Instructors: Dr. Irene Brunotti; Ph.D. Lara-Stephanie Krause
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: 03-African Studies
Displayed in timetable as:
Subject:
Crediting for:
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
English
Official course description:
This seminar provides a general introduction to the study of urban Africa in its historical, spatial and social dimensions, emphasizing their global interconnectedness. In contemporary scholarly debates urbanization is seen as a dynamic motor of social, political and economic transformation. From this perspective research on African cities contributes conceptually and theoretically to the urban. The module covers a broad survey of contemporary themes in urban Africa (history, infrastructure & planning, economies & livelihoods, politics and identities, diversity and cosmopolitanism, etc.), approaches (‘doing the city’, spatialization , postcolonial and southern theory, political theory) and methodologies (ethnography, praxeology). A major focus will be on the emergent and diverse expressions of “being urban” “doing the city” as a form of socio-spatial navigation (walking, driving, hearing, speaking, consuming, producing), through which urbanites appropriate and understand the city while also making it ‘coherent’.
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