African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora)

440 Pages·2005·2.98 MB·English

by  Toyin Falola (Editor) Steven J. Salm (Editor)

heterogeneity of African cities, but also created Salm AFRICAN African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective
new residential and occupational patterns. (cid:2) presents new and interdisciplinary approaches
The last section focuses on the problems of Falola to the study of African urban history and
urban society and depicts the historical roots culture. It presents original research and
of poverty, crime, overcrowding, and general integrates historical methodologies with those
URBAN SPACES
urban decay in Nigeria, Cameroon, of anthropology, geography, literature, art,
Zimbabwe, and Somalia today. They also and architecture. Moving between precolonial,
show how an understanding of their origins colonial, and contemporary urban spaces, it
can suggest ways in which urban problems covers the major regions, religions, and
In Historical Perspective
can be alleviated. The opportunities provided cultural influences of sub-Saharan Africa. The
by the urban milieu are endless and each themes include Islam and Christianity,
study opens new potential avenues of A (cid:2) architecture, migration, globalization, social
research. This book explores some of those “African Urban Spaces entertains a thematic spread of studies, problematizing and physical decay, identity, race relations,
F
avenues and lays the groundwork on which the urban situation across Africa. It adopts an interdisciplinary focus to politics, and development. This book
new studies can build. analyze issues like rural/urban linkages, urban rehabilitation and planning, I R elaborates on not only what makes the study
n
cultural urban spaces and the informal or popular sector in African cities. I of African urban spaces unique within urban
Toyin Falola is the Nalle Centennial Professor Urban studies in Africa has arrived at a maturity with this study.” H C historiography, it also offers an encompassing
of History at the University of Texas at Austin. —C. Magbaily Fyle, Professor of African History, i A and up-to-date study of the subject and inserts
Steven J. Salm is Assistant Professor of History, Ohio State University s Africa into the growing debate on urban
Xavier University of Louisiana. t N history and culture throughout the world.
o
The book is divided into four sections.
r
Contributors: Maurice N. Amutabi, Catherine “Here, finally, is the other’s African urban history. While Nairobi and i U Following an overview on the state of urban
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Mark Dike Delancey, Cape Town and Lagos are well represented, this volume gives us ca history in Africa today, the first section of the
Thomas Ngomba Ekali, Omar A. Eno, contextualized studies of Libreville, Touba, Mogadishu, and Isiolo Town— l R book deals with the concept of built space
Douglas T. Feremenga, Laurent Fourchard, to name a few. Such a decentering of Africa’s urban centers is long overdue, P B and how religious factors, colonial ideologies,
James E. Genova, Fatima Müller-Friedman, and is accomplished by fifteen chapters firmly grounded in archives and e and conceptions of urban areas as more
A
Godwin R. Murunga, Kefa M. Otiso, Michael comparative history.” r “modern” spaces shaped the development of
Ralph, Jeremy Rich, Eric S. Ross, Corinne —Luise White, Professor of History, University of Florida s N urban environments. The second section turns
p
Sandwith, and Wessel P. Visser. to racial and ethnic factors in the formation
e
of African urban spaces in Kenya and South
c S
t Africa. Colonial discourse in Kenya employed
P
i
racial stereotypes of Africans and Indians to
v A
e justify segregation, pass laws, and
C exploitation, and left a legacy that impedes
E the development of urban areas today. In
S South Africa, racial categories were
complicated by class, occupation, and age,
factors that set Afrikaner miners apart from
other Afrikaners, and a younger generation
of radical colored elite apart from their parents.
ISBN 1-58046-163-8 The third section explores the development
of complex and cosmopolitan urban identities
University of Rochester Press within African cities and the global nature of
668 Mt. Hope Avenue colonial rule that encouraged new movements
Rochester, NY 14620, USA
of goods, peoples, and ideas. Foreign
Jacket Design: Lisa Mauro P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge Edited by influences, including Christians, Muslims,
Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola Europeans, and Vietnamese, as well as other
www.urpress.com 9 781580 461634
Africans, contributed to the increasing
(continued on back flap)
AFRICAN URBAN SPACES IN
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Toyin Falola, Senior Editor
The Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History
University of Texas at Austin
(ISSN: 1092-5228)
Power Relations in Nigeria: Ilorin Voices of the Poor in Africa
Slaves and their Successors Elizabeth Isichei
Ann O’Hear Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial
Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria Africa: Southern Gabon ca. 1850–1940
Edited by Paul Beckett and Christopher J. Gray
Crawford Young The Politics of Frenchness in Colonial
Science and Power in Colonial Mauritius Algeria, 1930–1954
William Kelleher Storey Jonathan K. Gosnell
Namibia’s Post-Apartheid Regional Sources and Methods in African History:
Institutions: The Founding Year Spoken, Written, Unearthed
Joshua B. Forrest Edited by Toyin Falola and
A Saro Community in the Niger Delta, Christian Jennings
1912–1984: The Potts-Johnsons of Sudan’s Blood Memory: The Legacy of War,
Port Harcourt and Their Heirs Ethnicity, and Slavery in Early South Sudan
Mac Dixon-Fyle Stephanie Beswick
Contested Power in Angola, Writing Ghana, Imagining Africa:
1840s to the Present Nation and African Modernity
Linda Heywood Kwaku Larbi Korang
Nigerian Chiefs: Traditional Power in Labour, Land, and Capital in Asante
Modern Politics, 1890s–1990s From Slavery to Free Labour in Rural
Olufemi Vaughan Ghana 1807–1956
West Indians in West Africa, 1808–1880: Gareth Austin
The African Diaspora in Reverse Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-
Nemata Blyden German Culture and History, 1890–2000
The United States and Decolonization Edited by Patricia Mazón and
in West Africa, 1950–1960 Reinhild Steingröver
Ebere Nwaubani Writing African History
Health, State, and Society in Kenya Edited by John Edward Philips
George Oduor Ndege African Urban Spaces in
Black Business and Economic Power Historical Perspective
Edited by Alusine Jalloh and Toyin Falola Edited by Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola
AFRICAN URBAN SPACES IN
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Edited by
Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS
Copyright © 2005 Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola
All Rights Reserved.Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this
work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in
public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by
any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2005
University of Rochester Press
668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and of Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN: 1–58046–163–8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
African urban spaces in historical perspective / edited by Steven J. Salm
and Toyin Falola.
p. cm. – (Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora,
ISSN 1092-5228; v. 21)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58046-163-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Urbanization–Africa–History. 2. Cities and towns–Africa–History.
I. Salm, Steven J., 1966- II. Falola, Toyin. III. Series.
HT384.A35A35 2005
307.76(cid:1)096–dc22
2005000541
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
For David Henige,
editor of History in Africa,
for his contribution to African Studies

