Flows, friction and the sociomaterial metabolization of alcohol
Abstract
Political ecologists have considered the sociomateriality of diverse hybrids and the
metabolism and circulation of urban flows such as water, food and waste. Adding alcohol to
this list enhances our understanding of the geography of alcohol as well as the theory of
sociomateriality. Viewing alcohol as a sociomaterial hybrid draws attention to the powerladen, dynamic processes which shape its flow, rather than considering it as already in place.
Additionally, my examination of alcohol calls attention to aspects of sociomateriality which
are widely relevant but underexplored in the literature: i) the role of friction in shaping flows,
ii) the need to examine microscale impacts of sociomateriality on the body and community,
and iii) the conditional impacts of complex, unpredictable sociomaterial hybrids. I use a case
study of alcohol in Cape Town to examine how alcohol flows, encounters friction, flows over
boundaries and shapes sociability and harm in complex, indeterminate ways.
Keywords: urban political ecology; sociomateriality; alcohol; Cape Town
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by an award under the ESRC-DFID Joint Scheme for Research on
International Development (Poverty Alleviation) entitled ‘Alcohol Control, Poverty and
Development in the Western Cape, South Africa’ (RES-167-25-0473). My sincere thanks to
the support of the funders, Sue Parnell, Clare Herrick, Laura Drivdal and the rest of the
ACPD project team. Thanks as well to JP, for always listening.
1. Introduction
The flow of materials through cities has drawn academic attention as urban scholarship has
moved away from examining cities as sites towards understanding cities as spaces of flows
(Castells 2004; Amin and Thrift 2002). Research on materiality, within a broadly defined
political ecology, has followed the flows of materials including water, waste, and energy
through the city and how people and power shape these flows. The concepts of metabolism
and circulation, drawn from Marxist as well as ecological readings of the city, have been used
to provide insights into city form as well as urban experiences and processes. While many of
the topics examined through the lenses of materiality and urban flows have socialized our
understanding of “natural” resources, there is also merit to examining the flow of artefactsmaterials which are clearly social constructs composed out of socio-natural resources. I
follow the lead of authors examining flows of food (Heynen 2006) and fats (Marvin and
Medd 2006) to examine alcohol as a socio-natural material which shapes and is shaped by the
city.
The study of alcohol and its flows presents normative challenges for political ecologists and
other scholars interested in social justice. Its consumption is widely seen as positively
contributing to economic growth and sociability, and yet, alcohol is also linked to violence
and crime, foetal alcohol syndrome, drunk driving and is increasingly seen as contributing to
poverty and an inhibitor to development in the global South. In South Africa, the National
Drug Master Plan 2006-2011 estimates that alcohol costs the state ten billion rand ($1.2
billion) per year (Department of Social Development undated) and its abuse is noted as a key
barrier to health, human and social capital development in the Western Cape and Cape Town
(City of Cape Town 2007). While political ecologists often examine contestation over limited
resources, the contestation over alcohol is much more fraught as increasing access is not
necessarily in line with socially just ends.
Geographers have contributed to the study of alcohol in two key ways. First, the field of
alcohol studies has been caught in a binary, considering alcohol either “as a medical issue,
pathologized as a health, social, legislative, crime or policy problem or as being embedded in
social and cultural relations” (Jayne et al. 2011: 1). Geographers such as Jayne, Valentine and
Holloway have sought to bridge this divide, drawing on poststructuralist understandings of
topography. Additionally, while drinking spaces have been considered as sites of research,
geographers have made place a key theoretical lens. In addition to these contributions, I
suggest a third contribution which geography can make to the study of alcohol: that viewing
alcohol as a sociomaterial hybrid flow can further enhance our understanding of alcohol, its
regulation, and alcohol related harm. Pragmatically, this can help policy makers, civil society
and communities respond to alcohol related harm in ways that reduce harm. It can help us
avoid diverting problems elsewhere and reduce the unintended consequences of
interventions.
In addition to enhancing our understanding of alcohol and its regulation, I suggest that there
are theoretical insights to be gained from examining alcohol as a sociomaterial. While often
considered a social lubricant, in this paper I show that alcohol can also, ironically, be a
"sticky" commodity like fat. I therefore add an explicit analysis of friction to my study of
flows. I suggest that my study of alcohol explicitly calls our attention to frictions, but that the
concept of friction has relevance to other types of sociomaterial research. Second, while the
sociomateriality of alcohol has impacts at various scales, I focus on the underemphasized
micro-scale. Further, some of the most important reasons for a study of alcohol are not
because of its sociomaterial movements, but because of how alcohol shapes other
sociomaterial hybrids and relations. These impacts are not direct or predictable, but instead I
suggest the need to consider the conditional relationality of alcohol. This also has
implications beyond the study of alcohol, and I argue that there is a need to consider the
conditional relationality of other sociomaterials as well.
In the next section, I provide an overview of political ecology, specifically focusing on how
studies of materiality have shaped our understanding of the flow of sociomaterial hybrids
through (and thus creating) the city. I then discuss the context of alcohol in Cape Town
including recent regulatory changes as well as the methods used in this research. Next, I
provide empirical examples to show how alcohol flows, creates friction, and flows over
boundaries. I conclude with suggestions for how a political ecology of alcohol can inform
broader urban studies and political ecology.
2. Situating Alcohol in Political Ecology
Political ecology is a wide and diverse field which draws on multiple disciplines including
anthropology, history, geography and environmental science. While there is controversy over
what precisely political ecology is (a sub-field, a set of theories, a lens or approach to
research?), scholarship using this term continues unabated, and its social relevance continues
to provide a need for such studies (Forsyth 2003; Robbins 2012). What unifies political
ecology is the application of critical perspectives- including Marxism/structuralism and
poststructuralism- to study the relationship between people and the environment or society
and nature (Peet et al. 2011; Zimmerer 2010). Political ecologists have examined, amongst
other things, the winners and losers of environmental change and environmental decisionmaking, the social construction of nature, environmental discourses, gender and the
environment, and increasingly urban environments (Castree 1995; Heynen et al. 2006; Peet et
al. 2011; Robbins 2012; Rocheleau et al. 1996; Zimmerer and Bassett 2003). While political
ecology has typically focused on “natural” resources, in this section I draw on existing
literature to make a case for a political ecology of alcohol. I then briefly review geographies
of alcohol and show how an examination of the sociomateriality of alcohol can serve as an
additional contribution from geography to the study of alcohol.
