Innocent violence: social exclusion, identity, and the press in an African democracy

Abstract The violent attacks on African immigrants and refugees in marginal settlements surrounding South Africa's largest cities in May 2008 occasioned a rush of mostly well-intentioned attempts by journalists, public intellectuals, and government officials to discover the causes and find the cures for the outbreak. This article interrogates the glosses of ‘xenophobia’ and ‘social deprivation’ that were all too quickly applied to explain the attacks in public representations of this sorry episode in South Africa's post-apartheid history. The account of the focal events is based on a thorough sifting of press reports, victims’, perpetrators’, and police testimonies, government and civil society spokespersons’ interventions, and field research. Rather than providing a monovocal, hierarchical argument for one or another analysis emerging from the reportage, this article juxtaposes complex and conflicting local accounts, justifications, forces, and circumstances, to provide an intriguing if ultimately – at this early stage – irresolvable image of these tragic events. The implications for South African social identities, institutions, and democratic order, however, are at the end all too clearly illuminated. Keywords: ethnic violenceidentitynationalismprint mediaSouth Africa Additional informationNotes on contributorsDavid B. Coplan David B. Coplan is professor in Antropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He has published widely on borders and migration in southern Africa