Exclusive Books Rosebank and Wits University Press
have the pleasure of inviting you to the launch of South Africa’s Constitution
and the Law of the Township: Looting from Below by David Dickinson

  Join David Dickinson in conversation with Mpho Makhubela, activist and communications officer at Lawyers for Human Rights as they explore how township residents navigate a different, de facto, legal system, the lex lokasi and the pursuit of illicit opportunities, or menyetla.

WHEN: Thursday 1 October 2026, 18:00 for 18:30
WHERE: Exclusive Books, Rosebank Mall, Johannesburg
RSVP: exclusivebooks.co.za/pages/events

About the book:
In the kasi where almost half of the urban population lives, there is limited state-enforced order; while the lex constitutional may be the law of the land, the lex lokasi governs day-to-day life in the township. This is illustrated by the widespread taking of illicit opportunities, or menyetla, by township residents, such as electricity theft, informal charges to collect the R350 grant, fair evasion on the metrorail, illicit alcohol sales, medical aid fraud and looting.
Exploring how these illicit or illegal opportunities are grasped provides insight into the lives of township residents, whether scrabbling to survive or scrambling to succeed. It complicates the idea that state capture is the sole cause of the country's systemic crises and illustrates a wider, expanding, crisis of social order in South Africa's democracy.

About the author:
David Dickinson is an attorney at Lawyers for Human Rights and Emeritus
Professor of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the author of amongst others A Different Kind of AIDS: Folk and Lay Theories in South African Townships and In Precarious Battle: Labour Broking in the South African Post Office.