2.1 Urban political ecology and materiality
Political ecology emerged primarily from research in rural contexts in the global South (cf
Blaikie 1985; Bryant and Bailey 1997, Rocheleau et al. 1996). While there are urban
antecedents that similarly use critical perspectives on nature-society interactions (Keil 2003),
the field of urban political ecology is more recent (although for example there are urban case
studies in Rocheleau et al. 1996). Keil’s reviews (2003; 2005) and the publication of In the
Nature of Cities (Heynen et al. 2006) can be seen to have distinguished the city as a key site
of political ecological work. These works sketch some of the territory and future directions
for urban political ecology, including the concepts of circulation and metabolism. Urban
political ecologists draw on Marxist, urban and ecological uses of the terms circulation and
metabolism which became critical lenses through which to view urban environments. While
mainstream urban ecologists consider urban metabolism as the flow and transformation of
materials and energy in what may be considered somewhat stable patterns and pathways,
urban political ecologists instead emphasize the co-production of and contestation over such
flows (Smith 2006).
Additionally, the concept of materiality has increased our understanding of the sociomaterial
processes that shape the flow of particular resources through the city (Amin and Thrift 2002;
Graham and Marvin 2001). Work in this theme recognizes the critical contribution of the
social construction of nature thesis (Castree 1995), but suggests that the cultural turn has
resulted in an over-privileging of the social in the nature-society interface. As Bakker and
Bridge (2006) argue, there is a need to explicitly return to the materiality of nature and its
role in enabling or constraining sociomaterial hybrids. Drawing on social studies of science,
it is asserted that things have agency, influence and shape power relations (Kirsch and
Mitchell 2004; Latour 2005). This is not to deny the social or prioritize the material, but
instead to require careful consideration of co-construction and its implications, particularly
for political economy (Bakker and Bridge 2006).
Much of the work on materiality examines how particular sociomaterial hybrids such as
water, oil, carbon, trees, and fish enable or constrain particular kinds of economic relations.
For example, Bakker’s (2005) work on the materiality of water shows how water can be an
uncooperative commodity, defying the logic of capital and providing unwanted resistance to
commodification. In her study of privatization in England and Wales, she traces the shifting
power from engineers to economists and from labour unions to consumers. Despite
commodification processes, water does not clearly fit into neo-classical definitions of a
commodity: it is not “a standardized good or service, with interchangeable unites, sold at a
price determined through market exchange” (Bakker 2005: 552). Water quality varies,
competition is limited by the need for shared infrastructure, and most domestic users lack
meters in their houses to measure use. Thus the materiality of water limited its
commodification by capital. Prudham’s (2008; see also Sneddon 2007 on fish) study of trees
adds a biological lens to the study of materiality and commodification. His examination of
tree improvements in Oregon and Washington similarly highlights material constraints on
capital. The co-constitution of nature and society is clearly evident here, as scientists seek to
increase the rate of growth of trees. Despite some success in socially producing new natures,
Prudham (2008: 636) demonstrates that “the social organization of tree improvement bears
the inscription of biophysical nature.” Building on such arguments, Kaup (2008) examines
the kind of capitalist economy which particular sociomaterial hybrids enable. The materiality
of natural gas enables large-scale investments to be more profitable than small. Consequently,
“the material difficulties of natural gas extraction and transport have shaped the structure of
Bolivia’s natural gas industry” (Kaup 2008: 1736-7). More recently, Bumps (2011) explores
the idea of carbon offsets which, ironically, are commodification of the absence of carbon.
While diverse topics have been examined by urban political ecology and materiality studies,
water is a clear point of overlap and has been the topic of extensive studies (Bakker 2005;
2007; Debbane and Keil 2004; Gandy 2004; Kaika 2005; Loftus 2007; Swyngedouw 2004).
There are many justifications for his focus, including water’s fundamental importance to life
and the salience of contestations over its meaning, commodification and neoliberalisation.
Swyngedouw (2004) shows the social construction of water scarcity in Guayaquil, arguing
that issues of access and delivery underpin water shortages. In this piece, Swyngedouw does
not to deny that there is insufficient water to meet all demands, but instead reframes scarcity
around questions of power and distribution. The inability access water to social, political and
economic struggles is shown to be connected to the empowerment of water vendors
capitalizing on the needs of the poor. Kaika (2005) similarly examines water, power and the
social construction of scarcity. She demonstrates how the concept of and desire for
modernization has shaped the flow of water, but that modernization has been unable to tame
nature through technology. In South Africa, Debbane and Keil (2004) and Loftus (2007)
examine post-apartheid struggles over the commodification of water and how this interacts
with the demands of civil society for environmental justice and service delivery. In these
works, water is seen as essential for human and ecological health, however, the primary focus
of the work is on control over water, not how flows (or lack of) of water relate to other topics.
While these studies have done much to enhance our understanding of sociomateriality and the
city, other urban flows have not received such attention. Applying an urban political
ecological lens more widely can offer new, complementary insights into the sociomateriality
and political economy of the city. Following Latham and McCormick (2004) who suggest
that alcohol is as much a part of cyborg urbanism as water, I begin to demonstrate the value
of such an examination. Alcohol is, importantly, not just uncooperative. As I show in my
case study below, alcohol is an unpredictable commodity which creates friction, flows over
intended boundaries, creates sociability as well as contributes to social harm.
2.2 Geographies of alcohol
Alcohol has primarily been a subject of academic concern in the medical community and
within the field of urban economic development. These fields assess the role and impacts of
alcohol in radically contrasting ways. They draw on different types of data and analytical
methods, although both largely within a positivist tradition. Location is important in the
wider alcohol literature and is frequently used as a way of defining the borders of the study.
The use of place as an analytical lens, however, is rare (Jayne et al 2011). Alcohol clearly is
woven into many topics that geographers attend to- agriculture, international trade,
consumption, gender and everyday life- but has played a limited role in geographical
scholarship (Jayne et al. 2011; Latham and McCormack 2004).
