Violence consistently undermines efforts to make space public. However, this does not mean that violence and public space can be meaningfully studied in isolation from one another. Rather, it may mean that we need to be even more closely attuned to the reasons why the process of making space public frequently springs from – and results in – violent acts. I argue that we can better understand how violence makes (and un-makes) public space if we pay more attention to the concept of ‘protection’. Protection relationships can create contexts in which public dialogue can occur, but relations of protection are themselves the object of contestation and dialogue, and the dynamics of protection can promote unequal, arbitrary outcomes. I illustrate and further explore this dilemma by examining an ‘extreme’ case, where achieving protection constitutes the core public problem at hand: the neighbourhoods of Hillbrow and Berea in inner-city Johannesburg, South Africa. I use this exploratory case study to call for more attention to the manner in which violence feeds into the ongoing process of making space public.

中文翻译：

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保护免受暴力：在约翰内斯堡的街道上公开空间

暴力持续破坏使空间公开化的努力。但是，这并不意味着可以相互隔离地有意义地研究暴力与公共空间。相反，这可能意味着我们需要更加密切地了解为何公开空间的过程经常源于暴力行为并导致暴力行为。我认为，如果我们更加关注“保护”的概念，我们就能更好地理解暴力是如何构成（和丧失）公共空间的。保护关系可以创造可以进行公开对话的环境，但是保护关系本身就是竞争和对话的对象，保护的动态可以促进不平等，任意结果。我将通过研究“极端”案例来说明并进一步探讨这种困境，在南非，约翰内斯堡市中心的希尔布鲁（Hillbrow）和伯里亚（Berea）街区是获得保护的主要公共问题。我使用这个探索性的案例研究来呼吁人们更多地关注暴力如何影响正在进行的公开空间过程。