City Lockdown Diaries Issue2

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1.1. Sanitization, street life and the [spatiality of] surveillance

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1.2. Data Collection

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1.3. Note on the Artwork

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2.1. Protecting each other from the unknown virus

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2.2. The ebbs and flows of mask-wearing & social distancing

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2.3. The Shops as an escape?

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3.1. Sirens, shouting and a knobkierie8

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3.2. Spatially differentiated surveillance & monitoring

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3.3. The Violence in Lockdown

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The City Lockdown Diaries is a 3-part series of publications that share the findings from the City Lockdown Diaries project. This research project was formulated by researchers at the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold globally, lockdowns were a tool used by many governments to curb the spread of the disease. In South Africa, a national lockdown was announced as a tool to enforce social distancing and therefore stop the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) by disrupting the chain of transmission, while also easing the burden on public healthcare systems.

The “hard lockdown” – later categorized as Level 5 - was initially intended to last 21 days, from midnight of the 26th of March to 17 April 2020, but was later extended to 35 days, from 27 March to 30 April 2020. During the Level-5 lockdown, people were instructed to “stay home” and remain indoors at all times, with mobility and travel limited to essential service workers, and for residents accessing essential goods and services or social grants, as well as those seeking urgent or chronic medical attention.

The City Lockdown Diaries project focused on this 35-day period. After analysing diary entries provided by participants alongside survey data collected over the period, we have developed thematic outputs in the form of blogs, online analysis, and a 3-issue thematic report series. Each report focuses on a specific theme, visually weaving together artwork, diary entries, our analysis and infographics relating to the lockdown experience.

The three parts of this series are: 1. Issue 1: The Spaces & Places of Lockdown (Read here) 2. Issue 2: The Streets, Shops, and Social Distancing 3. Issue 3: The Struggle of Lockdown: Livelihoods, Stress & Fear This work was only made possible by the dedicated diary entries of participants which allowed us into their homes and minds, even when it was not easy. To all of them, many of whom chose to be anonymous, we say thank you. As urban planning scholars, and as people who ourselves were locked down, we hope this series contributes to a moment where we are rethinking and reshaping our homes, neighbourhoods and world beyond this pandemic and the structural inequities it illustrated.

Sarita Pillay Gonzalez, Dr. Miriam M. Maina & Kagiso Diale

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1.1.

This issue explores the public life of the hard lockdown – namely the streets, the shops and the experience of social distancing. Retracing diary entries from the onset of lockdown illustrates the unfamiliarity and newness of the later routinised acts of social distancing, mask-wearing and sanitising one’s hands.

Sanitization, street life and the [spatiality of] surveillance

The shops emerge regularly in diary entries as a site where these routines were first witnessed. Visits to the shops for “essential goods” were allowed under lockdown regulations. These visits were often vividly described by participants. For some they offered an escape from the spaces and places where they resided (See Issue 1: Spaces & Places of Lockdown). Whether or not people felt comfortable to leave their homes also reflected differences in the ways in which the lockdown was enforced.

This Issue expands on the spatial differentiation of surveillance and patrols in different areas. Diary entries, along with a public online survey of 127 respondents from across Gauteng, showed that suburban areas were rarely subject to police or army patrols. Finally, we discuss participants observations of street life. Across the province’s urban areas, participants shared regular observations of people breaking lockdown rules by walking, running, socialising and playing on the streets. Children and youth were not attending school, and they were bored. Diary entries from townships, in particular, noted the regular presence of youth and children on the streets. Drawing on diary entries and survey results, we argue that this street life needs to be contextualised – both in terms of the “normal” (pre-lockdown) use of the street as a public space, and the nature of lockdown police patrols.

