Urban Africa: Changing Contours of Survival in the City. The book stands as a collection of essays within a series entitled Africa for the new millenium, collaborated and edited by AbdouMaliq Simone and Abdelghani Abouhani of CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa). It’s purpose is to unearth the contextual underpinnings of African urban societies and the pervasive historical ideals that dictate them. It goes further in an attempt to shine light toward the future, illuminating pathways for the development of African urbanisms as a field of research, community practice, and mobilisation of social change and prosperity. Published in 2005 it sought to draw on the enthusiasm of the new millennium as a means to move beyond the economic stagnation and political inertia of the later 1980s and 1990s, which themselves had been preceded by over 2 decades of independence, growth and development. While the essays range in geographical scope, thematic approach, and standard, they nonetheless draw our attention to the diversity of histories, desires, social norms, and political-legal frameworks between regions, countries, cities, districts, and even city blocks. Moving beyond the dominant themes of ‘globalisation’ and ‘development’ which became dogmatic in discussions of Africa’s strives toward prosperity, the book raises fresh approaches which weave religion, production, consumption, colonialism, informality, housing, power imbalances, feminism, and notions of the ‘public’ to reignite our imaginations of Africa and it’s built environments. It directly addresses the charicaturing of Africa as a rural continent, or conversely, an urbanised continent with no urban culture or reason. At its best the book highlights how the public ‘formulate collective orientations’ and reach ‘functional compromises’ in their urban assemblages, and ultimately comes to enliven the all-too-often ‘pacified’ cities of Africa. With this review I am to discuss a few of the trajectories of thought that the book raises - I have divided these into 2 themes; localism and division, and land tenure in post-/neo-colonial societies . Additionally, I will reference other works and thoughts to help us better understand the themes evoked and encourage critical reflections upon Urban Africa going forward. Localism and division In Chapter 2 Florin explores the new satellite towns outside Cairo as new urbanisms in which citizens gain freedoms to experiment with new social relationships, distinct and adverse to the traditional patterns and localities of social interaction in the historic city. This is contrasted by Madoeuf’s work in Chapter 3 which returns to the ancient city of Cairo where livelihood, mobility and opportunity play out between the ancient places of worship, crowded market streets, colonial institutes of culture and power, and the home. Here “different bodies [are] marked and situated” along gendered, class, and religious lines according to their position with historic systems - whether that be Islamic tradition, colonial ideals of labour and wealth, modernisation initiatives of the early nationalist independence leaders, or more nuanced social and sexual relations (:8). These 2 chapters highlight how 2 districts, within the same municipal region, along the same river, and even with strong legal and financial relationships, can have independently functioning sociological communities. It expresses the diversity of desire, norms, and relations that can coexist (not always without conflict) in a relatively small geographical area - such is the beauty of urban life. Omasombo expands on this in Chapter 4 with his discussion of local urban cultures as “different moral regimes, governance systems and economic practices” evolve in disparate urban quarters in Kisangani, DRC (:12). Omasombo teaches us how these divisions are rarely autonomous on part of individuals or communities; he does so in discussing the colonial exercise of power which separated urban citizens spatially by ethnicity, language, religion, class, and occupation, as a means to prevent political unity. Such divisions still function today and often entrap individuals in closed communities and flows of goods and services, such as those exploited by the international, and legally ambiguous, trade in diamonds, ivory and rare earth metals in central Africa. The concept of the local is thus strung out along lines of trade and commerce, meaning a citizen of Kisangani may have more in common with her sisters in Bangui across the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Central African Republic border, than her fellow national in the next suburb over. In the words of Zedwe, in their diagnosis of Addis Ababa, “a distinctive feature of the [African] city’s evolution has been its spontaneous, not to say chaotic, growth. The city has consistently defied planning” which was so often modeled on the developments, societies and ideals of European cities (:135). Not only do these cases smash the ‘false universalism’ of the idea of a singular urbanism, or even a singular African urbanism, but they demand us to delve deep into the local histories, economies and socio-cultural orders to learn how and why people both unite and diverge in the urban landscape. In their study of ‘post-modern urbanisms’, heavily focused on the development patterns of the Global North, Edward Soja made clear how cities ‘exist at a nexus of scales’ where different representations of the local, regional, national, international and global come together and often exist side by side, or even on stacked on top of one another (2001). Citizens move between these spheres, not without barriers than deny access to many ‘everyday’ people, but with the potential to access influence over global institutions, national politics, and local community, all within a single day. As Africa forges its path towards prosperous urban futures