Precarity, surplus, and the urban political: Shack life in South Africa

Abstract

This chapter argues that urban shack settlements have become a paradigmatic site of anti-black necropolitics in contemporary South Africa. It explores the community of Cato Crest in Durban, where land occupations by shack dwellers have resulted in violent confrontation between members of the radical movement Abahlali baseMjondolo and the local state led by the African National Congress. Any attempt to grapple with the conditions of the urban political in contemporary South Africa will have to begin with the lived experience of shack dwellers like Nkululeko Gwala, who lost his life in a struggle for a second transition in South Africa. As such, the chapter argues for an expansion of the concept of precarity to include the forms of existential threat beyond the workplace facing urban shack communities. This conception of precarity must be coupled with an analysis of surplus exclusion from circuits of capital and with the enduring nature of anti-black violence.