Shared Accountability for Community Safety
Presenter: Emma De Villiers (Fixed Africa)
Discussants: Esther Padi (Innovative Kasi Organisation) & Julia Hornberger (Wits University)
Thursday, 3 April, 1 – 3pm, Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room (East Campus, Wits University)
RSVP to attent in-person here and online here
The GIZ Violence and Crime Prevention Programme commissioned Municipal Safety Case Studies project profiled 18 contemporary stories of local safety practice, led and supported by local government around South Africa in 2024. Across these stories, a number of critical insights and provocative questions emerged for local crime and violence prevention and safety practice. The most pressing question was, if no role player can single-handedly break the cycles of crime and violence that keep South Africans traumatised, isolated and afraid, then what does shared accountability for safety look like? Particularly in the context of increasing expenditure on securitisation?
There are roles for residents and communities (who do we mean when we say ‘community’ in South Africa?) and there are some challenging perspectives for the municipality. Communication, connection and collaboration may turn out to be more powerful than cameras and control rooms.
About the series:
The Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP), Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and the Johannesburg Crisis: Concerned Academics, continue this seminar series to offer scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students an opportunity to share their ongoing work, either by discussing work in progress or presenting upcoming and new publications on the City of Johannesburg.
In 2025, the series provides a collaborative space and dialogue to scholars, researchers, activists and policy makers, to share their ongoing work on the City of Johannesburg.
This is an itinerant series and the details of each seminar will be published one week prior.
