ABSTRACT
Acts of violence and the awareness of potential violence are constantly present within the black townships of contemporary South Africa. The socially constructed boundaries between common law and political forms of violence blur, as the legacies of the apartheid past and the uncertain transitionary present exacerbate each other. This chapter draws on fifty-four oral history interviews conducted for a study of the history of the Windermere community. Oral histories are always emotional histories. In the context of a culture of violence, the expressed and unexpressed feelings of interviewees are persistently 'present' in different, sometimes disruptive, manifestations. The Windermere/Kensington community originated on farmlands on the urban periphery of Cape Town in the first decades of this century. The area at this time consisted of a few scattered brick buildings and many more iron shanties. The majority of Windermere's former residents are now living on the 'Cape Flats'.
