Urbanisation,nativism, and the rule of law in South Africa's ‘forbidden’ cities

South Africa's political liberalisation and strengthening regional ties have engendered new patterns of immigration and urbanisation, resulting in South African migrants and non-nationals converging on the streets of previously ‘forbidden’ cities. Conflicts over space, services and livelihoods are emerging as these groups meet and compete. To settle these disputes, South African citizens and politicians regularly rely on nativist discourses that make one's rights to the city contingent on one's national origins. Efforts to exclude foreigners are in turn encouraging and legitimising new forms of bias, administrative discrimination and anti-foreigner policing. Bolstered by official sanction, these are creating urban ‘zones of exception’, areas in which the state authorises its agents to work outside the law. Although popular among South Africans, the extra-legal harassment, detention and deportation of non-nationals has helped entrench new economies of corruption and violence that jeopardise the rights and welfare of all urban residents. While rooted in the dynamics of post-apartheid South Africa, these findings resonate with global trends in which quests to assert sovereignty through immigration controls are resulting in actions that undermine the legitimacy and founding principles of the liberal states that undertake them.     

Reviews

The Absence of lzanagi By Kei Takei Performed at La MaMa E.T.C., New York June 22–25, 2000

Otome Bunraku performs two Japanese classics Japan Society, New York September 13–16, 2000

Towa—Part I—Kanojo (Eternity—Part I—She) By Kishida Rio Performed at Kinokuniya Southern Theatre, Tokyo August 31‐September 9, 2000

Toothless By Kazuko Hohki Performed at Battersea Arts Centre, London June‐July 2000

Hagi‐ke no San‐Shimai (Three Sisters of the Hagi Family) By Nagai Ai Performed at Theatre Tram, Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo November 4–19, 2000

Women's Gidayū and the Japanese Theatre Tradition. By A. Kimi Coaldrake. 1998. London and New York: Nissan Institute, Routledge Japanese Studies Series. Xxix+262. With nine‐track CD.

Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. By Jennifer Robertson. 1998. University of California Press, Japan. Xvi+278.

Angura: Posters of the Japanese Avant‐Garde. David G. Goodman. 1999. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Viii+91.

About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater. By Dorinne Kondo. 1997. New York and London: Routledge. xiii +277.     

Commentaries on the issue

Lynne Rudder Baker, Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987, xii + 177 pp.

Daniel C. Dennett, The Intentional Stance Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987, xi + 388 pp.

Paul M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness Cambridge: MIT Press, revised edition, 1988, xii + 184 pp.