AbdouMaliq Simone

Edgar Pieterse

Critics of these dominant discourses, such as Jennifer Robinson, AbdouMaliq Simone, Dominique Malaquais, Achille Mbembe, Asef Bayat, Ibrahim Abdullah, Okwui Enwezor, Onookome Okome, Jean Tshonda, Philip de Boeck, Sarah Nuttall, amongst many others, point to multiple alternatives in approaching and understanding the African city. The unique ambition of Rogue Urbanism is to produce new and relevant theoretical work on African urbanism in a way that works within the border zone between inherited theoretical resources and artistic representations of everyday practices and phenomenology in African cities. The assumption is that urban theorists can renew and expand their search for grounded approaches to theorise African urbanism through an engagement with the epistemologies of artists, cultural practitioners and designers; and theorists who work on the urban condition and spatiality can find new entry points to enrich their own creative processes. Where reflections fail to work directly with the insights of artists, scholars can at least work through their understanding of the ordinary in the everyday, however this may manifest or inspire.

Emergent African Cities

Rogue Urbanism

Susan Parnell

The facts of Africa's rapid urbanisation are startling. By 2030 African cities will have grown by more than 350 million people and the continent will have surpassed the 50% urban mark. Yet, in the minds of policy makers, scholars and much of the general public, Africa remains a quintessential rural place. This lack of awareness and robust analysis means it is difficult to make a policy case for a more overtly 'urban agenda'. As a result, there is, across the continent, insufficient urgency directed to responding to the challenges and opportunities associated with the world's last major wave of urbanisation. Drawing on the expertise of scholars and practitioners associated with the African Centre for Cities, and utilising a diverse array of case studies, the book provides comprehensive insight into the key issues - demographic, cultural, political, technical, environmental and economic - surrounding African urbanization.

Policy Pressures

Africa's Urban Revolution

It is well known that the world is transitioning to an irrevocable urban future whose epicentre has moved into the cities of Asia and Africa. What is less clear is how this will be managed and deployed as a multi-polar world system is being born. The full implications of this challenge cry out to be understood because city building (and retrofitting) cannot but be an undertaking entangled in profound societal and cultural shifts. In this highly original account, renowned urban sociologists AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse offer a call for action based fundamentally on the detail of people's lives. Urban regions are replete with residents who are compelled to come up with innovative ways to maintain or extend livelihoods, whose makeshift character is rarely institutionalized into a fixed set of practices, locales or organizational forms. This novel analytical approach reveals a more complex relationship between people, the state and other agents than has previously been understood. As the authors argue, we need adequate concepts and practices to grasp the composition and intricacy of these shifting efforts to make visible new political possibilities for action and social justice in cities across Asia and Africa.

Edgar Pieterse

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