CITIZEN AND PARIAH, Somali traders and the regulation of difference in South Africa

233pp., illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2022

Vanya Gastrow on the predicament of small traders and the Somali communities in Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein and Philippi, who are frequently the focus of crime and xenophobic anger, and who face increasing regulatory efforts to curtail their business activities.

"Gastrow employs Max Weber's ideas of a 'pariah people' to describe Somali traders in South Africa: segregated from the social intercourse around them, their situation forever precarious, and yet begrudgingly tolerated because they are indispensable. This seems spot-on to me. Citizen and Pariah is a fine contribution to contemporary South African scholarship." Jonny Steinberg, author of A Man of Good Hope 

Lawyer and research consultant Vanya Gastrow wrote this book as part of a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town.