ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the laager as a contemporary security infrastructure. It, for the most part, favours contemporary elites. The laager, though not a signifier in the conventional sense, is a pivotal infrastructure of the status quo. It might be defined as the sum total of physical and ontological structures that facilitate border-making and enclavism in contemporary societies, where there is a symbiotic relationship between the physical and the ontological. The laager in its totality is not directly observable. It is observed through other infrastructures and actions, that facilitate some forms of circulation and inhibit other forms of circulation. The chapter explains the logic of the laager and its relevance to the study area. It also speculates on the relevance of this concept to other contexts. In the study area, narrowly conceived spaces of representation often trump alternative representations of space as spatial practices are mediated by the perceived and materialised laager and associated signifiers such as victimhood, purity and matter out of place. The laager, similar to its initial manifestations in the 1800s, as a circle of wagons, also represents fear. It is a defensive position against crime, but also much more. Justifications for creating laagers might vary elsewhere.
