Crime, Violence and the Edges of State Power: Experiences in Urban South Africa

​The primary responsibility of the state is the monopolisation of organised violence within its territory. Without this monopoly of organised violence, political philosophers assert that legitimate forms of law and order cannot exist. This presentation will focus on what this looks like in reality by focusing on criminal violence in urban areas. It is based on a decade of professional experience working in one of the most dangerous cities in South Africa and the world. A city that has areas with homicide rates equivalent to those of active war zones and yet paradoxically, also has some of the country's safest neighborhoods. What does it look like at the urban edges of state power and how do people react to that?

​Douglas Ian Scott is a researcher, project designer, technologist and criminologist formerly based in Cape Town, South Africa. For the past 10 years he worked at the Safety Lab, a South African QUANGO that works extensively with local governments to create innovative projects to reduce violence in neglected urban communities experiencing very high homicide rates. Douglas is also long time Wikimedian and board member of Wikimedia South Africa, a membership organisation for Wikipedia editors in southern Africa.