Governing Diversity Beyond City and State: Epistemic and Ethical Challenges of African Urbanisation

Abstract

Despite the rapid growth of cities worldwide, scholarly approaches to urban policymaking often overlook Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban revolution. Here cities are growing rapidly without the potential for employment or expanding public infrastructure. The result is a form of do-it-yourself urbanism that engenders a diversity of urban socio-economic and political forms. Drawing on freshly collected survey data from Nairobi, Accra, and Johannesburg that identify city residents’ migration trajectories, attitudes, and institutional engagements, this chapter will explore what Africa’s urban transformation means for scholarly analysis of political participation, spatial planning, and social cohesion. Doing so effectively means enhancing – or at times redefining – conventional meanings of political community, representation and urban inclusion, and modes of urban analysis.