Feuding Families in the South African Mini-bus Taxi Industry

INTRODUCTIONThis paper investigates a new trend of violence in the South African minibus-taxi industry, which is taxi family feuds.|PROBLEMThe South African minibus-taxi business, which is a multi-billion-rand industry has earned a bad reputation after decades of violence. However, some people are beginning to doubt whether it remains a legitimate industry or is now a crime syndicate because the modus operandi is not very different from that of the mafia. Recently, the industry experienced spates of deadly clashes and killings involving members of families in the taxi business. This is where two or more taxi industry families with years of animosity and a longstanding history of feuding are linked to bloody clashes resulting in deaths.|RESEARCH OBJECTIVESTo investigate the origins of blood feuds between feuding families in the taxi industry using a multiple case study comprising three families in KwaZulu-Natal Province.|METHODSExtensive secondary data analysis was employed which obviated fieldwork. Media content in the form of case studies were utilised. The case studies were derived from articles on feuding families in the South African taxi industry from 2014 to 2020. The inclusion criteria were that (i) the murders had to be between people that are blood related (ii) the murders occurred in KwaZulu-Natal between 2014 and 2020 (iii) the root cause had to be about inheritance or revenge. Case studies that did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded from the study. Three articles/case studies were sufficient for the study as a detailed analysis of each article/case study was performed. Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyse the data.|RESULTSThe analysis suggests that the South African mini-bus taxi industry has fragile economic foundations, exploitative working relations, and constitutes a hotbed for murderous feuds. Further, the data revealed that the bloody feuds between families appears to be largely economic in origin as disputes were not only over taxi rank spaces and routes but were also rooted on who would inherit the family business in even that the head of the household dies.|CONCLUSIONDeadly feuds between families in the taxi industry should not be viewed as a zero-sum matrix. All sectors of the taxi industry and other stakeholders should join-forces to develop a conflict management mechanism to address the differences between feuding families in the taxi industry.