Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at policing practices around the sites of multinational mining companies in South Africa. It argues that legal and illegal forms of reactive coercion, indirect rule and participatory community policing co-exist and compete, informed by specific discourses and historical social practices.

Paper long abstract:

Policing around business spaces provides emblematic empirical illustrations of plural and competing policing in Africa. It also shows that plurality should not be limited to policing actors. This paper therefore looks at different forms and practices of policing. It examines policing practices around the sites of multinational mining companies in South Africa. Focusing on company practices it looks at the different discourses and social fields that shape their different practices of policing a well as the politics of engaging in but also outsourcing policing to other actors. The paper shows that mining companies have shaped policing in business spaces by shaping relevant national policies. They have also fostered the commercialisation of policing and application of surveillance and risk-management practices, building islands of private policing in some areas. However, companies have also engaged in selectively building the state's reactive, coercive capacities and engage with local communities and local government in order to police mining areas. This is hence not about a pluralisation of actors of policing. Rather, there is a growing 'enmeshment' of state and commercial policing practices and competition between different practices across public-private boundaries. Informed by different discourses and historical social practice, legal and illegal forms of reactive coercion and indirect rule, and prevention and participatory community policing co-exist and compete in the policing of business spaces.