Race, space and place in suburban Durban: an ethnographic assessment of gated community environments and residents

Abstract

This paper explores gated community culture and development in the suburbs of North Durban in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Using perspectives from the anthropology of space and place as a theoretical and methodological framework, ethnographic fieldwork in one community in this area explores the cultural reasoning behind the movement to a fortified suburban enclave in South Africa by problematizing why, in a newly democratic society based on an ethos of desegregation, do individuals feel the need to segregate themselves along class and racial lines in fortified developments in a fashion reminiscent of homeland demarcation during apartheid? And, is the movement to gated communities within post-apartheid South Africa solely a white cultural and class phenomenon? While these questions are necessary, and perhaps commonsensical in terms of the unique social history of South Africa, research also attempts to complicate these lines of inquiry to apprehend the cultural reasoning and lifestyles of gated community residents to move past racial and class stereotypes and delve into the complex culture of these environments and the different rationalizations that individuals work with to justify their surroundings.