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Data Collection

This report is based primarily on the analysis of the detailed diary entries of 25 regular participants during the hard lockdown. Participants were from across the province of Gauteng, in the metropolitan areas of Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni & Mogale City (See Figure 1) As discussed in Issue 1, these participants were located in a range of neighbourhood and dwelling-types across the province. The youngest participant was 19 years-old and living in the Tshwane township of Mamelodi, while the oldest participant was 66 years-old living in the Johannesburg suburb of Melville. Participants included a nurse, a chef, a self-described “hustler” who made his money guarding cars, and two students who were now homebound. Many of these participants chose to use pseudonyms to protect their identity. Their diaries were sent as typed-out messages, as well as recorded voice notes, usually via the mobile messaging application WhatsApp. Throughout the series, we share these diary entries verbatim. Some of these are transcriptions of voice recordings, while others are the messages that were sent to the team directly. Diary entries include the participants’ names (pseudonyms or their real names); their age; location; whether the diary was a voice note [ ], email [ ], or text message [ ]; the date of the entry; and the day of lockdown.

In addition to the diary entries, we conducted two online surveys. The first was a two-part survey of the participants sending diary entries; while the second survey was an online survey open to the general public. The surveys were conducted via Google Forms. The public online survey was disseminated via our social media platforms and via Whatsapp. This public survey received 127 responses. 112 of these participants were from suburban areas in Gauteng (See Figure 1). The survey asked participants about their household and living space; the type of neighbourhood they lived in and how they got around; their experience of policing during lockdown; and how they coped with the lockdown. These survey results are brought to the fore in this issue, and in Issue 3. The suburban skew of participants in the open online survey emphasised the methodological benefits of purposeful geographic sampling (across urban typologies) and of using diary entries. Diary entry participants were provided mobile data to participate in this study when required. This is a methodological consideration for future studies in South Africa that necessitate alternative non-contact forms of data-collection.

Finally, in order to engage with real-time discussions on the Lockdown and Covid-19 globally, we also blogged and tweeted about the lockdown diaries during the period of the hard lockdown. Highlights of diary entries and emerging themes can be found online via Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress.

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South Africa

Source: Authors, 2020

Gauteng

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The artwork in Issue 2 depicts the experience under Level-5 lockdown, where individuals and households had to construct a reality of the situation outside their homes using information gathered from the news and media.

The collages developed for this issue layers news and media depictions of key events and scenes under Lockdown with illustrations of indoor life drawn from individual diaries within the context of the persistent ‘corona-virus’ that coloured our everyday. All collages were inspired by popular images of various photographers and social media users that captured it for all to see - as all individuals, invariably, did so under lockdown.

The persistent presence of the ‘corona virus’ - COVID-19 – was evident in the diary entries, irrespective of theme. Whether a participant was talking about Gender Based Violence in the midst of the virus, or about neighbours being arrested for breaking lockdown regulations, it was always there. This has been represented by the halo-like circles in each artwork. The halo has been used as a tool to indicate the presence of the virus and/or the significance of the subject(s) in the image.

Equally important is the selected medium. The collages have an oil painting finish as a nod to the historical use of oil to illustrate stories of chaos between man, authority, nature and belief.

Mandatory 2020 5

Note on the Artwork

We Are Led 2020

Untitled 2020 6

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Prior to the lockdown at the end of March 2020 in South Africa public health announcements already began to abound about the importance of washing one’s hands, maintaining a 1.5 metre social distance, and wearing a face mask. From the onset of the lockdown, this trio of precautions was plastered across signs in public places and repeated as a mantra across radio and television announcements.

Routines and practices in public places were and are still being shaped by the Pandemic.

Unlike some parts of the world, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the wearing of a face mask in public as a precaution against illness was not common practice in South Africa. In late April 2020, the wearing of a face mask in public places became mandatory according to regulations under the Disaster Management Act. According to Section 34 (1) and 34(2): 34. Mandatory protocols when in a public place (1)For the purposes of these Regulations, a “face mask” means a cloth face mask or a homemade item that covers the nose and mouth, or another appropriate item to cover the nose and mouth.

(2)The wearing of a face mask is mandatory for every person when in a public place, excluding a child under the age of six years, and any person who fails to comply with a verbal instruction by an enforcement officer to wear a face mask, commits an offence and is, on conviction, liable to a fine or a period of imprisonment not exceeding six months, or to both such fine and imprisonment.

Although mandatory to wear a mask in public, regulations were initially ambiguous on whether not doing so constituted a criminal offense and whether one could be arrested (Karrim, 2020). Nonetheless, the practice of mask-wearing became a requirement for entry into shops from the onset of lockdown. In February 2021, government regulations were updated to make it a direct criminal offense to not wear a mask in public (De Wet, 2021).