Jayne et al.’s (2011) review of geographical scholarship on alcohol identifies a number of key
themes, including the night time economy, pub life and identity, and the historical geography
of alcohol production and consumption. However, most of this work fails to draw wider
connections and actively consider how space and place shape drinking and drunkenness
(ibid). The authors suggest the need to mobilize alcohol studies to consider “the ways in
which alcohol related issues are a key part of political, economic and cultural life, supported
and nurtured not only at the level of vernacular but through political and planning discourses”
(ibid: 8; see Latham 2003). Studies of alcohol can contribute to our understanding of how
these different forces come together in, shape and are shaped by place. Importantly, these
authors argue that alcohol must not just become a lens through which to reconfirm existing
theories, but also challenge and advance our thinking (ibid).
Jayne et al. (2011) successfully make the case for the consideration of alcohol by geographers
and the use of space and place as analytical lenses in alcohol studies. In this paper, I argue
and demonstrate that there is a further contribution which geography can make to alcohol
studies. My goal is not to critique or directly build on poststructural, topographical, placebased studies such as those by Jayne et al., but instead to add a third type of geographical
insight to the study of alcohol: the study of the sociomateriality of alcohol.
Most of the existing research- and the type of research Jayne et al. (2011) call for- considers
alcohol as already in place. I seek to reframe alcohol through the lens of urban political
ecology and material geographies as a flow. Viewing alcohol as a flow shifts our attention
away from a taken for granted situatedness and onto the political, power-laden process of
getting alcohol into a drinking space, and from there into individual bodies. This process is
shaped by norms and values as well as financial and biophysical limits. Importantly, the flow
does not end with consumption; alcohol also reshapes other flows and relations. These flows
have implications for the regulation of alcohol as well as for individual bodies, households
and communities. Alcohol may, therefore, be seen both as more than just uncooperative, but
as creating friction and flowing over boundaries, creating sociability as well as contributing
to social harm.
2.3 Situating alcohol in political ecology
Alcohol is certainly not a typical substance to consider in ecological or political ecological
accounts despite the fact that it is produced in the environment, not just by humans. However,
if ecology is the study of the relationship between living things and between living things and
their environments, then alcohol forms a key component of urban ecology. As Latham and
McCormick (2004: 714) argue, “paying greater attention to psychoactive substances [like
alcohol] provides... a particularly useful means through which to reconsider the materialities
of the city, and the forms of urbanity and sociality in which these are implicated.”
Determining what literature to draw on for a political ecology of alcohol is a challenge and
opportunity, for it bears interesting similarities and differences to sociomaterial hybrids which
have been the subject of research. It is a liquid like water, but its commodification is more
widespread and rarely contested. Like food (Heynen 2006; Guthman 2011), alcohol is
consumed and culture, branding and personal taste shape the particular type of alcohol
consumed. But unlike food or water, alcohol is not universally accepted as a positive
commodity. Its flow is also guided by a radically different normative agenda and its morality
is the subject of extensive contestation. Access to alcohol is certainly not accepted as a
universal right, although some South Africans have framed their struggles over alcohol in
such terms (Ambler 2003). Alcohol also provides an interesting comparative point regarding
neoliberalism, privatisation and commodification. While there has been some efforts towards
deregulating its consumption (Jayne et al. 2011; Shaw 2010), in other spaces there is
extensive effort being made to increase regulation (WHO 2007) and rarely is a case made for
the full deregulation of alcohol.
Similarly, alcohol bears some commonality to waste in that there is a particular commodity
which is desired, but many unwanted consequences that accompany its consumption (cf
Gregson and Crang, 2010; Moore 2011). The negative side of alcohol raises the possibility
that the political ecology of health and disease (cf King 2010) may be useful given its insights
into the role of social networks and place in contributing to the spread of illness. And yet,
using only a health lens- as so much of the existing literature on alcohol already doespromises to leave out some of the most compelling arguments for its consumption and
legality, and provides limited (or inaccurate) explanations for why alcohol flows despite
prohibitions. Further, this lens can place too much emphasis on the agency of alcohol and
give it a deterministic power (Latham and McCormick 2004).
Thus, the relevance and yet non-transferability of insights from each of these other areas of
political ecological research make alcohol a particularly provocative and useful lens through
which to begin tracing connections between studies of different sociomaterial hybrids. I
identify three issues which a consideration of alcohol makes salient. These do not contradict
other research, but instead call attention to new ways of examining sociomateriality. First,
while much of the literature focuses on circulation and how capital struggles to tame,
modernize and direct urban flows, I frame much of my analysis in terms of the frictions
which shape circulation and metabolism. Friction may result from regulation, financial
limitations, social values, biophysical limits or other factors which slow or divert the flow of
alcohol. While this is often implicit in other works, I suggest that this concept helps draw our
attention to diverse reasons why sociomaterial hybrids sometimes do not flow smoothly,
easily and quickly.
Second, I focus on how sociomateriality operates at the micro-scale. Studies of urban
political ecology and materiality have primarily focused on structures of power, discourse,
provision of bulk services and large-scale capitalist entities. These are crucial components of
urban socionature and deserve critical attention. Important insights could be drawn from
examining alcohol at this scale, for there are critical structural and capitalist pressures which
shape alcohol flows in the city and largely seek to increase (and succeed in increasing) its
consumption. These must not be overlooked, but in this paper I focus on the micro as an
underemphasized scale of analysis in urban political ecology. The study of alcohol, I suggest,
draws our attention to the operation of power and materiality on much smaller scales. As
significant as the macro is the impact of the metabolization of alcohol (and food and water)
on individual bodies. Marvin and Medd (2006) show the importance of the body in terms of
the urban flow of fat, but their study is rare in bringing urban political ecology down to this
scale.
Finally, a study of alcohol calls our attention to the complicated agency of sociomaterial
hybrids and what I call conditional relationality. Much of the literature on materiality is fairly
confident in its assertions of causality, including the relationship between food/water/fats and
health. Other broader assertions have also been made; for example, Kaup (2008) draws out
the political economic consequences of oil as enabling large industry. It is not my aim to
question these correlations, but to suggest the need to also consider possibilities and
probabilities, context and multiplicity. Drinking clearly intoxicates, but the consequences of
the metabolization of drinking are individualized, subject to time and place. While some
impacts of alcohol on the body are measurable- blood alcohol content, liver damage- the
agency of alcohol in affecting behaviours and space is much more subjective and ambiguous.
