Africities: Popular Engagements of the Urban in Contemporary AfricaTools Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2001. Africities: Popular Engagements of the Urban in Contemporary Africa. Space and Culture, 4(7-6), pp. 252-264. ISSN 1206-3312 [Article] No full text available
Official URL: http://sac.sagepub.com/content/4/7-9/252.full.pdf+...
Abstract or DescriptionAccelerated urbanization in Africa has produced cities whose formal physical, political and social infrastructures are largely unable to absorb, apprehend or utilize the needs, aspirations and resourcefulness of those who live within them. As a result, the efforts to secure livelihood depend upon largely informalised processes and a wide range of provisional and ephemeral institutions which cultivate specific orientations toward, knowledge of, and practices for dealing with urban life. Soon, the majority of Africans will live in peri-urban and informal settlements, often at the physical and social margins of the city. Yet, marginalization from security of tenure, formal livelihood, and, frequently, participation in viable urban political institutions converges with new modalities of urban social production which frequently confound clear readings of the motivations and effects of various forms of collective action undertaken in the public sphere.
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