The spraying of one’s hands with sanitiser before entering a shop and wearing of a mask have become as familiar as picking up a shopping basket or paying at the till. The diary entries from the onset of lockdown in April and March 2020 across urban Gauteng, however, are a reminder of how alien these practices were at the time.

“I don’t have gloves or a mask. So, I am going to take, like, a scarf that I have. Wrap that around my mouth..”

A distinctive theme from diary entries at the beginning of the lockdown is the adjustment that people were making to the new precautions when they went to the shops. Leaving one’s house to purchase essential items such as groceries was one of the permitted activities under lockdown Level 5. However, even this was completely restricted from the evening until the early hours of the morning. As the legislation explained in Section 16 on the Movement of Persons:

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(3) Every person is confined to his or her place of residence from 20H00 until 05H00 daily, except where a person has been granted a permit to perform an essential or permitted service as listed in Annexure D, or is attending to a security or medical emergency.

Government regulations only allowed for shops selling essential goods to be open. However, the legislation at the onset of lockdown was widely questioned for what were designated as “essential goods” (Michelle May, 2020). A week into the hard lockdown, the regulations were expanded to include the initially overlooked sale of baby items (Pijoos, 2020).

In their diary entries from the initial days of the lockdown, participants shared their first visits to the shops. For most, their visits to the shops were the first time they left the house. They grappled with the unfamiliarity of social distancing, sanitising, and mask-wearing. Diary entries showed how participants experienced the new requirements for masks and social distancing in big commercial retailers as well as smaller, independently owned neighbourhood spaza shops.

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A main road along the northern suburbs and economic node of Sandton in Johannesburg.

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2.1. Protecting each other from the unknown virus In March 2020, there was global uncertainty about the Coronavirus and how it spread. At the time there was still no conclusive evidence on whether the virus was airborne (WHO, 2020a). On 29 March, two days after the South African lockdown was enforced, a scientific brief on transmission of the virus released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) called for careful interpretation of “initial evidence” of airborne transmission (WHO, 2020a). In early April 2020, WHO published interim guidance on the use of masks which communicated that “the two main routes of transmission of the COVID-19 virus are respiratory droplets and contact” (WHO, 2020b: 1). Although noting that the wearing of medical masks could prevent an infected version from spreading the virus, the communication stated there was “currently no evidence” that the wearing of masks by healthy persons in community settings would protect them from Covid-19 infection (WHO, 2020b: 1). In July 2020, an updated scientific brief on transmission from the organisation provided more clarity on airborne transmission: Airborne transmission of the virus can occur in health care settings where specific medical procedures, called aerosol generating procedures, generate very small droplets called aerosols. Some outbreak reports related to indoor crowded spaces have suggested the possibility of aerosol transmission, combined with droplet transmission, for example, during choir practice, in restaurants or in fitness classes (WHO, 2020c).

As a result, WHO updated its guidelines to advise that mask-wearing by the general public should be encouraged by governments “to prevent COVID-19 transmission effectively in areas of community transmission” (WHO, 2020d).

Along with washing one’s hands and social distancing, mask wearing by the general public became increasingly advised to prevent the virus’s spread.

In the early days of lockdown, the newness of the virus and constantly emerging information (some of it also untrue) contributed to the public’s fears and uncertainty. This uncertainty is clearly evident in diary entries at the beginning of the lockdown. Participants raised concerns about the wearing of protective gear and social distancing in a public. A recurring theme of diary entries during the hard lockdown was participants’ observations of how people were (or were not) protecting themselves from the virus. Participants were concerned not only about protecting themselves, but the protection of others – particularly people they perceived as vulnerable like the elderly and children.