As Latham and McCormick (2004: 714) argue, “Alcohol plays a part in the eventful
materiality of the urban without granting it the status of an independent actor” and also acts
differently on different people in different contexts. A study of alcohol draws attention to how
sociomateriality can be seen not as directly relational or deterministic, but as reshaping the
probability of certain relationalities. It feeds into an undetermined multiplicity, not
necessarily adding new possibilities but instead enabling or constraining some configurations.
Alcohol therefore can be seen to conditionally reshape relationships.
I suggest that the three points raised above are useful not just for the study of the
sociomateriality of alcohol. Additionally, they may be useful starting points for considering
how different sociomaterial hybrids act, enable and constrain at different scales the city and
its inhabitants. Such a framework may provide a starting point for comparison- not to form
categories or generalizations, but to enhance co-learning and cross-fertilization across
different types of flows (cf Robinson 2011).
3. Context and Method
The consumption of alcohol has drawn the attention of the World Health Organization as an
under-emphasized social harm, particularly in the global South (WHO 2002). As the alcohol
industry agglomerates and spreads to new markets in the global South, concerns have been
raised regarding its impact on the health of consumers, its relationship to social harms such as
violence and increased risks of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as its relationship to
poverty. In South Africa, overall rates of consumption are not particularly remarkable. Peltzer
and Ramlagan (2009: 1) suggest that drinking rates have remained relatively stable in recent
years at around “8 litres [per person] but there is relatively high alcohol consumption
considering an additional 3-4 litres unrecorded production/consumption.” Rates of
consumption per drinker are much more significant as there is a tendency towards either
abstention or high consumption. Statistics are somewhat dated, but the WHO (2004) country
study cites 1998 data suggesting 44.7% of males and 16.9% of females are drinkers. The
highest rates of hazardous or harmful drinking were found in the Western Cape (13.8%) and
amongst the coloured1 population (Peltez and Ramlagan 2009). This challenge has drawn
attention from health researchers and government (Matzopoulos 2008; Parry 2005; Parry et
al. 2005), but there has been limited critically-informed engagement. Further, most studies
focus on statistical correlations rather than lived experiences, with a notable exception of the
journalist Steven Otter’s book Khayelitsha which includes stories of drinking in the township.
South Africa has a particularly fraught history regarding the production, consumption and
regulation of alcohol (Mager 2010). Wine production in the Western Cape has existed since
soon after its colonization (Feinstein 2005). The “dop system” in which farmers paid
labourers in part with alcohol is commonly cited as a reason for problematic drinking rates in
the area (see Louw 2008). In urban areas, shebeens2 emerged as informal, illegal drinking
spaces in black townships. Townships were intended to be for residential, not commercial
use, and the sale of alcohol was largely done through the so-called “Durban system” of
government-owned beer halls (Freund 2002). Unlike the dull spaces of these halls, shebeens
were fun and fashionable, and one of the few positive social spaces for black urbanites during
1 Here and elsewhere, I maintain the terminology used in the alcohol research and as commonly applied in
South Africa. I use the term “coloured” to refer to individuals of Cape Malay, Khoi-San and/or bi-racial
heritage. “Black” is used to refer collectively to all non-white peoples.
2 I use this term to refer specifically to illegal drinking spaces, and the wider term “drinking spaces” to refer
more inclusively to legal and illegal sites of drinking.
the apartheid era. Such unlicensed spaces are and have always been illegal, and for many
symbolize the entrepreneurial spirit and freedom of black residents (Mager 2010). Unlike in
Britain where Kneale and French (2008) describe the city centre as the main site of concern
for alcohol policy, township shebeens are explicitly or implicitly the main target of most
South African alcohol policy (Lawhon and Herrick 2012). Thus while the links between
shebeens, crime and violence are generally acknowledgeherd across race and class, the
regulation of these spaces is fraught with race and class politics.
Importantly, while many other aspects of South African politics include growing application
of market principles (Mifratab 2004; Debbane and Keil 2004), alcohol policies typical
include an explicit normative non-market agenda. The City of Cape Town and the Western
Cape Province have recently sought to increase the regulation of alcohol in response to
alcohol related harm. The main strategy applied is to reduce harm by reducing access and,
hopefully, consumption. At the provincial level, the Western Cape Liquor Act was passed in
2008. Its most salient provision is to increase efforts to regulate the informal sale of alcohol.
Government is seeking to facilitate the licensing process as well as to move shebeens from
their typical location amid houses to so-called “High Streets” rezoned as business districts.
This legislation has led to mobilization and lobbying from both sides of the debate (Lawhon
and Herrick 2012). While the policy has now been in place for three years, its actual impacts
remain unclear (interviewed by Lawhon, consultant, 2012). The city, which has fewer
possible tools through which to regulate, has sought to change the legal hours of operation to
reduce consumption (Lawhon and Herrick 2012).
Against this background, research was conducted in Cape Town from March 2011 to
February 2012 as part of a wider project on alcohol control, poverty and development.
Research was conducted by academics, students and research assistants and shared with the
larger research team. Research was conducted in the following three low-income areas: i)
Philippi, a formerly African township composed largely of Xhosa speakers; ii) Freedom Park,
a government housing development in Mitchell’s Plain, a formerly coloured area composed
largely of Afrikaans speakers; and iii) Salt River, a multiracial area near the city centre
dominated by coloured long-term residents and foreign African immigrants.
This paper draws on data collected through a range of methods. Questions about flows and
frictions were not explicitly asked; the framing for this paper resulted after the majority of
fieldwork had been undertaken. Focus groups were held in the three communities (in Xhosa
in Philippi; in Afrikaans in Freedom Park; in English at the request of the participants in Salt
River, although the facilitator was fluent in and began asking questions in Afrikaans), and
quotations below indicate the place and type of respondents using the format: (focus group,
location, type, year). Questions were asked regarding the lived experiences of alcohol,
including positive and negative impacts and strategies to reduce alcohol related harm. Our
intention was to find representatives in three communities to help us organize four focus
groups with older men/women and younger men/women. This worked in Philippi, where our
research team had established research networks and an NGO helped us to enrol participants.
