ABSTRACT

When young men move around Cape Town, they transgress the still highly visible apartheid-constructed architecture of the city. Where their grandparents needed to carry an official document known as a ‘pass’ in order to move between areas defined as Black, Coloured and White, nowadays these movements are not restricted by law. Young men are able to cross spatial borders that their parents and grandparents were rarely able to cross, and in those movements their positioning changes. There are many reasons to move:  to attend school, to visit friends and family, to spend time in shopping malls, to go to the beach or go out dancing in nightclubs. Some young men only get the chance to move while they are doing crimes such as breaking into houses and stealing cars. Moving costs money, but it also requires courage and curiosity. It involves challenging not only the spatial but also the social logic of apartheid. It challenges senses of belonging and the idea that certain people with certain histories belong to certain places.