Cityness and African Urban Development

Abstract

This paper explores one possible argument for how to respond to the epistemic troubles in the production of knowledge about urban Africa. The problem I have in mind is the preponderance of policy-oriented research on the development challenges and absences of African cities, as opposed to a more rounded theorisation of urban life (urbanism) or cityness. The paper starts by recounting the challenge thrown out by Jennifer Robinson and Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall to take African 'cityness' or 'worldliness' seriously in our engagement with the African city. This starting point leads on to an exploration of what cityness can mean, given the overdetermining effect of violence in African social life, in no small measure a consequence of the colonial era of terror and exploitation, but also now remade and reembedded in enduring inequalities that mark everyday life. In my reading, this issue looms so large in the contemporary city that I found it impossible, within the constraints of this essay, to explore in detail other dimensions of urban sociality. As a result, I simply assert that, in the absence of a deep philosophical understanding of the social, it is almost impossible to hold on to a liberal humanist moral project of the kind which frequently underpins policy prescriptions to improve the quality of life, livelihoods, governance and social fabric in African cities. Put differently, here, I am interested to define what it could mean to explore the African urban without a humanist (philosophical) safety net, yet committed to an ethical project of 'becoming' and human flourishing. Thus, in the final instance I turn to some speculative reflections on what promise this line of argument may hold for a more policy-focused research agenda in a move to bring policy and philosophical debates into closer articulation.

The State of Urban Agendas in Norwegian Development Research and Policy

“…But one must find the right sort of engagement that 'deals with both externally derived ideas and African concepts' (Myers, 2011 p. 9). Presenting African cities through 'othering', as lacking the ideals of Western urbanism and modernity (Robinson, 2002), dominant representations have locked debates about African cities into fields like anthropology or development studies, making it more difficult to transcend geographical and disciplinary divides (Pieterse, 2010).…”

“…Analyses of urban transformations in the global South are also caught in a dichotomy of material and discursive interpretation of the city (Myers, 2011;Ong, 2011;Pieterse, 2009aPieterse, , 2009bPieterse, , 2010. Pieterse (2009aPieterse ( , 2009b and Ong (2011) challenge the underlying assumption of the universal impact of neo-liberal globalization without decentring or contextualizing its outcomes.…”

“…The underlying assumption is that African cities will or should move towards Western ideals of city life and modernity (Myers, 2011;Myers and Murray, 2006;Pieterse, 2008;Robinson, 2002Robinson, , 2006. These debates also reflect tensions between discursive and material interpretations of African cities (Pieterse, 2010). Following Pieterse, I argue that these are not mutually exclusive and that both material and discursive perspectives are needed to unpack the complexities of African urban dynamics.…”

Introduction: rogue urbanisms

“…The bulk of the ACC's research and teaching revolves around very concrete and pressing urban development challenges such as structural poverty, inequality, the impacts of climate change, uneven and exclusionary economic development patterns, weak and corrupt governance, and so on. However, in attending to these vital problems that confront the vast majority of urban citizens across the continent, there is an acute awareness that 'solutions' can only be sensed through a strong theoretical grounding in the social and philosophical perspectives on the emergent socio-cultural dynamics of these places (Enwezor et al 2002, Diouf 2003, Simone 2004, Robinson 2006, Jamal 2010, Pieterse 2010) -dynamics that are so unruly, unpredictable, surprising, confounding and portentous, it would be fitting to call them rogue.…”

On the Liberal Moral Project of Planning in South Africa

“…In embarking on this reflection, I am immediately drawn to a recent publication by Edgar Pieterse (2010) in Urban Forum on 'Cityness and African Urban Development'. Here, Pieterse (2010: 205, my emphasis) insightfully asserts that: planners use in situated political contexts to plan for 'better' outcomes).…”