However, in Freedom Park, only one focus group (also conducted with the help of an NGO)
with older women had been conducted at the time of writing. In Salt River, we were unable to
locate an NGO able to help us enrol participants. Instead, focus groups were conducted with
members of a church group and the community policing forum. Both these groups preferred
to discuss the issues in a single group rather than separated by age and gender. Such
challenges indicate broader difficulties with researching such a personal, controversial topic.
Future publications are anticipated from the project team which more carefully attend to the
methodological challenges and the race, gender and age differences of the respondents.
In addition to the focus groups, the research draws on semi-structured key informant
interviews conducted by a range of members of the project team. Interviewees include
government officials, industry (producers and vendors) representatives, academics, health
professionals, community leaders and representatives from civil society. The format for
quotations from interviews is: (interviewed by surname, location, respondent type, year).
Different questions were asked to each interviewee, but typically focused on how alcohol is
regulated and with what impacts. Site visits and participant observation were conducted by
the author and team members, including to formal and informal drinking spaces, and the
resulting field notes and photos were shared with the research team. Finally, media accounts
were collected from the Cape Times and Cape Argus, the two local English newspapers, on
alcohol policy from 2007 to 2011. The reporting is also shaped by the author’s personal
experiences and interactions during many multi-year stays in South Africa.
4. The Metabolization of Alcohol in Cape Town
In this section, I provide an analysis of alcohol in Cape Town based on the theoretical
arguments raised above. I first show how alcohol flows through and is metabolized in the
city, including brief notes on its production, distribution, and flow into bodies. Then, I
identify points of friction which keep alcohol from flowing more freely, smoothly and
quickly. Finally, I explore the relationality of the flow of alcohol, specifically, how it shapes
the flows and frictions of people and other sociomaterial hybrids. As always this is but a
partial account; I focus on the micro-scale events as this is a key oversight of urban political
ecology as well as studies of alcohol in South Africa. I focus on the flow of alcohol after its
brewing, although there are interesting political ecological issues regarding production
including a Zero Waste brewery in Namibia (Critchley et al 2000), water consumption during
the production process (SABMiller and WWF 2009), and ethical trading (Bek et al 2007; for
more on the political economy of alcohol in South Africa, see Mager 2010; McAllister
2001)).
4.1 Circulation- flows of alcohol
Demand for alcohol is clearly present in Cape Town. Residents of the city seek to obtain
alcohol for reasons ranging from sociability to dependency to the boredom and depression
that can accompany unemployment. About 75% of beer brewing in South Africa is estimated
to be formal, with the rest produced informally and/or in individual households (interviewed
by Lawhon, alcohol industry, email communication, 2012). The majority of alcohol
consumed is produced in large breweries or wineries and distributed by retailers in kegs,
bottles or plastic sacks in boxes. Walking past SABMiller’s brewery in Newlands elicits the
smell of one of their seven breweries in South Africa. Established in 1820 and acquired by
SAB in 1950s, it is ironically now amidst some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the city.
From here, the alcohol is moved in trucks to various outlets. SABMiller delivers alcohol from
Newlands to licensed outlets (who may or may not be licensed to further distribute the
alcohol) as long as the delivery is above ten cases (interviewed by Lawhon, alcohol industry,
email communication, 2012).
Most of the alcohol in Cape Town flows through these distribution routes and into bodies.
After its eventual consumption, alcohol is metabolised in individual bodies (this biological
metabolisation is just one part of the urban metabolism). This shapes conditional
relationalities described below, but also predictably and inevitably results in a very
biophysical need urinate, and a sociomaterial need for toilet space. The metabolised alcohol
increases the volume of urine and need for toilets, a problem of particular concern in areas
where functioning toilets are not taken for granted. This problem results in a common
complaint by neighbours of shebeens: customers urinate in inappropriate places, causing
unpleasant smells in the neighbourhood (cf Mkani-Mpolweni, Cape Argus, 2011).
4.2 Circulation- sources of friction
To understand the flow of alcohol, however, the most essential lens is not how it flows, but
what complicates these flows. Despite the informality and illegality of the system described
above, rarely if ever do these conditions actually prohibit the flow of alcohol. However,
sociomaterial frictions complicate access, slowing, diverting and in some cases stopping
particular flows of alcohol. Here, I identify five main types of sociomaterial friction: spatial
configuration, regulation and enforcement, social norms, values and identity, biophysical
limits and financial constraints. Importantly, all these provide friction, but shebeen operators
and consumers find innovative ways to overcome these points of friction.
Spatial configurations including the condition of roads in a settlement and the proximity of
formal vendors shape how alcohol gets to shebeens. Shebeens which are not legal reportedly
do not receive deliveries, and further, in some of the poorest parts of Cape Town, poor
infrastructure limits the ability of trucks to deliver. Nonetheless, alcohol flows regularly and
consistently despite legal and infrastructural hurdles. In some cases, men with trucks form
small businesses to supply neighbourhood shebeens while in others, men (as best could be
determined, only men) manually push trolleys to and from distributors. This may entail
journeys through dirt roads with ruts and sewage (interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi, resident,
2011). A further example involves the spatial configuration of drinking spaces. Tables are
widely accepted to slow the flow of alcohol. “Not being able to put your drink on a place, you
keep it in your hand. If you keep it in your hand you drink a helluva lot faster” (interviewed
by Herrick, alcohol industry, 2011). Tables are, therefore, a source of friction which the
owners of drinking spaces can choose to limit to increase drinking. Alternatively, they may
be unavailable because of how limited space is particularly in informal settlements.
Regulation is of course a key source of friction on the flow of alcohol. Despite the fairly
extensive regulatory framework at the national, provincial and local scales described in
Section 3, however, government can hardly be seen to dictate the flow of alcohol in Cape
Town. The policy environment must be seen as but one of many sources of friction, shaping
where, how and when purchasing and consumption occur. For example, drinking on beaches
is banned by the 1935 Sea Shore Act, and enforcement is particularly high during the yearend (summer) holidays. A January 2011 story in the Cape Argus is exemplary: “A total of 1
356 bottles of alcohol, valued at R20 000 [$2,500], have been confiscated on beaches across
the city in the past week.” The flow of alcohol to bodies was thus diverted, at least
temporarily, based on regulation from the postcolonial, non-democratic era.
