Alcohol, materiality, flows and friction in Cape Town
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 sociomateriality.
Viewing alcohol as a sociomaterial hybrid draws attention to the power-laden, dynamic
processes which shape its flow, rather than considering it as already in place. Additionally,
alcohol makes salient three key points underemphasized in studies of urban sociomaterial
flows. It calls attention to: 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, is slowed or diverted by friction, flows over
boundaries and shapes sociability and harm in complex, indeterminate ways.
Keywords: urban political ecology; materiality; alcohol; Cape Town
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 insight into city form as well as urban experiences and processes. While many of
the topics examined through the lens 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.
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 that viewing alcohol as a sociomaterial hybrid flow can further enhance our
understanding of alcohol in the city.
Examining alcohol through this lens can contribute back to our understanding of
sociomateriality and flows. While often considered as a social lubricant, this papers shows
that alcohol can also, ironically, like fats be a "sticky" commodity. I therefore add an explicit
analysis of friction to my study of flows. 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.
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).
2.1 Urban Political Ecology and Materiality
Political ecology emerged primarily from research in rural contexts in the global South (cf
Bryant and Bailey 1997, Blaikie 1985; Rocheleau et al. 1996). While there are urban
antecedents similarly using critical perspectives on nature-society interactions (Keil 2003),
the field of urban political ecology is more recent (although 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 sketched some of the territory and future directions for urban
political ecology. The concepts of circulation and metabolism- which draw on Marxist, urban
and ecological uses of the terms- became critical lenses through which to view urban
environments. 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 (Latour 2005;
Kirsch and Mitchell 2004). This is not to deny the social or prioritize the material, but instead
to require careful consideration co-construction and its consequent implications, particularly
for political economy (Bakker and Bridge 2006).
Much of the work on materiality examines how particular sociomaterial hybrids- water, oil,
carbon, trees, 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 did not
have 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 provides 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). Its importance to life, as well as the salience of contestations over its meaning,
commodification and neoliberalisation, make an obvious case for this focus. Swyngedouw
(2004) shows the social construction of water scarcity in Guayaquil, arguing that issues of
access and delivery underpin water shortages. This is not to deny that there is insufficient
water to meet all demands, but instead to reframe scarcity around questions of power and
distribution. Swyngedouw connects the inability access water to social, political and
economic struggles, and 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, but can be considered
an unpredictable commodity which creates friction, flows over intended boundaries, creates
sociability as well as contributes to social harm.
2.3 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.
However, the use of place as an analytical lens is rare. Alcohol clearly is woven into to 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, 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. I argue that there is a
further contribution which geography can make to alcohol studies. 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, but 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 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, legality,
and flow 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 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 how 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, 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. The study
of alcohol in contrast draws our attention to the operation of power and materiality on much
smaller, individual and community levels. There are critical structural and capitalist pressures
which shape alcohol flows in the city- primarily seeking to increase its consumption. These
must not be overlooked, but equally significant 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. 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
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 implications of the metabolization of drinking is 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. 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.
These ideas may provide useful insights into key points to consider across different
sociomaterial hybrids to better understanding how they act in and on 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 recently
drawn attention from health researchers and government (Matzopoulos 2008; Parry 2005;
Parry et al. 2005), but there has been limited critically-informed engagement.
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 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 governmentowned beer halls (Freund 2002). Unlike the dull spaces of these halls, shebeens were fun and
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.
2 I use this term to refer specifically to illegal drinking spaces, and the wider term “drinking spaces” to refer
more generally.
fashionable, and one of the few positive social spaces for black urbanites during the apartheid
era. These 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 2011). Thus while the links between shebeens, crime
and violence are generally acknowledged 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. Reducing alcohol access and consumption are the main strategy applied
for reducing harm. 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 2011). 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 2011).
