After 2021: reimagining South African shopping malls

Abstract

In the torrent of media coverage that accompanied the widespread looting and violence in South Africa's Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces in mid-2021, a key voice to emerge was that of Soweto community leader Nhlanhla "Lux" Dlamini. Over the course of one week, Dlamini and others guarded Pimville's Maponya Mall, an established Soweto shopping centre with an assortment of hundreds of restaurants, banking facilities, and both local and global retail stores.