Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town

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dc.contributor.advisorFuh, Divineen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorJunck, Leah Davinaen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2016-07-25T11:28:11Z
dc.date.available2016-07-25T11:28:11Z
dc.date.issued2016en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis ethnographic study explores how people deal with suspicion and navigate the fear of crime in the Observatory suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The study grapples with the question of how the neighbourhood watch, as a recently revived institution, operates. It analyses the institution and relationships within and around it as an alternative source of trust to the state in combatting crime and its wider impact on lived sociality in the suburb and, perhaps, beyond. The focus of the study lies in understanding the strategies people employ habitually in order to create a sense of security in a context where the anticipation of violence permeates various everyday routines. In analysing strategies of living through insecurities, I focus on examining material and highly visible security measures, such as patrol cars and barbed wires, and engage with the body as a site of social and political memory and struggle, while considering the roles it takes on in the face of perceived precariousness. This dissertation offers an insight in to how the body is deployed as an instrument or buffer to deal with insecurity and crime vulnerability. The quality of public life becomes compromised through embodied strategies of (in)security and vulnerability as employed by the neighbourhood watch. The capacity of a constantly perceived presence of criminal violence in shaping individual and institutional bodies and strategies constitutes the main focus of this study. While the study does not identify the roots of crime as is currently practice with related studies of crime in South Africa, it illuminates the engagement with its perceived presence and thus moves away from a fixed victim-perpetrator dichotomy that has dominated the public discourse.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationJunck, L. D. (2016). <i>Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20687en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationJunck, Leah Davina. <i>"Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20687en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationJunck, L. 2016. Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Junck, Leah Davina AB - This ethnographic study explores how people deal with suspicion and navigate the fear of crime in the Observatory suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The study grapples with the question of how the neighbourhood watch, as a recently revived institution, operates. It analyses the institution and relationships within and around it as an alternative source of trust to the state in combatting crime and its wider impact on lived sociality in the suburb and, perhaps, beyond. The focus of the study lies in understanding the strategies people employ habitually in order to create a sense of security in a context where the anticipation of violence permeates various everyday routines. In analysing strategies of living through insecurities, I focus on examining material and highly visible security measures, such as patrol cars and barbed wires, and engage with the body as a site of social and political memory and struggle, while considering the roles it takes on in the face of perceived precariousness. This dissertation offers an insight in to how the body is deployed as an instrument or buffer to deal with insecurity and crime vulnerability. The quality of public life becomes compromised through embodied strategies of (in)security and vulnerability as employed by the neighbourhood watch. The capacity of a constantly perceived presence of criminal violence in shaping individual and institutional bodies and strategies constitutes the main focus of this study. While the study does not identify the roots of crime as is currently practice with related studies of crime in South Africa, it illuminates the engagement with its perceived presence and thus moves away from a fixed victim-perpetrator dichotomy that has dominated the public discourse. DA - 2016 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2016 T1 - Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town TI - Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20687 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/20687
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationJunck LD. Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology, 2016 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20687en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentSocial Anthropologyen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherSocial Anthropologyen_ZA
dc.titleCultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Townen_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMSocScen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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