Government regulation of alcohol may not clearly limit its distribution, but it does reshape
how alcohol flows in poorer areas of the city. There is a fairly regular flow through an
established economy to shebeens, but this flow is shaped by its illegality. Flows to the
shebeens are fairly discrete, but it is much more difficult for shebeens to hide alcohol from
the authorities when customers are actively drinking. The sociability around alcohol calls the
attention of police to its presence, and police reshape its flow. Police may stop the flow of
alcohol in a particular place. Drinkers with bottles in the street are likely to be required to
dump their beverages rather than be prosecuted for public consumption, reshaping the flow
away from bodies directly to the street. Steinberg (2008) argues that a disempowered police
force fears taking stronger action in such cases, and will typically only confront small groups
or individuals in this way. Police actively assert their presence through these types of minor
engagements because structural forces prevent them from finding broader meaning in their
role as police (ibid).
When police do go to shebeens, stocks are likely to be confiscated, rerouting alcohol to a
police station (or, allegedly through corruption, into the possession of police or their
associates). This requires a large number of officers (Steinberg 2011 suggests thirty or so) and
certainly does not occur at all shebeens whose presence is known by police. Instead, there is
negotiation around when such raids occur (Lawhon and Herrick 2012). However, shutting
individual shebeens reportedly has little impact on drinking since there are so many drinking
spaces in proximity to each other. When one shebeen closes early (by choice or from police)
“you would go and look for a place where they don’t close and we would go there and drink
up until we drop” (focus group, Philippi, older men, 2011). In response to such raids, many
shebeen operators store alcohol stocks in multiple nearby premises, moving the alcohol to the
shebeen in small quantities as needed (interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi, resident, 2011). This
reroutes its flow and enrols neighbours into the process of circumventing the authorities. The
Cape Town municipality has attempted to stem the flow of alcohol by limiting the hours of
operation of drinking spaces. The municipal government recently reduced the existing legal
hours of operation with the aim of curbing drinking, but this has been opposed on many
fronts. Many argue that the regulation will not be relevant in the townships, the site of the
real problem. There, most drinking establishments are already illegal; new regulation would
not change anything (Lawhon and Herrick 2012).
Social norms and values are another source of friction reducing the flow of alcohol. For
example, while government's hours of operation may have limited impact, all focus groups
supported the sense that there are more and less socially acceptable days and times for
drinking. Most drinking happens on weekends despite widespread unemployment and a
consequent lack of correlation between days off and drinking. Many respondents commented
that this pattern is in flux as many unemployed increasingly drink daily, representing a
particularly problematic change (focus group, Freedom Park women, 2011; focus group,
Philippi, older women 2011). There is very little reporting of individual drinking in
households; most residents of townships do not regularly keep alcohol in individual
households, but only consume in public spaces or on special occasions, a notable contrast
from drinking in the global North (Jayne et al. 2011). This point is evident largely its absence;
there were no discussions of drinking at home in our focus groups, and personal observations
support this trend. Since many shebeens are also homes, there is some conflation and
occasional overflow from the small nominal drinking spaces into neighbouring yards (focus
group, Salt River, church 2011). One consequence of this is the relative visibility of alcohol,
its consumption and associated problems. “I think where you would see the results more is in
the poorer areas. But it doesn’t mean that in the rich areas it’s less... even some times worse.
And those are the ones that we say, behind closed doors you don’t know what’s going on.
Until a tragedy hits” (focus group, Salt River, church 2011).
Identity shapes (though does not determine) who is and is not a drinker and how one drinks.
While age, race and gender do matter in ways grossly similar to the global North (see Peltzer
and Ramlagaan 2009), in Cape Town religion is a central identity issue. As noted above, only
around one third of South Africans report being a drinker. Many Capetonians are Muslim and
while not all follow the prohibition on drinking this identity appears to provide a
disinclination for drinking. Additionally, while there is not a widespread prohibition in
Christian faiths, there is reportedly a correlation between Christianity and not drinking. An
older woman from Philippi's (2011) phrasing which implies the equation of non-drinkers and
Christians is exemplary: “there at my home they don’t drink, they are church goers.” In Salt
River (2011), this relationship appeared less clear. One responded explained that many
residents say, “Tomorrow I’m going to get up [sober] and go to church. When I come out of
the church then I’ll start drinking again.” Other forms of identity encourage moderation, such
as gender. As noted above, less that 17% of women report drinking, but this was not a point
emphasized in our focus groups (possibly because it was so assumed as to not be worth
noting). Another example is being from a rural area, for, according to an older woman from
Philippi (2011), umqombothi (so-called traditional Xhosa/Zulu beer) “is used by old people
who come from rural areas who respect and have good values. You can go there and chat with
them because they don’t drink ‘til they pass out.” This cultural association shapes not just the
type of drink, but the quantity and pace of drinking. The implicit rules from the rural area
provide a source of friction, resulting in less drunkenness than the urban norm.
Unlike many other sociomaterial hybrids, the materiality of alcohol imposes a self-limit in
terms of its consumption. While water use tends to increase with income (e.g. the use of more
water-intensive appliances, swimming pools and gardening) only so much alcohol can be
consumed. This amount varies by individual, but for many, one drinks until one cannot
anymore. “If you are a drinker you don’t go to bed sober” (focus group, Freedom Park
women 2011). Similarly, the younger men in Philippi (2011) report, “We drink from 6 in the
afternoon till 3 am, we pass out and wake up at 7 am and drink again till Sunday noon and
then we can sleep.” In other words, the end of the night is not determined as much by
conscious choice as a biophysical experience. The biophysical consequences, as most of us
are well aware, extend beyond the evening as explored in more detail below.
