A youth sitting with some friends in a dusty parking lot in Philippi East laughs when I ask him about his perception of foreign shopkeepers. ‘When I see a foreign shop,’ he says, grinning, ‘all I see are dollar signs and the potential for quick cash.’ Despite this casual reply, surprisingly he holds little overt hostility towards traders; his friends who are listening in are in apparent agreement. ‘They are of use to the community,’ he explains. ‘Their prices are cheaper. You can get a scoop of sugar for two rand. They are also more convenient because they open early in the morning and close late at night.’

The more I probed, the less it seemed as though robbers were particularly motivated by fierce misgivings towards their victims. Police believed that spaza shops were popular targets for robbers because they were cash businesses that traded in easily conveyable goods, such as cigarettes and airtime. To a degree this made sense. An Angolan shoe repairer operating from a wooden shed in Philippi told me that his business had never been affected by crime. ‘What are they going to take?’ he said. ‘I only have old shoes!’

Robbers’ economic motives were one thing, but there had to be more to why they selected the targets they did. Robbers’ lack of clear malice was accompanied by a particular nonchalance towards their victims. Gradually, I began to comprehend why.

South African township residents are no strangers to violent crime. Many narrated incidents of rape, muggings, assaults and murder either affecting them directly or individuals they knew. But how residents dealt with these crimes differed markedly from the tactics foreign traders employed. In contrast to the flux and disorder that characterised Somali responses to attacks on their shops, residents painted a picture of entrenching themselves, of mustering communal power and fighting back. While foreign traders seemed actively to pursue risk and uncertainty, South African residents sought to confront and overcome it. One particular method of doing this was by closely monitoring and controlling their immediate environments.

Many township communities, I began to understand, were tightly organised, not only on neighbourhood levels, but also on micro block and street levels.