Anxiety in Johannesburg: new views on a global south city
NICKY FALKOF, Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand COBUS VAN STADEN, Senior Researcher: China-Africa: South African Institute of International Affairs, University of the Witwatersrand WITHIN the media and popular culture of the global north, cities like Johannesburg, South Africa, are often presented as a site of trouble. They’re the source of the immigrants, drugs, violence, poverty, disease and environmental crisis that worry nervous citizens of more “developed” cities. Even when they take centre stage in international media production, global south cities like Johannesburg are laden with fear or fantasy. Think of the films District 9 with its slavering Nigerian gangsters,…