Introduction Urban kinship: the micro-politics of proximity and relatedness in African cities

Bjarnesen, Jesper; Utas, Mats

doi:10.1017/s0001972017001115

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…As such, Muslim socialities do not merely ‘compensate’ for the exclusionary dynamics to which migrants are exposed, but actually serve as enabling conditions for the very fabric of the CBD as a shared habitat, the mutualities that it can sustain, and the collective energies that diverse residents continue to invest in it. These insights enrich and extend recent work on mutuality (Bjarnesen and Utas 2018; Chari and Gillespie 2014) and migrant sociality (Dube 2017; Hankela 2020; Siziba 2016) in African cities and beyond, illuminating the often unacknowledged ways in which everyday forms of religious association are reproducing and reconfiguring shared urban worlds (Larkin 2016; Katsaura 2018; Kirby 2020).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 69%

“…In doing so, we contribute to three interdisciplinary research agendas in African studies. The first of these theorizes the quotidian lives of African cities as sites of implicit ‘mutuality’, even in settings characterized by social division and insecurity (Bjarnesen and Utas 2018; Chari and Gillespie 2014; Hansen and Verkaaik 2009; Larkin 2016; Teppo 2015). The second delves into the micro-politics of everyday interaction that migrant populations negotiate in different African cities (Charway 2019; Dube 2017; Hankela 2020; Sheridan 2018; Sibanda and Sibanda 2014; Siziba 2016; Vinckel 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Disarming the xenophobic everyday: Muslim migrants and the horizons of urban mutuality in Durban

Kirby¹,

Sibanda²,

Charway³

2021

Africa

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This article explores the everyday lives that African migrants in Durban, South Africa share with other residents of the city. In conversation with Obvious Katsaura's work on ‘ethno-mutualism’, we use the example of ordinary greeting practices to show how Durban's urban everyday has been hijacked by xenophobic sensibilities. By demonstrating how the act of excluding migrants from these practices threatens to render the quotidian city uninhabitable for them, we shed light on the importance of mundane forms of social interaction for building a sense of identity and belonging. We then consider several ways in which African migrants develop and participate in Muslim forms of sociality that assist them in ‘disarming’ the urban everyday: from providing a platform for building solidarity with fellow migrants to mediating a ‘sense of welcome’ from the established Indian South African community. Elaborating on this, we delineate how forms of reciprocity emerge through the interactions between migrant and Indian Muslims that reproduce the ambient life of the city as a shared habitat, opening up new possibilities for entanglement. As such, our analysis contributes to emerging conversations about urban mutuality and migrant religious practices in the everyday lives of African cities.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disarming the xenophobic everyday: Muslim migrants and the horizons of urban mutuality in Durban

Kirby¹,

Sibanda²,

Charway³

2021

Africa

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“…The negotiability of kin obligations does not mean that kinship has lost its normative importance. As other scholars have noted, idioms of kinship remain culturally potent across much of Africa, continuing to frame solidarities and mutual assistance between even non-kin (Sahlins, 2011;Bjarnesen and Utas, 2018;Spiegel, 2018). But the character of solidarity has changed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In its idealized form, this understanding of kinship precluded even accounting between kin. Echoing Fortes (1969: 246), Pitt-Rivers writes that ‘ yours and mine no longer exist; there is only ours’ (2016: 444, quoted in Bjarnesen and Utas, 2018: S8).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The conditional legitimacy of claims made by mothers and other kin in South Africa

Seekings

2019

Critical Social Policy

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Because redistribution concerns ‘who gets what and from whom’, redistributive conflicts revolve around ‘who should get what and from whom’. Individuals as well as states distinguish between deserving and undeserving claimants. People may favour people they know over strangers, kin over non-kin, or some kin over other kin. This paper uses data from survey experiments to show that young South Africans distinguish between deserving and undeserving claimants on both the state and kin. The hierarchy of desert with respect to public welfare is clear and intuitive, with people who cannot look after themselves being considered more deserving than those who can. Deservingness with respect to different categories of kin – i.e. the ‘radius’ of responsibility for kin – varies less markedly, but with some variation between racial or cultural groups. Deservingness with respect to both public and private support is affected dramatically by the attitude and reciprocity of the claimant, with the important exceptions of mothers who should be supported unconditionally. Public and private support appear to be complements not substitutes for each other, in that people who believe that the state should support people in need are also more likely to believe that kin should do so also.

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“…The importance of this work for urban studies scholars can be appreciated in several ways. First, urban livelihoods in Africa have become the focus of much academic and policy interest given the precarity of urban life fed, in part, by the strains on kinship obligations (Bjarnesen and Utas, 2018) and increasing evidence that the 'urban advantage' may be overstated (Kimani-Murage et al, 2014a). Food security is not only a critical aspect of individual livelihoods but is a function of local political economy, urban governance and urban planning.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Single mothers coping with food insecurity in a Nairobi slum

2020

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With high urbanisation rates, cities in sub-Saharan Africa are contending with food insecurity. Urban studies scholars have approached the issue mainly from the perspective of food deserts. We adapt Sen’s ‘resource bundles’ and Watts and Bohles’s ‘space of vulnerability’ concepts to examine food insecurity as a function of both tangible and intangible resources. Moreover, we also interrogate the role of kin in strengthening safety nets for the urban poor. Drawing on a data set of 462 single mothers in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, we find that (1) bundles comes in four types; (2) bundles with high levels of all resources buffer against food insecurity as do (3) bundles weighted with high levels of wealth and social standing; and (4) kin enhance the protective effect of bundles only for two types. These findings should direct urban poverty researchers to consider the compounding effect of resources in the reproduction of poverty and social inequality and encourage policy makers to focus on both vulnerability and resilience in designing interventions to ensure food security.

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Introduction Urban kinship: the micro-politics of proximity and relatedness in African cities

Cited by 13 publications

References 28 publications

Disarming the xenophobic everyday: Muslim migrants and the horizons of urban mutuality in Durban

Disarming the xenophobic everyday: Muslim migrants and the horizons of urban mutuality in Durban

The conditional legitimacy of claims made by mothers and other kin in South Africa

Single mothers coping with food insecurity in a Nairobi slum

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