Post-pandemic women-led vigilantism: implications for gender, power and popular justice in the rural Eastern Cape

This article explores women-led vigilantism in South Africa’s rural Eastern Cape province following the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on long-term ethnography, we argue that women vigilantes perceive violent discipline as a necessary response to community leaders’ and police failure to punish crimes that primarily impact single women. We argue firstly that this women-led vigilantism may be seen not only as a manifestation of popular justice, but also as a form of popular gender justice, taking its form in relation to manifestations of patriarchal violence and vulnerability to which it responds. We also connect women-led vigilantism to a rise in illicit hard drug use among young, marginalised men, highlighting how vigilantism relies on and sustains constructions of “the criminal.” Finally, despite belief among these women that their vigilantism is winning them security and respect, we question whether their actions effectively address the patriarchal power relations that shape women’s vulnerability given their focus on punishing young, drug-dependent men who have little social power.