‘Three warnings and you’re out’: Banishment and precarious penality in South Africa’s informal settlements
| Published date | 01 January 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474518822485 |
| Author | Gail Super |
| Date | 01 January 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
‘Three warnings and
you’re out’: Banishment
and precarious penality
in South Africa’s informal
settlements
Gail Super
University of Toronto, Canada
Abstract
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 paper examines the ways in which these formally illegal, but nonetheless
legitimate practices, draw on and reconfigure liberal state punishment. I use my study to
make a broader theoretical point about the interplay between lawful state punishment
and unlawful punishment on the periphery of the state. The blurred boundaries
between legal (state) violence and illegal (but nonetheless legitimate) violence are
particularly ‘visible’ in situations of ‘precarious penality’ – a term that I use to describe
the unstable, violent and exclusionary penality that manifests in situations of socio-
economic precarity, particularly in contexts of inequality, high rates of violent crime and
a delegitimated rule of law. In these circumstances ‘non-state’ punishment contributes
to the construction and maintenance of group boundaries and fulfils a similar function
to ‘formal’ punishment. Thus, I ask whether it makes sense to exclude ‘non-state’ public
authorities which act against ‘criminality’, when asking what or who constitutes the
penal field and, when measuring state punitiveness?
Corresponding author:
Gail Super,Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, North Building, Room 6224, Mississauga, ON L5L
1C6, Canada.
Email: gail.super@utoronto.ca
Punishment & Society
2020, Vol. 22(1) 48–69
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474518822485
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
Keywords
banishment, non-state punishment, precarious penality, vigilantism, violence
We give 3 warnings. After that the whole community tells them to move – the whole
community breaks the shack. You just shake it and it’s down. We call the trouble
maker – we ask what’s happening. We won’t banish someone for a trivial offence, e.g.
playing music too loudly, kids fighting or drunkenness. If she or he doesn’t want to
hear the people – if you don’t like living here you must move. If your child steals – we
just order you to leave the area – after we have given three warnings. (Chair of section
committee, 9 November 2015)
Introduction
This paper takes up the challenge laid down by Hannah-Moffat and Lynch (2012:
119) in the pathbreaking 2012 Special Edition of Theoretical Criminology to study
punishment in ‘diverse settings’ and pay attention to ‘localized on-the-ground
processes’ (Hannah-Moffat and Lynch, 2012: 119–120). Like them, I ask ‘what
counts as punishment?’ However, instead of asking how the state expands its
punitive power through ‘ostensibly non-punitive means’ (Hannah Moffat and
Lynch: 119–20) I ask how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on
the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa.
The paper draws on, and adds to, the work of Carrington et al. (2016: 3) who
argue that the focus on the state and the Global North in mainstream criminol ogy has
resulted in a lack of attention to ‘alternative forms of justice, conflict resolution and
punishment beyond the state’. I argue that those ‘non-state’ punishments that take
place outside of the formal state but, with its tacit consent, should be included in the
‘continuum of punishment techniques and their varied effects’ (Hannah-Moff at and
Maurutto, 2012: 202). My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected
of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements in South Africa. I refer
to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ (Hannah-Moffat
and Lynch, 2012) which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents
experience on a day-to-day basis. Whereas Hannah-Moffat and Lynch (2012: 120)
use the term ‘penal phenomenon’ to include other exercises of state power, apart from
that which is imposed following a formal criminal trial in the term ‘penal’ (Zedner,
2016), I argue that certain ‘non-state’ practices are also penal phenomena.
Analytical frameworks
The term ‘banishment’ in the Punishment and Society literature (see, e.g. Badcock,
2016; Beckett and Herbert, 2010; Bowker, 1980; Coy, 2008; Laitinen, 2013;
Super 49
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