Keeping the Peace: A Tale of Murder and Morality in Postapartheid South Africa

This article examines a South African murder trial known as the Reeds Murders as a site for analyzing discourses of crime, race, and citizenship within the context of postapartheid South Africa. I show how concerns over public morality are represented within the juridical field, as well as how the defendants in this case deploy collective memories of state violence to challenge the court's vision of postapartheid justice. I conclude by exploring both how public fears of African youth emerge in the sentencing of the accused, and also how those fears map onto the contours of a postapartheid moral geography.