Money tends to shapes what, how much and when drinking occurs. Much as with
commodified water, alcohol flows where there is money to pay for it. If “you can afford it,
party time is part time” (focus group, Freedom Park women 2011). However, the role of
money in shaping flows is more complicated than this. Water is a fairly uniform commodity
among the poor, although its quality differs and bottled water is increasingly common and
associated with status (Bakker 2005). With alcohol, there are a wide range of choices with
taste and status implications. What people drink “depends what they can afford. If she can
afford it she’ll drink beer and stout, but it’s dependent on the circumstances in the house. So
if I’m a worker and my husband is a worker then I’ll be drinking beer and stout… If I can’t
afford to buy it I’ll drink what’s there” (focus group, Freedom Park, women 2011). There are
various mechanisms for responding to this source of friction, including credit from the
shebeen operators (interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi, resident 2011) and the sharing of drinks,
particularly among older men (focus group, Philippi, older men 2011). “We have to buy a lot
because there would be many of us who are going to drink. I have to give others from mine
because when I do not have they also share their alcohol with me.”
For the very poor, a lack of money also shapes what is consumed and the biophysical impact
of the alcohol. The homeless “used to have methylated spirits that they used to filter through
bread and drink that. But you don’t get shops with meths anymore so that’s died out.”
Attempts to limit the access of the homeless resulted in a shift to a new intoxicant which the
respondents could not clearly identify. It might be “the cheap kind of table wine... but mostly
they use a concoction or something and it doesn’t look good at all” (focus group, Salt River
church 2011). The drink was called knuckles, because it knocks you in your knees. The
suggestion here is that limited income does not stop the homeless from drinking, but instead
results in wanting more impact for their money, and therefore turning to atypical, low quality
alcohol which has longer term health implications.
This explication of the flows and friction on alcohol begins to show the distributed power
relations that shape its movement through the city. Respondents rarely attribute industry with
a role to play in generating demand. Whether true or not, demand is largely seen as
ubiquitous and inherent and it may well be that industry has a greater influence over what
consumers drink more than where or how much they drink. Regulations play some role in
shaping the flow of alcohol, but only successfully limit it in areas where other types of
regulation are already successful. Financial constraints similarly provide some hurdles which
are typically overcome, although with social, biophysical and economic consequences.
Norms, values and identity- largely overlooked in typical urban political ecological and
materiality studies- have proven to be essential to understand flows and what moderates or
limits them. Not all who ascribe to a particular set of norms, values or identity follow the
prescribed drinking patterns. However, while other frictions are largely resisted, these factors
are most clearly embraced, enacted and associated with moderate or non-drinking.
4.3 Metabolic overflow- alcohol and conditional relationality
The relationship between alcohol and other flows is not direct or guaranteed, but instead
occurs through a complex web of interactions which cannot always be predicted, identified or
explained. The statistical correlation between alcohol and specific types of social harm is
widely acknowledged in the literature, including between alcohol and violence and reducing
inhibitions and increasing the likelihood of risky sexual behaviours (cf Parry 2005). Alcohol
becomes enrolled in, although cannot be determined to directly cause alcohol related harm, a
point repeatedly emphasized by the alcohol industry. In this section, I seek to build on and
provide a more complex understanding of how alcohol is conditionally related to other
sociomaterials, flows and relations. As above, this discussion is not intended to be exhaustive
but draws on key points raised by respondents in our fieldwork.
Alcohol is frequently considered a social lubricant which brings people together, and this is
clearly evident from our research in Cape Town. Long Street is one of the more racially
diverse spaces of the city and a widely reported space of cosmopolitan consumption (Tredoux
and Dixon 2009).3 While the poor are present and visible, they are typically on the streets
rather than inside drinking venues. In other parts of the city- both wealthy and poor, black
and white- drinking spaces are less diverse. Township drinking spaces are reportedly “open to
everybody, old people and females are allowed to buy and those with infants, they come with
their infants and drink, the owner does not say anything” (focus group, Philippi, younger men
2011). Youth drink for fun, to meet people, to gain confidence in social situations and
reportedly in part because there are few other places to gather (ibid).
This sense of sociability, however, is not without contradiction. Many report different kinds
of shebeens- those for the old men, those frequented by youth, those catering for those
recently from rural areas (focus group, Philippi, younger men 2011). Different venues draw
on the local community or are patronized by outsiders, and this has at times been a source of
3
Although like many similar spaces which cater to an international tourists it is
dominated by elite consumption (Calhoun 2002; Lawhon and Chion 2012). Similarly,
Mzoli's is a grille in the township of Gugulethu where “tourists, TV stars and locals
gather” (Lonely Planet, 2011).
tension (Salt River church 2011; interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi, resident 2011) especially
between local (coloured) residents and foreign African immigrants (interview by Blake, Salt
River, residents, 2011). Respondents have argued that troublesome drinkers- those who are
noisy, violent, criminal- tend to come from other communities because anonymity reduces the
ability of community enforcement of norms (interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi, resident 2011).
Lack of spatial division between drinkers and the non-drinkers is also a source of frustration.
The density and pervasiveness of drinking spaces means residents often cannot escape local
night life by choosing to live in quiet areas. Some informal settlements have attempted to
regulate the presence of shebeens4 although despite the intentions of community leaders, it
has proven difficult to keep shebeens out of communities (interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi,
community leaders, 2011). Residents thus struggle to find ways to separate themselves and
their families from alcohol drinking and drunkenness.
In addition to shaping social relations, alcohol also shapes the flows of other sociomaterials.
One of the most commonly cited associations in our fieldwork is between drugs and alcohol.
Sites for alcohol consumption are widely reported to facilitate the flow of drugs. The
relationship between these two is not just about the co-incidence of their consumption, but
also because shebeens provide spaces for their acquisition and consumption (focus group,
Salt River, church 2011). Alcohol also shapes the location of jukeboxes, a point seemingly
politically inconsequential. However, as government sought to increase regulation of
shebeens, shebeen owners began organizing to oppose this legislation. Reportedly, the head
of the association is the main supplier of jukeboxes to shebeens (interviewed by Lawhon,
anonymous, 2011). Thus, the relationship between alcohol and jukeboxes has taken on a
much more significant role in terms of the power relations and social mobilization around
alcohol policy.
Consumption of alcohol also shapes the flow of household income. As discussed in section 3,
one of the main frictions stemming the flow of alcohol is that consumers run out of money.
