies about measuring it are constituted by and constitutive of power relations within society. The interconnected th…
Volatile Sovereignty: Governing Crime through the Community in Khayelitsha
This paper asks what crime prevention looks like for residents in informal settlements in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. It engages with the idea of vigilantism and hybrid policing formations, analyzing the overlaps and intersections between legal community-based crime prevention initiatives, and local 'punitive practices'. The focus is not on the intensely violent spectacle of 'mob justice', where suspects are kille…
Punitive Welfare on the Margins of the State: Narratives of Punishment and (In)Justice in Masiphumelele
While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state punishment, there is less work on how punishment is constituted from below in contexts of inequality. This article analyses the discourse around incidents of lethal collective violence that occurred in 2015 in a former black township in South Africa. I use this as a lens for examining how punitive forms of popular justice interact with state punishmen…
What’s in a name and why it matters: A historical analysis of the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power in South Africa
This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power. I ask how shifting political contexts shape the construction of the ‘vigilante’ and the legitimation (or not) of vigilante violence. Based on a historical analysis of how the terms ‘vigilante’, ‘vigilantism’ and ‘mob justice’ are used in mainstream discourse in South Africa the article tracks the political transformations that took place in the Sou…
Punishment, violence, and grassroots democracy in South Africa—The politics of populist punitiveness
This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of democratic ‘community’ based criminal justice initiatives, in tandem with long-term imprisonment, in the context of vigilantism in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. I argue that vigilante practices are part of a continuum of community-based crime prevention and punishment practices, where the legal and illegal are blurred, …
Cars, compounds and containers: Judicial and extrajudicial infrastructures of punishment in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ South Africa
This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in South Africa. I argue that car trunks, shacks, containers, and other everyday receptacles function as the underside of official institutions, such as prisons and police lock-ups, and bear historical imprints of the extrajudicial punishments inflicted on black bodies during colonialism and apartheid. I focus on two techniques: forcing someone into the tru…
Violence and bordering on the margins of the State: A view from South Africa and the southern border of Spain
This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in informal settlements in former black townships in South Africa. These violent bordering processes expose the violent injustices that constitute the boundaries of lawful (liberal) law, and the violence that sovereigns use to secure territories. Drawing on Walter Benjamin we make three main theoretical arguments. First, that the bordering processes in ou…
Three warnings and you’re out’: Banishment and precarious penality in South Africa’s informal settlements
This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa. My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements. I refer to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents experience on a daily basis. The pap…
Punishment and the body in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ South Africa: A story of punitivist humanism
This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It frames punishment as a form of governance which is both connected to, and separate from, the Anglo/American/European examples that are generally referred to in the literature. The shift from corporal and capital punishment to the use of long-term imprisonment is discussed within a framework that emphasizes how both the apartheid and post-apartheid state…
Porous Penality and the Myth of Liberal Punishment: Lessons from South Africa
Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state’s legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at e…
Civic‐Led Banishment in South Africa: Punishment, Authority, and Spatialised Precarity
Civic‐led banishment, a fundamentally spatial punishment, is an understudied phenomenon in South Africa and beyond. We define it as “a punitive spatial practice, enacted by non‐state actors in response to alleged criminality or deviance, which attempts varying degrees of socio‐spatial expulsion over time”. This definition lays the framework for a socio‐spatial analysis of punishment, and yields insights into the exercise of socio‐spatial control …
The Spectacle of Crime in the 'New' South Africa: A Historical Perspective (1976-2004)
This article is concerned with the spectacle of crime in the ‘new’ South Africa. I offer a sociological explanation for why crime plays such an important role in governance in South Africa. I identify both continuities and shifts between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ techniques of rule, showing how the very construction of crime and controversies about measuring it are constituted by and constitutive of power relations within society. The interconnected th…
The Spectacle of Crime in the 'New' South Africa: A Historical Perspective (1976-2004)
This article is concerned with the spectacle of crime in the ‘new’ South Africa. I offer a sociological explanation for why crime plays such an important role in governance in South Africa. I identify both continuities and shifts between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ techniques of rule, showing how the very construction of crime and controversies about measuring it are constituted by and constitutive of power relations within society. The interconnected th…
Punishment and the body in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ South Africa: A story of punitivist humanism
