| Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis Contributor(s): Nuttall, Sarah (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0822342847 ISBN-13: 9780822342847 Publisher: Duke University Press OUR PRICE: $29.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2008 Annotation: "Taken together, the essays in "Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis" offer radically new ways of thinking about this complex city, as well as many hints about emerging or re-emerging cities elsewhere. The essays challenge dominant models of urbanism and demonstrate with force and subtlety how African cities in general and Johannesburg in particular outpace urban theory. Each essay 'de-scribes' the city now in order to envision the city to come. In this volume, we hear--over the droning cliches that still circulate about the African city's ruin and decadence--another note, another cadence."--Ackbar Abbas, author of "Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance" |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Sociology - Urban - History | Africa - South - Republic Of South Africa - Political Science | Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Development |
| Dewey: 306.096 |
| LCCN: 2008019636 |
| Series: Public Culture |
| Physical Information: 1.02" H x 6.24" W x 8.98" (1.48 lbs) 392 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Southern Africa |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis is a pioneering effort to insert South Africa's largest city into urban theory, on its own terms. Johannesburg is Africa's premier metropolis. Yet theories of urbanization have cast it as an emblem of irresolvable crisis, the spatial embodiment of unequal economic relations and segregationist policies, and a city that responds to but does not contribute to modernity on the global scale. Complicating and contesting such characterizations, the contributors to this collection reassess classic theories of metropolitan modernity as they explore the experience of "city-ness" and urban life in post-apartheid South Africa. They portray Johannesburg as a polycentric and international city with a hybrid history that continually permeates the present. Turning its back on rigid rationalities of planning and racial separation, Johannesburg has become a place of intermingling and improvisation, a city that is fast developing its own brand of cosmopolitan culture. The volume's essays include an investigation of representation and self-stylization in the city, an ethnographic examination of friction zones and practices of social reproduction in inner-city Johannesburg, and a discussion of the economic and literary relationship between Johannesburg and Maputo, Mozambique's capital. One contributor considers how Johannesburg's cosmopolitan sociability enabled the anticolonial projects of Mohandas Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. Journalists, artists, architects, writers, and scholars bring contemporary Johannesburg to life in ten short pieces, including reflections on music and megamalls, nightlife, built spaces, and life for foreigners in the city. Contributors: Arjun Appadurai, Carol A. Breckenridge, Lindsay Bremner, David Bunn, Fred de Vries, Nsizwa Dlamini, Mark Gevisser, Stefan Helgesson, Julia Hornberger, Jonathan Hyslop, Grace Khunou, Fr d ric Le Marcis, Xavier Livermon, John Matshikiza, Achille Mbembe, Robert Muponde, Sarah Nuttall, Tom Odhiambo, Achal Prabhala, AbdouMaliq Simone |