This may include spending the money required to get home. An older man in the Philippi
focus group (2011) explained that after drinking, “I had to go and take a train without buying
the ticket.” The respondent continued, he was then caught on the train without a ticket and
spent over two weeks in jail. The financial implications of drinking importantly extend
beyond the single evening, a point with particular relevance in poor households. Repeatedly,
money for drinking was juxtaposed with money for food, and specifically food for children.
“It is the children that are suffering... With the money for that bottle they can go and buy a
loaf of bread” (focus group, Freedom Park, women 2011). Lack of money is not always
enough to stop drinking; “if there is no money then they also sell things to get money to buy
alcohol” (focus group, Freedom Park, women 2011). Drinking also is widely noted to
increase the odds of losing money to thieves. An historical story of District Six was used to
describe what remains a common phenomenon: robbers “would wait for the fishermen to
come in off the boats... They take the guys that have now come from the sea, give him a drink
or two, he gets tipsy, they go through his pockets... take his pay packet.... so he comes home
with no money” (focus group, Salt River church 2011).
As noted above, drinking can have biophysical consequences which extend beyond the hours
of consumption, including on work patterns. “On Mondays sometimes they can’t go to work
4
While such settlements are often assumed to be anarchic, extensive research
shows the presence of informal regulation (cf Drivdal and Lawhon, 2012 on the
regulation of shebeens in Cape Town)
because they are still drunk from the weekend” (focus group, Freedom Park, women 2011).
Drinking “impacts your working life. If you come from work, you don’t even get home, you
go down to the bar and that type of thing... eventually it ends up where you are without a job
too, because now you find out the morning now I must go first go and make my head right
now, so I don’t go onto my train” to work. Instead, “I first go down to the shebeen and have a
drink there” (focus group, Salt River church 2011). This has implications for individual
employment and household income, but also more widely. In my personal experience as well
as conversations with other employers outside of my research, dealing with intoxicated or
hung-over workers is expected to be part of the job, and this likely impacts wider
expectations of the South African workforce and, arguably, national productivity and political
economy.
From these narratives, we can clearly see alcohol acting in complex, unpredictable ways,
impacting bodies, households, communities, local and possibly larger economies. It clearly
has agency, but this agency is interwoven with existing socioeconomic relations and blurs
responsibility: both/neither the drink/drinker is (not) responsible. This diffuse agency, range
of impacts and blurred responsibility complicates attempts to reduce alcohol related harm.
Most attempts to reduce harm seek to reduce flows by increasing friction, but as this research
has demonstrated, drinkers are largely able to overcome externally imposed frictions. The
main sources of friction which appear to actually stem the flow- and result in either
avoidance of or moderate drinking- are those based on norms, values and identity. A better
understanding of the agency of alcohol- how it interacts to create harm, how individuals view
responsibility for harm, what factors mitigate harm- may provide a more successful, more
empowering alternatives for reducing harm.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, I have provided a political ecological analysis of the circulation and metabolism
of alcohol in Cape Town. Geographies of alcohol have provided important insights into the
role of alcohol in shaping particular places, however, these studies tend to view alcohol as
already in place, rather than as a dynamic, circulating flow. The circulation of alcohol is of
particular interest because it is laden with normative values, creating extensive contestation
over its flows. To better understand the flow of alcohol, I have drawn on studies of
materiality which show the hybrid constitution of the social and material as well as urban
political ecology which examines contestation over circulation and metabolism in cities. Such
political ecologies have offered critical insights into the construction of urban forms and
processes, but the range of sociomaterial hybrids examined in such work tends to remain
constrained to “resources” such as water, trees, and food.
Extending studies of materiality helps provide important insights into the study of alcohol
and forms but one step towards understanding how to reduce alcohol related harm. In this
paper I have drawn attention to the distributed power and agency, the limitations of state
regulation, the willingness of community members to act outside of and with little fear of the
law, and the specificity of alcohol as a sociomaterial that can be created outside of industrial
modes of production. These insights help clarify relationships, power and efficacy, however,
a progressive agenda through which to reduce harms remains ambiguous. Both the
effectiveness and morality of the alcohol control agenda appear questionable from a radical
perspective, but it is equally clear that doing nothing reinforces existing racial, gender and
economic injustices. It is possible that the clearest point to arise from this work is that the
question of increasing/decreasing access is simply the wrong focus for policy, and instead
that alternative means for reducing consumption and harm need to become the dominant
frame for research and policy. While failing to provide a progressive agenda, I believe I have
provided a clearer picture of what policies are failing- or worse, creating negative unintended
consequences, and where points of friction lie.
In addition to increasing our understanding of alcohol and its control, I suggest that this
research has significance for our understanding of sociomaterial hybrids. A study of the
metabolism of alcohol calls our attention to three particular issues. The first is the need to
examine friction, or what slows or stops the circulation of sociomaterial hybrids. This can
include spatial arrangements, regulation and social norms, values and identity, biophysical
limits and financial constraints, and each of these different types of friction is enacted by and
empowers different agents. Additionally, the study of alcohol calls our attention to the microscale impacts of sociomateriality, particularly on individual bodies. This includes the need
for toilets and the impacts of intoxication as well as how alcohol shapes household dynamics
through the diversion of income away from basic needs like food. Finally, the particular
complex biophysical impacts call our attention to the struggle to articulate the agency of
alcohol. Causality in such cases is complex, and the relationship between alcohol and other
sociomaterial hybrids and relations is best understood as conditional. It is this very messy,
unpredictable conditional relationality that provides a challenge for many positivist
researchers and complicates its regulation because responsibility- legally and morally- is
diffuse and difficult to attribute. My intention here is not to over-state conditionality; some
relationships may be more stable. However, should sociomateriality studies expand to
examine the quality and food and water, conditional relationality will need to become more
important. As with alcohol, the impact of contaminated water, GMO food, or pollution
cannot be clearly defined and explained. Just as the impacts of drinking are mediated through
other relationships, the impacts of low quality food, contaminated water, toxics, allergens,
and other environmental risks are likely to be mediated by and through bodies and social
relations. Political ecologists have been limited in our engagement with why this is, and what
impact this has, but I suggest that sociomateriality- as indeed, science itself- is increasingly
about probability, complexity, and uncertainty.
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