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 black 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. Focus groups were held in
the three communities, and quotations below indicate the place and type of respondents using
the format: (focus group, location, type, year). In Philippi, four focus groups were conducted
with older men/women and younger men/women. In Freedom Park, only one focus group had
been conducted at the time of writing, with older women. In Salt River, focus groups were
conducted with members of a church group and the community policing forum. Additionally,
the research draws on semi-structured key informant interviews conducted with members of
government, industry (producers and vendors), academics, health professionals, community
leaders and civil society. The format for quotations from such interviews is: (interviewed by
surname, location, respondent type, year). Site visits were conducted, including to formal
and informal drinking spaces. Finally, media accounts were collected from the Cape Times
and Cape Argus, the two local English newspapers, on alcohol policy from 2007 to 2011.
4. The Metabolization of Alcohol in Cape Town
In this section, I analyse alcohol in Cape Town based on the theoretical arguments raised
above. I first show how alcohol flows through and is metabolized in the city. 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 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) and water consumption during the production process (SABMiller and
WWF 2009).
4.1 Flows
Demand for alcohol is clearly present in Cape Town as 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). However, 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 now amidst some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the city. From here,
the alcohol is moved in trucks to various outlets. SAB 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 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 need for toilets and volume of urine, a problem of particular concern in
areas where functioning toilets are not taken for granted. This 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 Sources of friction
To understand the flow of alcohol, however, the most essential lens is not how it flows, but
what complicates it. 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.
4.2.1 Spatial configuration
The condition of a settlement and the proximity of formal vendors shapes 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, the 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.
4.2.2 Regulation and enforcement
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, 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 year-end (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.
When police go to shebeens, stocks are more 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 2011). 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 flow to the
shebeen in smaller quantities as needed (interviewed by Drivdal, Philippi, resident, 2011).
This reroutes its flow, but also enrols neighbours into the process of circumventing the
authorities.
The 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 2011).
4.2.3 Social norms, values and identity
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, a notable contrast from drinking in the global North (Jayne et al. 2011). This 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
neighboring 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 a reported correlation between Christianity with non-drinkers. 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.
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 till 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.
4.2.4 Biophysical limits
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 through (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 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.
4.2.5 Financial constraints
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 turning to atypical, low quality alcohol
with 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. 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 which 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 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 of alcohol with 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
made 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 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), although like many similar spaces which cater to an international tourists it
is dominated by elite consumption (Calhoun 2002; Lawhon and Chion 2011). 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- drinking spaces are less racially diverse3.
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 is not unproblematized. Many report different kinds of shebeensthose 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 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 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 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
3
A notable exceptions is Mzoli's, a grille in the township of Gugulethu where
“tourists, TV stars and locals gather” (Lonely Planet, 2011).
4
While such settlements are often assumed to be anarchic, research shows the
presence of informal regulation
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 political
role.
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 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. This is
particularly relevant in poor households. Repeatedly, money for drinking was juxtaposed with
money for food, and particularly for feeding children. “This money is supposed to help me to
buy things for my kids. I spend it to buy liquor” (focus group, Philippi, older women, 2011).
“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
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).
From these narratives, we can clearly see alcohol acting in complex, unpredictable ways,
impacting bodies, households and communities. 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 the flow of alcohol. Most attempts seek to
increase friction so as to reduce the flow of alcohol, but largely without effect. 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 flow of alcohol through the
city of Cape Town. Studies of alcohol have also provided important insights into the role of
alcohol in shaping particular places, including understandings of layered topography.
However, these studies tend to view alcohol as already in place, rather than as a dynamic
flow. The flow 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 composition of the social and
material as well as urban political ecology which examines contestation over circulation and
metabolism in cities. Such studies 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 to alcohol helps provide important insights into the study of alcohol, but also into
our understanding of sociomaterial hybrids.
A study of the sociomaterial flow of alcohol calls our attention to three particular issues. The
first is the need to examine friction, or what slows or stops the flow 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 causing intoxication as well as shaping 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, including the
relationship between the need for food and water and health. However, should materiality
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. Responsibility is difficult to clearly
attribute. Instead, its sociomateriality is increasingly about probability, complexity, and
uncertainty. Friction, the microscale and conditional relationality are, importantly, not just
relevant to the examination of alcohol. I suggest their importance across different
sociomaterial hybrids. Further, comparing the different ways these issues play out for
different sociomaterial hybrids can enhance our understanding of the role of sociomateriality
in shaping the city.
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