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2.2. The ebbs and flows of mask-wearing & social distancing In some countries, mask wearing became a politically contentious issue, with “anti-maskers” associated with political conservatives in places like the USA and Brazil (Taylor, 2021; McKelvey, 2020). Although there was a lack of clarity around government regulations and their enforcement, the wearing of masks became a broadly followed practice in South Africa (Karrim, 2020; Rule et al., 2020). However, as diary entries showed, not everyone always wore a mask in public. Diary entries related that at beginning of the hard lockdown people often did not own masks. Diary entries indicate that as the hard lockdown progressed, the wearing of masks appears to have been normalised and more commonplace. A survey by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) showed that 37% of adults always wore a mask in the early weeks of April 2020 (UJ & HSRC, 2020). By the end of April, the survey showed that 50% of adults said they always wore a mask (UJ & HSRC, 2020). This had increased to 70% of surveyed adults during the months of July, August and September (UJ & HSRC, 2020; Rule et al., 2020). Diary entries from participants related variable mask-wearing at the beginning of lockdown. Some noted how elderly people appeared to be more compliant with mask-wearing and social-distancing requirements than youth.

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Although the HSRC & UJ survey showed that mask-wearing increased progressively from the beginning of lockdown, many diary entries in this study related that mask-wearing and social-distancing were waning toward the end of the hard lockdown. Many diary entries shared participants’ concerns that people were “carrying on like it’s a normal day” toward the end of the 5-week hard lockdown (See Buhle’s diary entry on 23 April 2020).

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Nyaope is a highly-addictive street drug composed largely of cannabis, heroin and antiretrovirals used in South Africa, predominantly by young men (Mthembi et al., 2018).

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2.3. The Shops as an escape?

For some, visits to the shops offered an escape from the confinement of the hard lockdown. This became particularly evident from the diary entries of one participant who was living in a gated complex in Johannesburg. For him, visits to the shops were an event offering a change of scenery and some social interaction. This experience was echoed by one other participant, who also resided in a gated complex, who also spoke about enjoying the experience of driving to the shops as a way to get out of the house. Both lived in the car-oriented neighbourhoods of Bryanston and Randburg respectively. Their limited social interactions, and experience of driving and the shops as “escape” contrasts with experiences of people who lived in areas which were more pedestrian-oriented, ungated, and where the streets were characteristically a space of regular activity. This will be discussed further in Section 3.

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For others, however, visiting the shops was viewed with trepidation due to the presence of police, and in some instances the army, on the street. This became particularly evident in diary entries from three participants living in inner-cities, two in Pretoria and one in Johannesburg. Due to the heightened presence of surveillance which will be discussed in Section 2, these residents expressed fear about leaving the house to walk to the shops. All three had also seen instances of people being hurt or handled in public spaces. For them, visits to the shops in the inner-city did not offer an “escape” from the hard lockdown but were approached warily.

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In the days leading up to the beginning of the hard lockdown on 27 March 2020, members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) were spotted preparing for duty in parts of Johannesburg (Dlomo & Mahlangu, 2020). As the lockdown began, police and the defence force patrolled the streets of some parts of Gauteng to keep people indoors.

Soon, reports emerged of violence being meted out by police and the army. Collins Khosa was beaten to death by soldiers, with police looking on, in Alexandra township in Johannesburg on the 10 of April 2020 (Knoetze, 2020). The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) confirmed, a year after the hard lockdown, that it is investigating 49 cases of police brutality from the first two months of lockdown (SABC, 2021). This includes the investigation of six deaths at the hands of police between March 27 and April 30 2020 (Nombembe, 2021).

From Delhi to Paris, residents experienced violence by authorities enforcing stay-at-home orders. Emerging research has also shown that the violence of lockdown extended beyond violence in enforcing lockdown, to the violence experienced by women when in lockdown (Perez-Vincent et al., 2020; UN, 2020). This has been characterised by the United Nations (2020) as the “Shadow Pandemic” of violence against women.

In the first week of the hard lockdown in South Africa, the National Police Minister, Bheki Cele, released figures on 2320 gender-based violence cases reported. This was a 37% increase for the same period in 2019 (Newham & Du Plessis, 2020). During the first few days of lockdown, calls to the country’s National Gender-Based Violence Command Centre received three-times the number of calls than usual (IOL, 2020). One diary entry from a participant relayed the story of a neighbour who was being attacked by her partner. The police were called to the scene, and told her and her attacker that “they should just try talk it out” (See Diary Entry from Mokoena, 23, Kempton Park on 15 April 2020). The participant chose instead to help her neighbour find immediate safety with a nearby family member.

