Description
Studies of government and politics in Africa are dominated by a focus on the national and are typically set apart by anglophone, francophone and lusophone historical influences, with South Africa as an exception. This volume departs from a different set of questions and employs a novel approach in discussing them: cities in sub-Saharan Africa provide the pivot around which issues of policy and practice, planning and service delivery turn, at different scales and both from the top down as well as from the bottom up. Party politics, for example, is discussed at city level and urban security both within a state and a non-state context. The novelty of the approach is found in thematic rather than single-city chapters written by multiple authors each of whom displays depth knowledge of one of three or more cities treated in each case. This volume will interest scholars of African and of urban studies as well as urban policy-makers and practitioners
Contents
Introduction Simon Bekker and Laurent Fourchard
Part I
Section introduction: Party Politics and the Politics of Identity
- Chapter 1 – Exploring the role of party politics in the governance of African cities (Claire Benit-Gbaffou, Alain Dubresson, Laurent Fourchard, Karine Ginisty, Sylvy Jaglin, Ayodeji Olukoju, Sam Owuor and Jeanne Vivet)
- Chapter 2 – Urban planning, housing, and the making of ‘responsible citizens’ (Séverine Awenengo, Hélène Charton, and Odile Goerg)
- Chapter 3 – Changing minority identities in urban Africa (Jeanne Vivet, Denise Brégand, Rasheed Olaniyi and Amandine Spire)
Part II
Section introduction: Urban Public Policies: Problematising Informality
- Chapter 4 – Breaking down the binary: meanings of informal settlement in southern African Cities ( Liela Groenewald, Marie Huchzermeyer, Kristen Kornienko, Marius Tredoux, Margot Rubin and Isabel Raposo)
- Chapter 5 – The politics of solid waste management in Accra, Addis Ababa, Maputo and Ouagadougou: different cities, similar issues (Jeremy Grest Axel Baudouin, Camilla Bjerkli, and Hélène Quénot-Suarez)
- Chapter 6 –Informality, public space and urban governance: an approach through street trading (Jean-Fabien Steck, Sophie. Didier, Mariane. Morange, and Margot Rubin)
- Chapter 7 – Contested social orders: negotiating urban security in Nigeria and South Africa (Julie Berg, Rufus Akinyele, Laurent Fourchard, Kees van der Waal and Michellene Williams)
Appendix – City profiles
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About the Author/s
Simon Bekker is Emeritus Professor in Sociology at the University of Stellenbosch. He acted as Professor of Development Studies at Rhodes University, Professor of Sociology at UNISA and Director of the Centre for Social and Development Studies at the (then) University of Natal (Durban). He has held visiting fellow appointments at Oxford University, the Centre d’Étude d’Afrique Noire in France, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS), Uppsala in Sweden and has lectured at summer schools organized by CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal. He obtained a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cape Town in 1974.
Laurent Fourchard est chercheur à la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Titulaire d’un doctorat d’histoire de l’Université de Paris 7, il a été directeur de l’Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA) à l’Université d’Ibadan (Nigeria de 2000 à 2003), chercheur invité au département d’histoire de l’Université du Cap (2008-2009) et à Nuffield College à l’Université d’Oxford (2010). Ses recherches, à la croisée de l’histoire sociale, de la sociologie politique et des études urbaines, portent sur trois objets principaux : historicité des mobilisations violentes et des formes de régulation des violences au quotidien au Nigeria et en Afrique du Sud ; généalogie des politiques d’exclusion de certaines catégories (« étrangers », « délinquants », « enfants en danger »), politique comparée du gouvernement des zones urbaines et métropolitaines en Afrique subsaharienne. Il est directeur de publication de la revue Politique africaine. Il est membre des comités de rédaction de Journal of African History et de International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.