Africa and Urban Anthropology (original) (raw)

By 2030, 80% of the entire world's population will live in cities. This trend has reinforced the participation of anthropologists in the analysis of urban growth and change, defining distinctive features, appearances, qualities, and problems, as well as the emergence of unique and shared forms of urbanisms around the world. There is also a long tradition of anthropologists working in sub-Saharan Africa, for decades largely in rural townships and villages. And there are those who have combined the two, focusing their energies on African cities, observing the impact of the West, differences from the countryside, the new roles and relationships engaged in, the qualitative difference from so-called traditional society. Over the last 50 years, urbanization has become one of the most remarkable features of the African continent. Based on demographic studies, approximately 27 million people lived in urban centers in Africa in the 1950s, a time of increasing urbanization on the continent. Today, approximately 567 million people live in African cities (Kanos and Heitzig 2020; OCED/SWAC 2020). This growth is staggering and necessitates the reclassification of the urban, as new cities emerge in the interior and density has increased in existing cities. Despite these changes, and a tradition of anthropological research in and of the urban agglomeration in sub-Saharan Africa, there has been no volume published that focuses on urban African anthropology. We hatched the idea for this book at a conference, as we were conversing about our respective urban West African research. I, Deborah, was trained in the 1970s in British social anthropology, at a time when urban anthropology was broadening and focused on issues related to adaptive strategies, social stratification, social identity, and poverty. I went on to observe urban community processes in Ghana, especially in Accra, the capital located in the south, and subsequently Tamale and its environs, the gateway to northern Ghana. I, Suzanne, was trained in the 1990s with an accent placed on neo-Marxist perspectives of the urban. In anthropology, eclecticism was beginning to replace identifications with theoretical traditions, and urban anthropology was taking a turn toward spatial concerns. I went