Description
Joint Winner of the 2023 ASSAf Humanities Book Award in the Emerging Researcher Category.
Through the life histories of twenty-four former Capetonian gang members, alongside hundreds of hours of additional interviews and observation from five years of ethnographic research, Dariusz Dziewanski reimagines gangsterism in a way that pays heed to the overwhelming force of street culture, but also confirms the possibility of overcoming crime and violence amid disenfranchisement and disadvantage.
Rather than simply reproducing the poverty-crime-violence narrative, this book demonstrates how gang members can – and have – transformed their lives, challenging the pessimistic conclusions commonly associated with gang entry; even gang scholars studying street culture usually portray the end point to gang life as either prison or a body bag. By presenting evidence about successful gang exit, Dziewanski showcases a practical starting point for changing how criminologists think about gangs and street culture – offering hope to those trying exit gang life, as well as those trying to help them do so.
Chapters
Preface
1. Blood In, Blood Out?
2. The Landscape of African Gangs
3. A City Still Segregated
4. Leaving the Streets
5. Walking the Righteous Path
6. Gavin
7. Beyond the Street
DARIUSZ DZIEWANSKI has spent the better part of a decade researching gangs in Cape Town, and has written on the subject in peer-reviewed journals and for leading media outlets around the world. He obtained a PhD from SOAS University of London and is currently a Research Associate at the Centre of Criminology, at the University of Cape Town’s Faculty of Law.
