Violence and bordering on the margins of the State: A view from South Africa and the southern border of Spain
| Author | Gail Super,Ana Ballesteros-Pena |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221076422 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Violence and bordering on the
margins of the State: A view
from South Africa and the
southern border of Spain
Gail Super
University of Toronto, Canada
Ana Ballesteros-Pena
Universidade da Coruña, Spain
Abstract
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 law-
ful (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 our case studies are instances of law (and State) preserving violence.
Second, that absence and responsibilization are central techniques for invisibilizing the
role of violence in preserving law, and that abdication of jurisdiction is key to the exer-
cise of state sovereignty. Third, that when the State preserves itself through sharing its
monopoly over violence the fictitious distinction between law and violence collapses.
We use the term ‘borderline lawful violence’to highlight the precarious nature of the
boundary between lawful and unlawful violence.
Keywords
Benjamin, bordering, Ceuta and Melilla, expulsion, inequality, jurisdiction, race, South Africa,
sovereignty, violence
Corresponding author:
Gail Super, Sociology, University of Toronto—Mississauga 71637, Maanjiwe Nendamowinan, Room 6224,
Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada.
Email: gail.super@utoronto.ca
Article
Theoretical Criminology
2022, Vol. 26(4) 580–600
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13624806221076422
journals.sagepub.com/home/tcr
Introduction
The colonial world is a world divided into compartments. It is probably unnecessary to recall the
existence of native quarters and European quarters, of schools for natives and schools for
Europeans; in the same way we need not recall Apartheid in South Africa. Yet, if we
examine closely this system of compartments, we will at least be able to reveal the lines of
force it implies. This approach to the colonial world, its ordering and its geographical layout
will allow us to make out the lines on which a decolonized society will be reorganized. The colo-
nial world is a world cut in two (Fanon, 1990: 29).
Thisarticle looks to the northand south of the Africancontinent. Ourfocus is on the expul-
sive violencethat arises out of,and is interwoven with, borderingprocesses in andaround the
Spanish enclaves of Ceuta andMelilla (on the southernborder of Spain) and in informalset-
tlementsin Cape Town (South Africa).We chose these case studiesbecause each exemplifies
how bordering plays out symbolically and literally, internally and externally, between
nations and within nations, between Europe and Africa, black and white, rich and poor.
Morocco is a border country in the sense that it is literally at the edge of Africa. Our
focus, however, is on the contested enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which belong to Spain
but are physically situatedin Morocco. As such, theyillustrate the multipledynamics of bor-
dering in two contained, relatively small spaces. South Africa, on the other hand, is quite
distant from Europe, situated on the southern side of the continent. Cape Town is almost
(but not quite) at the southernmost tip of Africa. Thus, part of the reason we chose these
two case studies is precisely because of their polar opposite geographical locations.
Because Morocco is geographically close to Europe, the physical border between it and
Spain exemplifies the symbolic border between the white ‘global North’and black ‘global
South’. South Africa is physically far from Europe, and as the most unequal country in the
world, exemplifies the borders created by inequalityand histories of racial segregation.
In Ceuta and Melilla we focus on externalized bordering, analysing the violence
deployed to enforce the border between two countries (Spain and Morocco). In the case
of South Africa, we analyse violent forms of internal bordering, within and between local
communities. Both case studies demonstrate the ways in which unlawful (or borderline
lawful) violence is used to secure territories and assert sovereignty by expelling unwanted
persons.We use the term borderline lawful in twoways: first, to refer to situations where the
legality (or otherwise) of a violent action is not initially clear (and hence open to dispute).
Second, we use it to refer to instances or contexts when an initially lawful form (or infra-
structure) of violence collapses into unlawfulviolence—for example when a lawfully con-
stitutedneighbourhood watch punishes,or when a border guard exceeds the amountof force
reasonably necessary to perform a lawful action.Whereas ‘lawful violence’is violencethat
is within the law, for example the use of force to effect an arrest (by a police officer or a
citizen), or to defend oneself against an attack (self-defence), unlawful violence is violence
that is outside of the law and is generally criminalized. Both state and non-state actors can
enact unlawfulviolence, for examplewhen exceeding the bounds of whatis considered ‘rea-
sonable’violenceto effect an otherwise lawful purpose(such as an arrest). While in theory
the border betweenlawful and unlawful violence is clear,in practice it is blurred and porous
—hence the term ‘borderline lawful’.
Super and Ballesteros-Pena 581
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