CONTENTS
Preface xi
Introduction:
African Urban Spaces: History and Culture xv
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch
Part I. Constructing Built Space
1 Moving East, Facing West: Islam as an Intercultural
Mediator in Urban Planning in the Sokoto Empire 3
Mark Dike DeLancey
2 Oppressive Impressions, Architectural Expressions:
The Poetics of French Colonial (Ad)vantage,
Regarding Africa 22
michael ralph
3 “Just Build It Modern”: Post-Apartheid Spaces
on Namibia’s Urban Frontier 48
Fatima Müller-Friedman
Part II. Racialized and Divided Space
4 Colonial Urbanization and Urban Management in Kenya 73
Kefa M. Otiso
5 “Inherently Unhygienic Races”: Plague and the Origins
of Settler Dominance in Nairobi, 1899–1907 98
Godwin R. Murunga
vii
viii Contents
6 Urbanization and Afrikaner Class Formation:
The Mine Workers’ Union and the Search
for a Cultural Identity 131
Wessel P. Visser
7 The Importance of Being Educated: Strategies of an
Urban Petit-Bourgeois Elite, South Africa, 1935–50 164
Corinne Sandwith
Part III. Shifting Space and Transforming Identities
8 Where Every Language Is Heard: Atlantic Commerce,
West African and Asian Migrants, and Town Society
in Libreville, ca. 1860–1914 191
Jeremy Rich
9 Captured and Steeped in Colonial Dynamics and Legacy:
The Case of Isiolo Town in Kenya 213
Maurice N. Amutabi
10 From Marabout Republics to Autonomous Rural
Communities: Autonomous Muslim Towns in Senegal 243
Eric S. Ross
11 Africanité and Urbanité: The Place of the Urban
in Imaginings of African Identity during the Late
Colonial Period in French West Africa 266
James E. Genova
Part IV. Colonial Legacies and Devitalized Space
12 Urban Poverty, Urban Crime, and Crime Control:
The Lagos and Ibadan Cases, 1929–45 291
Laurent Fourchard
13 The Fluctuating Fortunes of Anglophone Cameroon
Towns: The Case of Victoria, 1858–1982 320
Thomas Ngomba Ekali
Contents ix
14 Urban Planning and Development in Zimbabwe:
A Historical Perspective 340
Douglas T. Feremenga
15 Somalia’s City of the Jackals: Politics, Economy,
and Society in Mogadishu 1991–2003 365
Omar A. Eno
Notes on the Contributors 381
Index 385