Fear and alienation: narratives of crime and race in post-apartheid South Africa

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Periodical article

Title:	Fear and alienation: narratives of crime and race in post-apartheid South Africa
Author:	Kynoch, Gary
Year:	2013
Periodical:	Canadian Journal of African Studies (ISSN 0008-3968)
Volume:	47
Issue:	3
Pages:	427-441
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	crime attitudes race relations literature
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00083968.2013.869178
Abstract:	This article focuses on interpretations and representations of violent crime in fiction, non-fiction and media to explore racialized discourses of fear and vulnerability in contemporary South Africa. It is less concerned with statistics and 'facts' related to crime than with the role of race in impressions of and attitudes towards criminal violence. And, whereas gender, class and nationality all mediate the ways in which crime is experienced and perceived by residents of South Africa, for a considerable portion of the white population race remains the predominant factor when it comes to fear of violent crime. Perhaps the most significant difference in black narratives is that black South Africans do not conceptualize violent crime in terms of a racial assault. For a country struggling to overcome its corrosive racial history, crime discourses that emphasize blacks as perpetrators and whites as victims both reflect and shape the ongoing reconciliation process. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]