Journal Article | Legitimating Security Networks in South Africa’s Exclusionary Suburbs

It is widely recognised within policy and within the literature that security is performed by a multiplicity of actors, rather than purely the public police. These include private security companies and community volunteer groups amongst others. Together they constitute a wide, interconnected, and collaborative ‘security network’. These ‘security networks’ are often taken for granted as legitimate ‘sovereign’ bodies within Johannesburg’s wealthy suburbs. This qualitative case study of a wealthy suburb in Johannesburg investigates the processes that legitimise these security networks as authorities and considers the implications in the context of a highly unequal society. It argues that the security networks are legitimised largely through discourse. Firstly, these networks contribute to the social construction of criminality and who and what should be considered a threat. Secondly, security networks position themselves as ‘crime fighters’. Thirdly, the idea of ‘community’ becomes increasingly intertwined with the role of the security network. These processes frequently play out in a manner that perpetuates an exclusionary and discriminatory social order and contestation over space.