Many diary entries relayed the regular presence of police – and even the army – in their neighbourhoods. This presence appears to have been particularly felt in the first few weeks of the hard lockdown, and was especially shared by participants who lived in the province’s CBDs and inner-city neighbourhoods. Diary entries and survey results indicate that different urban neighbourhoods experienced differentiated forms of surveillance and monitoring during the hard lockdown. Notably, police presence was rarely, if ever, noted in suburban diary entries. Suburban areas included gated estates and complexes; suburban areas with a security gate; and ungated suburban areas. This was supported by the public online survey conducted of 127 people, 88% of whom lived in suburban areas. This survey showed that 44% percent of the mostly suburban respondents to the survey never saw police in their neighbourhoods during the hard lockdown, and 31% saw the police only once or twice. However, 36% of suburban respondents observed private security every day in their neighbourhoods. This spatial differentiation of the patrols and surveillance during lockdown is raised in Issue 1, and is discussed further in this section of the report.

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3.1. Sirens, shouting and a knobkierie8 In the first few days of the hard lockdown in March 2020, some participants shared how their neighbourhoods were being frequented by police. Some witnessed acts of violence and harassment, while others regularly heard police sirens. Most of these diary entries were from participants who lived in CBDs and inner-city neighbourhoods.

Observations of the army were also noted in numerous diary entries from the inner-cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane. In the inner-city neighbourhood of Berea, bordering Hillbrow in Johannesburg, one participant saw defence force vehicles in his street. This echoed videos and images shared by some Hillbrow residents on social media (see a series of Tweets by @MakwenaManaka). Another participant, a resident of the Pretoria inner-city neighbourhood of Arcadia, also came across the national defence force in his neighbourhood. In this instance the defence force was monitoring a shelter that had been set up haphazardly for homeless people in a local stadium at the onset of lockdown. In contrast, none of the suburban participants sharing their diary entries saw the defence force in their neighbourhoods during the hard lockdown. The overwhelming absence of the army from certain areas was supported by the public online survey of 127 people. 89% of respondents to the public online survey living in gated estates and gated complexes never saw the army, and 98% of respondents living in ungated suburban areas never saw the army.

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A knobkierie is a stick with a knob, a type of club, used as a weapon in South Africa.

South African Police Service

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One participant, Sifiso in Berea, saw the police in his neighbourhood almost daily at the beginning of the lockdown. This included witnessing the police harassing residents with knobkieries and firing rubber bullets.

Toward the end of the hard lockdown, and as Covid-19 infections began to rise, however, he noted that police were no longer frequenting the area as often.

In an informal settlement in the south of Johannesburg, a participant recounted how local youths employed in a nearby factory were protesting that their wages had not been paid. Violence broke out between the youths. Some were arrested, while one of the young people was injured and was reported to be in a critical condition in hospital. The financial pressures that people faced became increasingly noticeable across many diary entries as the hard lockdown progressed. This is discussed in more detail in Issue 3 of the Lockdown Diaries series.

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This illustrates that gated communities with enclosed entrances enforced bans on visitors during the hard lockdown. This was supported by results from the public online survey, 63% of suburban respondents said the entrance to their building, complex or neighbourhood was controlled by private security. Of those who had private security controlling their entrances, 81% said this private security did not allow visitors. Overall, the survey responses showed that gated estates and complexes, ungated suburbs, and suburbs with boom gates, were overwhelmingly subject to private security patrols. Just over a third of respondents in these areas saw private security forces every day in their neighbourhood.

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Still, diary entries shared how residents contravened lockdown regulations within the confines of their gated communities and suburban areas, walking, jogging and riding bicycles. One participant noted how a resident was reprimanded by private security for breaking lockdown regulations in the golf estate where he resided.

Contraventions of lockdown regulations were also regularly shared by participants in township areas, most notably regular observations of children playing and people socialising on the streets. This is discussed further in the next section of this issue.

It was in inner-city neighbourhoods, however, where the presence of people on the street appeared to be most closely patrolled and monitored.

