Open AccessBook Review: Don Pinnock, Gang Town, Cape Town, Tafelberg, 2016.
Author(s) -
Elrena van der Spuy
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
sa crime quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2413-3108
pISSN - 1991-3877
DOI - 10.17159/2413-3108/2016/v0n57a1365
Subject(s) - cape , agency (philosophy) , front (military) , subject (documents) , history , emblem , sociology , art , media studies , archaeology , geography , meteorology , social science , library science , computer science
Gang Town, so promises the back leaf, ‘tells a tale of two cities’. The front cover juxtaposes the two cities – Cape Town and Gang Town. The outline of Table Mountain beckons in the distance. Superimposed onto that world heritage emblem of the city is the body of a young man. A crude tattoo is visible on his naked torso. The arms of the body are stretched outward. The hands clasp a handgun. The torso, the tattoo and handgun signify ‘the gangster’. He hails from Gang Town. The gangster-subject is not without agency. The body is tilted in anticipation of the deadly velocity of the gun. But that agency, we know, is painfully circumscribed by the debilitating conditions of social exclusion that characterise Gang Town. So it is with anticipation that one turns to Pinnock’s account of the interplay between structure and agency and gangs.