Custom and Politics in Urban Africa

1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abner Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Africa

Displacement, Estrangement and Sovereignty: Reconfiguring State Power in Urban South Africa

2008 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren B. Landau ◽  
Tamlyn Monson
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
State Power ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Transnational Governance ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Urban South ◽  
Urban Africa ◽  
Victims Of Violence

AbstractAcademic writing often portrays migrants as either passive victims of violence and aid recipients or as courageous heroes facing horrific indifference and hazards. This article recodes them and their activities as potent forces for reshaping practices of state power. In this depiction, displacement also becomes a lens for re-evaluating the nature of sovereignty in urban Africa. Through its focus on Johannesburg this article explores how migrant communities intentionally and inadvertently evade, erode and exploit state policies, practices and shortcomings. Rather than being bound by their ambiguous status, they exploit their exclusion to exercise forms of autonomy and freedom in their engagement with the state and its street-level manifestations. Through these interactions, displacement and the continued mobility of urban residents is generating new forms of non-state-centric urban sovereignties and new patterns of transnational governance shaped, but not controlled, by state institutions. To recognize these evolving configurations we must look beyond Manichaean perspectives to see the full nature and degree of territorial control.

scholarly journals Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa by J. W. Paller

Ghana Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-112
Author(s):  
Kajsa Hallberg Adu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Africa ◽  
Everyday Politics

Japanese divine light in Kinshasa transcultural resonance and critique in the religiously multiple city

2021 ◽  
pp. 205030322098698
Author(s):  
Peter Lambertz
Keyword(s):  
Central Africa ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Concepts Of Health ◽  
Urban Africa ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Health And Healing

The Japanese “new religions” ( Shin Shūkyō) active in Kinshasa (DR Congo) nearly all perform healing through the channeling of invisible divine light. In the case of Sekai Kyūseikyō (Church of World Messianity), the light of Johrei cannot be visually apprehended, but is worn as an invisible aura on the practitioner’s body. This article discusses the trans-cultural resonances between Japan and Central Africa regarding the ontology of spiritual force, regimes of subjectivity, and the gradual embodiment of Johrei divine light as a protection against (suspicions of) witchcraft. Meanwhile, I argue that religious multiplicity in urban Africa encourages cultural reflexivity about concepts of health and healing, self-responsibility, and Pentecostal suspicion-mongering of occult sciences. Thus, Johrei divine light not only feeds into a longstanding local tradition of spiritual healing; within the religiously multiple city, it is also a discursive space for, and an experience and performance of, emic critique.

Some Reflections on Making Popular Culture in Urban Africa

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
AbdouMaliq Simone
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Urban Africa ◽  
The City ◽  
Ways Of Being

Abstract:In contemporary urban Africa, the turbulence of the city requires incessant innovation that is capable of generating new ways of being. Rather than treating popular culture as some distinctive sector, this article attempts to investigate the popular as methods of bringing together activities and actors that on the surface would not seem compatible, and as experimental forms of generating value in the everyday life of urban residents. This investigation, sited largely in Douala, Cameroon, looks at how youth from varying neighborhoods attempt to get by, and at the unexpected forms of contestation that can ensue.

scholarly journals Co-exploratory climate risk workshops: Experiences from urban Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 95-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Steynor ◽  
J. Padgham ◽  
C. Jack ◽  
B. Hewitson ◽  
C. Lennard
Keyword(s):  
Climate Risk ◽  
Urban Africa

Rejecting Ethnic Pandering in Urban Africa: A Survey Experiment on Voter Preferences in Nairobi, Kenya

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110405
Author(s):  
Hye-Sung Kim ◽  
Jeremy Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Urban Africa ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Vignette Experiment

Ethnic pandering, in which candidates promise to cater to the interests of coethnic voters, is presumed to be an effective strategy for increasing electoral support in Africa’s emerging multiethnic democracies. However, ethnic political mobilization may be disdained by citizens for its divisive and polarizing effects, particularly in urban areas. As a result, pandering may fall on deaf ears among Africa’s urban voters. This study examines how voters in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, respond to ethnic pandering using data from a vignette experiment conducted in 2015 and a replication study implemented in 2016. Results show that respondents are more supportive of candidates who make ethnically inclusive rather than targeted appeals, regardless of whether the candidate is identified as a coethnic. We propose that the results are driven by a broad distaste among urban voters for parochial politics, rather than by strategic calculations related to candidate viability.

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