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Classify, Exclude, Police. Urban Lives in South Africa and Nigeria. Edition No. 1. IJURR Studies in Urban and Social Change Book Series

  • Book

  • 304 Pages
  • May 2021
  • Region: Nigeria, South Africa
  • John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • ID: 5836520
>CLASSIFY, EXCLUDE, POLICE

‘Laurent Fourchard’s deep, first-hand knowledge of the history and contemporary politics of Nigeria and South Africa forms the basis of an insightful and compelling analysis of how states produce invidious distinctions among their people and at the same time how political linkages are forged between state and society, elites and subalterns, bureaucratic structures and personal relations.’
Frederick Cooper, Professor of History, New York University, USA

‘Violence, control, police and political order are essential dimensions of metropolis. In this exceptional book, Laurent Fourchard compares decentralised exercises of authority in providing vivid analysis of exclusion of youth and migrants, policing and riots, politics of “Big men” and fine-grained blurring between bureaucracy and society. A masterpiece of urban politics.’
Patrick Le Galès, Dean of Urban School, Sciences Po Paris, France

‘This book is a major contribution to rethinking urban politics from the experiences of African cities. Based on detailed historical analysis of South Africa and Nigeria, Fourchard recalibrates the actors, stakes and terms of urban politics around African-centred concerns.’
Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Geography, University College London, UK

The cities of South Africa and Nigeria are reputed to be dangerous, teeming with slums, and dominated by the informal economy but we know little about how people are divided up, categorised and policed. Colonial governments assigned rights and punishments, banned categories considered problematic (delinquents, migrants, single women, street vendors) and give non-state organisations the power to police low-income neighbourhoods. Within this enduring legacy, a tangle of petty arrangements has developed to circumvent exclusion to public places and government offices. In this unpredictable urban reality ??? which has eluded all planning ??? individuals and social groups have changed areas of public action through exclusion, violence and negotiation.

In combining historical and ethnographic methods, Classify, Exclude, Police explores the effects and limits of public action, and questions the possibility of comparison between cities often perceived as incommensurable. Focusing on state formation, urbanization, and daily lives, Laurent Fourchard addresses debates and controversies in comparative urban studies, history, political science, and urban anthropology. The book provides a systematic, comparative approach to the practices, processes, arrangements used to create boundaries, direct violence, and produce social, racial, gender, and`generational differences.

Table of Contents

Series Editors’ Preface viii

Acknowledgements ix

Classify, Exclude, Police 1

Part I Governing Colonial Urban Space 21

1 Classifying and Excluding Migrants 25

Race and Urban Space 28

Differentiating Urbans from Migrants in South Africa 33

Stabilisation Policies and Urban Residential Rights 34

Reinterpreting the Riots in Sharpeville and Langa 38

Differentiating Natives from Non‐Natives in Nigeria 45

The Birth of Territorial Enclaves: Non‐Native Neighbourhoods 46

Regionalism and Decolonisation 49

The Kano Riots 52

Conclusion 54

Notes 58

2 The Making of a Delinquent 63

Rise of Urban Poverty and Delinquency Issues 66

Between Psychometric Expertise and Penal Reform in South Africa 68

The Empire’s First Social Services in Lagos 71

Race, Gender and Welfare 73

From Preference to Racial Differentiation in South Africa 74

Juvenile Prostitution and the Construction of a Moral Space in Nigeria 77

A Coercive Incomplete Welfare State 81

From Financial Indigence to Flogging in Urban Nigeria 83

Violent Socialisation of Urban Youth in South African Institutions 85

Conclusion 88

Notes 90

Part II Policing the Neighbourhood 95

3 Vigilantism and Violence Under Colonialism and Apartheid 103

Policing in a Colonial Situation: Historiographical Detours 104

Violence and Vigilantism in South African Townships 107

Violence and the Making of Township Communities in the Cape Flats 111

Violence and Vigilantism in South‐West Nigeria 117

Honour and Violence in the Centre of Ibadan 120

Conclusion 123

Notes 125

4 Commodification, Politicisation and Uneven Pacification of Contemporary Vigilantism 129

State Regulation and Commodification in Nigeria 133

Commodifying Protection and Regulating Vigilante Violence in Ibadan 135

Return to Democracy and Uneven Pacification of Vigilantism 139

Politicisation, Bureaucratisation and Feminisation of Vigilantism in the Cape Flats 142

Politicisation of Security Initiatives 145

Limited Pacification and Bureaucratisation of Vigilantism 147

Feminisation of Vigilantism 153

Conclusion 157

Notes 159

Part III Politics of the Street, Politics in the Office 165

5 Patronage, Taxation and the Politicisation of Urban Space 171

Patronage and Urban Projects 174

The Amala Politics in Ibadan 176

The Metropolitan Project in Lagos 180

Revenues, Violence and Politicisation in Motor Parks 184

Extorting Money or Levying Taxes? 186

Governing Transport Between Patronage and Bureaucracy 190

Violence, Loyalty and Politicisation in Motor Parks 194

Conclusion 198

Notes 200

6 Bureaucrats, Indigenes and a New Urban Politics of Exclusion 203

Institutionalising Exclusion, Manufacturing New Urban Belonging 207

Producing Certificates, Identifying Urban Ancestry 215

Indigeneity, Segregation and Patronage 223

Conclusion 229

Notes 230

Conclusion: The Urban Legacy of Exclusion, Policing and Violence 233

References 243

Appendix 1: Dictionary 273

Index 279

Authors

Laurent Fourchard