Along with instances of arrest and violence referred to previously, diary entries from inner-city participants also referred to police reprimanding, harassing and monitoring people who were outside or contravening regulations.

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At Any Cost 2020

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41Passes (or Dompas) were used in South Africa by the apartheid government to restrict the movement of black people.

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3.3. The Violence in Lockdown The violence of lockdown extended beyond the violence meted out in public places to enforce regulations. Two diary entries, one in a neighbourhood near the CBD of Kempton Park, and the other from an informal settlement in the south of Johannesburg, shared participant’s accounts of violence experienced by their neighbours inside their homes. Both diaries shed light on domestic and physical violence that took place during the hard lockdown – particularly gender-based violence – that research is continuing to show as having dovetailed the pandemic in countries across the globe (UN, 2020).

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Inkonzo Isekhona (The Congregation Continues) 2020

Existance Through The Window 2020

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Throughout the hard lockdown, and across neighbourhoods, participants persistently shared observations of people sidestepping lockdown regulations by walking, jogging, playing and socialising on the streets.

For the hard lockdown, people were not allowed to leave where they were residing except under strict conditions. As Section 11B, 1(a) of the regulations under the Disaster Management Act amended on 25th March outlined: “For the period of lockdown(i) Every person is confined to his or her place of residence, unless strictly for the purpose of performing an essential service, obtaining an essential good or service, collecting a social grant, or seeking emergency, life-saving or chronic medical attention.”

It was only from the 1st of May under Level-4 where lockdown restrictions were eased to allow people to leave their homes to exercise. Even then, this was restricted to within 5km radius of where people resided, and between 6AM and 9AM. Under Level-4 restrictions, visits to family and friends were still prohibited (Mlambo, 2020).

In Issue 1: Spaces and Places of Lockdown, it was shown how the lockdown regulations were particularly difficult to abide by for people living in buildings or spaces without access to a private garden or private outside area in the inner-city. However, as discussed previously, these areas were also subject to regular police presence and intermittent defence force presence. This meant that people were often fearful to leave their homes during the hard lockdown, and street activity was muted.

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What also emerges from diaries and an accompanying survey of diary participants, is that areas that had a vibrant street life prior to lockdown and were not subject to regular police monitoring or surveillance, continued to have a street life during the hard lockdown. Townships with limited police presence had more reports of street activity. In Kagiso, Soweto and Nancefield, it was shown how street activity was only quietened in the few instances when police patrolled the neighbourhoods. Along with mundane daily routines during lockdown, township participants sights of the street were a regular theme in their diary entries. Many diary entries noted how the streets were a space of activity for young people– whether to play a game of soccer, or to meet friends on street corners. Participants explained this street activity due to the “restlessness” and “boredom” of children who were not going to school. One young mother, Lesego from Soweto (See Diary Entry from Lesego, 30, Soweto on 5 April 2020), shared the difficulty of keeping her child occupied. She said, “There’s only so much, I suppose, writing and teaching one can do with their child before the child gets bored.” Others, meanwhile, reflected that the presence of people on the street showed that the virus was still intangible and distant to many.

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In one diary entry, Nomsa from Soweto wrote about how her younger brother sought to sidestep restrictions by carrying a plastic bag when walking in the street. This, she explained, was to feign that he was on his way to the shops when he was in fact socialising with friends on the street.

Get Me Out 2020

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Drawing on dairy entries we can establish, however, that the breaking of hard lockdown rules was a characteristic of all areas – not just townships. Although suburban areas that did not have vibrant street-life prior to lockdown were often observed described as quiet - this did not mean that people were not seen regularly breaking lockdown rules.

Surburbian Outlaw 2020

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In the online survey with 127 respondents, 112 of these were suburban respondents. The survey, combined with diary entries, provided an illustrative snapshot into the street life of suburban areas in Gauteng prior to lockdown, and during lockdown. Notably, 72% of suburban respondents to the survey used a car to get to the shops prior to lockdown (See Figure x, below). This, even when 40% of suburban respondents noted that it would take them 5-10 minutes to walk to the shops. This reflects the car-oriented mobility of suburban respondents.

