Gangsters Nexus Urban Violence in South Africa: A Bibliographical Review

Abstract

There is scant literature in gangster's nexus urban violence in African towns and cities. Scholars did not take this issue as their subject of study. Only some prominent scholars tried their best to deal with this topic. Gary Kynoch is worth mentioning. This paper attempts to conduct bibliographical review on some research works of Gary Kynoch. It consulted ten (10) articles of Gary Kynoch dealing with gangster's nexus urban violence in different towns of South Africa. The articles were selected depending on the reviewer's access to them. Kynoch's articles cover the period from 1900s up to 1990s. This paper reviews Kynoch's articles focusing on the general history of urban violence in South Africa, the leading actors of the violence and their impact on the lives of the township and mine residents in South Africa. The major causes of the violence, the anthropological backgrounds of the actors of the violence and their general features are assessed in the author's research works. The author's articles also emphasize on the history of immigrant workers primarily the Chinese mineworkers and some major factors that hampered their effectiveness in the mining activities. These articles also focus on the role of Chinese police in aggravating the political and criminal violence in South Africa.Gary Kynoch's articles pay due attention to issues related to the impact of military development on the lives of South Africans.