This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It frames punishment as a form of governance which is both connected to, and separate from, the Anglo/American/European examples that are generally referred to in the literature. The shift from corporal and capital punishment to the use of long-term imprisonment is discussed within a framework that emphasizes how both the apartheid and post-apartheid state…
Like Some Rough Beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem to be Born: A Historical Perspective on the Institution of the Prison in South Africa, 1976-2004
This paper looks at official discourse on imprisonment under the apartheid and post-apartheid governments, comparing the ways that both regimes have justified the existence of the prison in South Africa. The period covered is from 1976 to 2004. The author shows how the ANC government has attempted to reinvent the prison as a means of establishing order in post-apartheid South Africa and that the demise of apartheid and advent of democracy have be…
Christine Hentschel, Security in the Bubble: Navigating Crime in Urban South Africa
Punishment, violence, and grassroots democracy in South Africa—The politics of populist punitiveness
This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of democratic ‘community’ based criminal justice initiatives, in tandem with long-term imprisonment, in the context of vigilantism in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. I argue that vigilante practices are part of a continuum of community-based crime prevention and punishment practices, where the legal and illegal are blurred, …
Volatile Sovereignty: Governing Crime through the Community in Khayelitsha
This paper asks what crime prevention looks like for residents in informal settlements in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. It engages with the idea of vigilantism and hybrid policing formations, analyzing the overlaps and intersections between legal community-based crime prevention initiatives, and local 'punitive practices'. The focus is not on the intensely violent spectacle of 'mob justice', where suspects are kille…
What’s in a name and why it matters: A historical analysis of the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power in South Africa
This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power. I ask how shifting political contexts shape the construction of the ‘vigilante’ and the legitimation (or not) of vigilante violence. Based on a historical analysis of how the terms ‘vigilante’, ‘vigilantism’ and ‘mob justice’ are used in mainstream discourse in South Africa the article tracks the political transformations that took place in the Sou…
Three warnings and you’re out’: Banishment and precarious penality in South Africa’s informal settlements
This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa. My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements. I refer to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents experience on a daily basis. The pap…
Punitive Welfare on the Margins of the State: Narratives of Punishment and (In)Justice in Masiphumelele
While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state punishment, there is less work on how punishment is constituted from below in contexts of inequality. This article analyses the discourse around incidents of lethal collective violence that occurred in 2015 in a former black township in South Africa. I use this as a lens for examining how punitive forms of popular justice interact with state punishmen…
Cars, compounds and containers: Judicial and extrajudicial infrastructures of punishment in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ South Africa
This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in South Africa. I argue that car trunks, shacks, containers, and other everyday receptacles function as the underside of official institutions, such as prisons and police lock-ups, and bear historical imprints of the extrajudicial punishments inflicted on black bodies during colonialism and apartheid. I focus on two techniques: forcing someone into the tru…
Violence and bordering on the margins of the State: A view from South Africa and the southern border of Spain
This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in informal settlements in former black townships in South Africa. These violent bordering processes expose the violent injustices that constitute the boundaries of lawful (liberal) law, and the violence that sovereigns use to secure territories. Drawing on Walter Benjamin we make three main theoretical arguments. First, that the bordering processes in ou…
Civic‐Led Banishment in South Africa: Punishment, Authority, and Spatialised Precarity
Civic‐led banishment, a fundamentally spatial punishment, is an understudied phenomenon in South Africa and beyond. We define it as “a punitive spatial practice, enacted by non‐state actors in response to alleged criminality or deviance, which attempts varying degrees of socio‐spatial expulsion over time”. This definition lays the framework for a socio‐spatial analysis of punishment, and yields insights into the exercise of socio‐spatial control …
Porous Penality and the Myth of Liberal Punishment: Lessons from South Africa
Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state’s legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at e…
Fractured Militancy: Precarious Resistance in South Africa after Racial Inclusion
Penal Violence in Spaces of Precarity
Drawing on Walter Benjamin's argument that liberal law is founded on and preserved through violence and on Hannah Arendt's and Frantz Fanon's ideas on the unpredictability of violence, this article uses the term penal violence to highlight the violence of lawful (state) punishment and the overlaps between different forms of lawful state violence and extralegal/extrajudicial violence. Focusing on South Africa, I argue that there is an ever-present…
Sociology (15 works) · Criminology (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (9 works) · Law (9 works) · State (computer science (9 works) · Punishment (psychology (7 works) · Psychology (6 works)