it is essential to recognise how these geographies represent an implosion of scales, as technology and networks begin to arise and find their autonomy in a number of diverse ways. Nonetheless, we must remain conscious of how these scales form power relationships, through which the disempowered face disproportionate levels of exploitation and coercion - as the histories of colonial conquest of European enforced ‘development’ have evidenced (Smith, 1984). Governing land While the state of dispossession and landlessness has crippled the ability of many Africans to sustain healthy, fulfilling and autonomous lives since the dawn of colonialism, “land still remains the most important resource and source of status and wellbeing for most residents” (:20). Here, we are forced to recognise that the concept of land which a European would assume and apply to African soil is largely ignorant to the diverse uses of land applied by indigenous peoples, both historically and presently. The management and allocation of land has always been a political situation for the people of Africa, with social hierarchies dictating access long before the European interfered with local affairs. However, the concept of land ownership - that exclusive legal, individualistic, and economic claim to land - was arguably the bedrock from which colonial conquest exercised its violence. An excellent exploration of anti-European approaches to land can be found in Keita Carroll and Mauro’s work (2012). Since the years of African independence, broadly triggered by the loss of Europe’s economic might following WWII, an increasing number of land practices have come to the fore as Africa’s population underwent rapid urbanisation. “Individual ownership of land does not run deep in African societies” and many cities therefore emerge as an assemblage of conflicting land systems (:21). Due to the inconsistent and conflicting land rights many Africans face tenure insecurity, as European models of privatism, attempts at nationalisation, local informal arrangements of lease, and huge tracts of urban squatting on otherwise undesirable lands (often riddled with the pollution of the surrounding city), come to intersect at the crossroads of disparate interests. These experiences of African urbanism echoes back to the time of the English enclosure laws, which marked a new era of dispossession and capital accumulation for the most powerful landowners of Britain. Unfortunately, for the mass populace who lost their right to residency the new laws triggered waves of evictions, desperation, and migration to the slums in industrial cities. The lack of hegemonic power in enforcing such laws of private tenure in African cities, however, has left open opportunities for reworking the management of land, and imbedding it in local socio-cultural relations, thereby limiting the power private interests can exercise over local people. This however, is not to paint African land tenure as utopian, as millions suffer from the insecurity and poorly executed resettlement plans that many cities have enforced. Concluding comments and further reading This book is very ambitious in its scope and on occasion gets a little lost in its direction and quality. It’s biggest downfall however, happens to be its greatest strength, as the structure of the book constantly reminds us of the diverse contexts in which African cities find themselves - socially, historically, politically, economically, environmentally, and physically. It is impossible to ignore the diverse experiences of city life in Africa, and therefore pushes us to search for diverse and contrasting forms of urban life, policy, and futures for a more equitable and prosperous development for the people of the African continent. I have an educational background in a European institution and have therefore had a disproportionate experience of European urbanisms and the works of white European men. While recognising this I would still like to recommend the work of Soja (2001) and Mitchell (2003), for anyone interested in the intersections between postmodernism and urbanisms - I believe these are relevant for African urbanisms as history evidences that the patterns of European cities are often forced upon African cities through ‘development’ projects, the influence of international corporations, and urban theories that originate in the ‘Western’ intellect. Furthermore, I would also encourage anyone interested in the socio-economic relationships between Africa and the global ‘North’ to read Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa which draws colonial and capitalist histories into the present and helps us understand the longstanding exploitation of the African people. While not explicitly about urbanisms, it does touch on place, identity, development, power centralisation, labour, and population shifts. A number of excellent works on anti-colonialism can be found and I have provided a few of the ones that challenged my views most deeply here; Mauro and Kelta Caroll (2012), Ndjio (2012), Metz (2007). AbdouMaliq, S. and Abdelghani, A. (2005). Urban Africa: Changing Contours of Survival in the City. CODESRIA: Dakar. Mauro, S. and Keita Carroll, K. (2012). An African-centered approach to land education. Environmental education research: 20 (1). pp. 70-81Smith, N. (1984). Uneven development. Basil Blackwell: Oxford Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African moral theory. Journal of Political Philosophy: 15 (3). pp. 321–341. Ndjio, B. (2012). Post-Colonial histories of sexuality: the political investigation of a Libidinal African straight. Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute: 82 (4). pp. 609-631 Rodney, W. (2018). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Verso Books: London. Soja, E. (2001). Exploring the postmetropolis. In: Minca, C (eds). Postmodern Geography: theory and praxis. Blackwell: London