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Capetonian back streets

Territorializing young men

Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims, Denmark

The article examines how the South African state and local government in Cape Town have objectified young, coloured men as particularly prone to crime and gangs, and how young coloured men in Cape Town cope with pervasive stereotypes linking them to crime and violence. Through the central metaphor of die agterbuurde (the back streets), which is simultaneously a physical and an identitary space, the practices of young men are unpacked in terms of the informal economy, gang rituals, narrative constructions of bravery and masculine assertion and in relation to dominant (white) society. Theoretically, the argument draws on the analysis of the war machine by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The central argument is that while the state calls into existence the young men as an object of intervention, it provides the platform from which the young men, from die agterbuurde, can challenge domination.

Key Words: gangs • Cape Town • urban • Deleuze • Guattari • policing • governance • crime

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