Furthermore, “Cars” were the overwhelming observation of what suburban survey respondents to the online survey saw on the streets.

Children were not observed playing on the street. It is unsurprising then, that 88% of suburban respondents to the online survey described activity on the street as “quiet” during lockdown (See Figure x, below).

The confinement and limited mobility brought about by lockdown was a challenge for many people across the world. Everyone sought some form of reprieve to the hard lockdown rules, and often this meant contravening the restrictions. What is clear, however, is that the presence of people on the street as a reprieve reflected how the street had been used as space prior to lockdown. In Issue 3, we discuss the challenges that were brought about by the hard lockdown and the ways in which people sought to cope.

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At the time of writing, over a year after South Africa’s hard lockdown was enforced in March 2020, the country continues to be under the Disaster Management Act. Although the restrictions on mobility have been eased – the requirements for mask-wearing, handwashing and social-distancing in public spaces remain. This report revisits the first few weeks of the country’s hard lockdown. The virus was new and uncertainty abound about how Covid-19 spread and precautions required to stem it. Across South Africa’s urbanised province of Gauteng, people grappled with the new routines and precautions required of them.

Section 1 of this report reminds us how unfamiliar these practices were in 2020. It illustrates how the shops became the primary site of enacting and embedding these practices. By revisiting the first month of lockdown we are reminded how mask-wearing, social-distancing and sanitising have fundamentally changed our interactions with each other in public space. Section 2 of this report expounded how people’s experiences of surveillance and policing differed according to where they lived. Innercity diary entries made regular reference to seeing the police, and even the army. Township diary entries made occasional reference to seeing police, although this differed by township. In contrast, suburban areas rarely were subject to police or army presence. Suburban areas were, however, subject to regular private security patrols. In suburban gated communities with controlled entrances, bans were also placed on visitors.

Section 3 discussed how different types of neighbourhoods experienced street life pre- and during lockdown. This, read in combination with policing and patrols under lockdown, may help explain why some areas had “quiet” streets and others did not. The streets in townships continued to serve as frequented public space for bored youth and children during the hard lockdown. In contrast, in suburban areas where people rarely normally walked to the shops or socialised in the streets, cars were the most frequent sighting on the streets during the hard lockdown. The theme of spatial differentiation of the lockdown (identified first in Issue 1: Spaces and Places of Lockdown), was therefore again brought to the fore in Section 2 and Section 3. Finally, Section 2 also discusses a prominent theme of violence that emerges from participant diary entries.

Some diaries related accounts of violence in police, army and security enforcement of lockdown rules and curtailing protest, while others shared stories of violence experienced in lockdown by women. These accounts provide a vivid and unsettling snapshot to a topic that warrants further research. The violence experienced by some, particularly women, illustrates just one of the struggles faced in lockdown. In our final Issue, Issue 3, we discuss prominent struggles that emerged from our diary entries – including struggles with fear, stress and financial challenge.

At the time of writing, South Africa is in the midst of its 3rd wave and lockdown restrictions have been raised to their second-highest level, Level-4. In some quarters there are renewed calls for a hard lockdown to be reenforced, the same hard lockdown that characterised the first 35-days of lockdown and the onset of the pandemic. When this research was undertaken in 2020, deaths were still low and the pandemic was just unfolding. Today, Covid-19 has taken a hard toll on South African society, with over 70,000 deaths reported officially at the time of writing (July 2021). This report has sought to revisit the onset of the pandemic, the practices that developed in public space, and the way in which the hard lockdown was enacted, experienced and adapted to.

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The variegated and historically unequal nature of South Africa’s urban landscape is reflected in how it is the hard lockdown was experienced and enforced in different areas. The hard lockdown also made acute the patterns of historically differentiated deployment of state violence alongside post-apartheid private securitisation of suburbs. The lockdown’s enforcement and confinement exacerbated existing and underlying violence, both by the state and in people’s homes. Understanding the Covid-19 pandemic, the lockdown and its impacts, therefore, cannot be restricted to an analysis of what happened during the period. Rather, it also necessitates a considered reading of the social and spatial organisation that existed prior.

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