Abstract
In this article, we analyse civic policing in post-apartheid South Africa as a form of ‘weaponized volunteering’. We use ‘weaponized volunteerism’ as a conceptual lens to refer to practices that rest on the potentiality and/or willingness to use physical violence or to harness the physical violence of others under the guise of ‘volunteer work’. By drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted by both authors in eThekwini, South Africa, we show that by framing civic policing as weaponized volunteerism, we are able to analyse the violence at the core of policing and underline the varied ways that violence work is harnessed and expanded through civic policing, in the interest of civic and state actors. This, in turn, allows us to explore the continuum between state and civic violence, which is often directed towards similar groups and individuals.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 253-274 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Current Sociology |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 14 May 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article draws on empirical material collected by both authors during their PhD studies. Diphoorn’s research was funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Academy of International Cooperation. She also received financial support through the Marie Curie Sustainable Peacebuilding (SPBuild) fellowship awarded within the Initial Training Network under the Marie Curie Actions of the Seventh Framework Programme (F7). Cooper-Knock’s research was funded by the ESRC.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
Keywords
- Civic policing
- South Africa
- Violence
- Volunteering
- Weaponized
