Exorcising the Demons Within

Book excerpt: On 11 May 2008, residents of Alexandra Township turned violently on their neighbours, launching a string of attacks that, two weeks later, left 60 dead, dozens raped and over a hundred thousand displaced. This book situates recent anti-outsider violence within an extended history of South African statecraft that both produced the conditions for the attacks and has been reshaped by it. It is the first academic text to fully theorise the events that made global headlines in 2008. Through its subtle, empirical and theoretically informed analysis, the book reshapes discussion of xenophobia and violence in South Africa while injecting local debates into global considerations of the meaning of citizenship and the post-colonial state.