The unbearable lightness of African cities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3668775 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Till Förster (0000-0003-0645-6095, University of Basel, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 405-424 |
| Publication date | 2018-09-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Dynamics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02533952.2018.1501546 |
| OpenAlex | W2897437968 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 42 |
As elsewhere, cities in Africa exist as ensembles of houses, streets, social events, and practices and at the same time as objects in the minds of their inhabitants and visitors. Cities always have an imagined double as nobody can experience a city in all its parts and cultural dimensions. Urbanity as a way of living is intimately connected with partial, often contradictory, “uncanny” experiences of the city – but as imagined objects and communities, cities are most often seen as entities. Imagining the city thus means to accommodate idiosyncratic as well as collective views in one image, creatively mediating between one and many. As a practice, imagining calls for an analysis of how urbanites in Africa situate themselves in their cities as social spaces and how they build on their shared everyday experience. This contribution thus conceives urbanity as social practice that binds town dwellers to their cities as social spaces. Urban imagination transforms everyday experience into a sedimented image of the city as an object that town dwellers can relate to in meaningful ways
Geography · Lightness · Child Nutrition and Water Access · Computer Science · Psychology · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Artificial Intelligence
The Politics of Aesthetics
African Cities
Ordinary Cities
In the Nature of Cities
City Futures
The Urbanism of Exception
The study of urban metabolism and its applications to urban planning and design
The Urban Transformation of the Developing World
Planet of Slums
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Small Cities
The African City
City Life from Jakarta to Dakar
The Changing Metabolism of Cities
Rethinking urban metabolism
The changing urban-rural interface of African cities
Development and Urban Policy
Africa’s new cities
In Search of the City in Spatial Strategies
Imagining
The (un)bearable lightness of being
Environment and Urbanization
Imagined communities
The Sociology of Georg Simmel
For the City Yet to Come
African urban fantasies
Contribution à une anthropologie des villes secondaires
The Anthropology of Cities
Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
"Witchcraft as an Issue in the "Politics of Belonging
Introduction
Uncertainty and Urban Life
Baudelaire over Berea, Simmel over Sandton
People as Infrastructure
Performativity, Parody, Politics
Urbanism as a Way of Life
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |