Title & Author:

Postcolonial African cities : imperial legacies and postcolonial predicaments / edited by Fassil Demissie.

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication:

London : Routledge, ©2007.

Description:

142 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index [143-150].
Imperial legacies and postcolonial predicaments: an introduction / Fassil Demissie -- Metropolitanism, capital and patrimony: theorizing the postcolonial West African city / Alfred Ndi -- Casting a long shadow: colonial categories, cultural identities, and cosmopolitan spaces in globalizing Africa / William Cunningham Bissell -- Viewing postcolonial Dar es Salaam, Tanzania through civic spaces: a question of class / Anne S. Lewinson -- Transforming urban landscapes: soccer fields as sites of urban sociability in the agglomeration of Dakar / Susann Baller -- Narrating the African city from the diaspora: Lagos as a trope in Ben Okri and Chika Unigwe's short stories / Ayo Kehinde -- The city beyond the border: the urban worlds of Duiker, Mpe and Vera / Meg Samuelson -- Governing the city? South Africa's struggle to deal with urban immigrants after apartheid / Caroline Kihato -- Cinema and the edgy city: Johannesburg, carjacking, and the postmetropolis / Albert Fu and Martin J Murray -- Visual fragments of Kinshasa / Fassil Demissie.

Summary:

"The book focuses on contemporary African cities, caught in the contradiction of an imperial past and postcolonial present. The essays explore the cultural role of colonial architecture and urbanism in the production of meanings: in the inscription of power and discipline, as well as in the dynamic construction of identities. It is in these new dense urban spaces, with all their contradictions, that urban Africans are reworking their local identities, building families, and creating autonomous communities - made fragile by neo-liberal states in a globalizing world. The book offers a range of scholarly interpretations of the new forms of urbanity. It engages with issues, themes and topics including colonial legacies, postcolonial intersections, cosmopolitan spaces, urban reconfigurations, and migration which are at the heart of the continuing debate about the trajectory of contemporary African cities. The collection discusses contemporary African cities as diverse as Dar Es Salaam, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos and Kinshasa - offering new insights into the current state of postcolonial African cities"--Publisher's description.

ISBN:

9780415454483 (hbk.)
0415454484 (hbk.)
(pbk.)
9780415495653
(pbk.)
0415495652

Subject:

Cities and towns Africa.
Sociology, Urban Africa.
Villes Afrique.
Sociologie urbaine Afrique.
Cities and towns.
Sociology, Urban.
Africa.

Added entries:

Demissie, Fassil.

Post colonial African cities

Holdings:

Location: Library main 295010
Call No.: BIB 240907
Status: Available