Vuwani: understanding the violent community response to municipal boundary re-demarcation

Abstract

Prior to May 2016, the relatively unknown community of Vuwani in the Limpopo Province of South Africa had hardly been prone to violent protests and destruction of public property. This changed when the Limpopo High Court dismissed an application by the Masia Tribal Council and eight others to set aside the Municipal Demarcation Board's decision to incorporate Vuwani and parts of Thulamela Local Municipality into a single new municipality. What followed were protracted protests, which resulted in the burning down of twenty four schools. Employing the interrelated concepts of democracy, citizenship, rights, and accountability as conceptual and analytical lenses to explore the drivers of violence and protests, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, and focus group discussions with high school learners. They found that the demarcation dispute was steeped in socio-cultural dynamics, which the Municipal Demarcation Board had overlooked in making its decision. The article offers a number of policy recommendations that could potentially reduce the negative consequences associated with the demarcation of municipal boundaries in South Africa.