Conflict and connection in African urban communities

Abstract

This thesis examines emerging forms of sociality, conflict, and political participation across three cities in sub-Saharan Africa: Accra, Johannesburg, and Nairobi. The continent’s unprecedented experience of rapid urbanisation has invigorated debates about the nature and role of mobility in shaping Africa’s future. Almost all demographic projections indicate that city populations will continue to grow as people migrate between villages, towns, and cities, resulting in the emergence of a variety of economic, social, and political arrangements. Indeed, as new urban residents integrate or segregate within these communities, they develop a variety of social membership mechanisms, forming local associations such as savings and burial societies, thereby establishing trust (and sometimes distrust) among neighbours and co-ethnics, resulting in a variety of social, political, and economic outcomes. While some urbanites may achieve a measure of economic or social integration, others face violent marginalisation within the 'host' society. Scholarship is only beginning to understand the significance of these forms and outcomes. This thesis contributes empirically to this effort. It is concerned with the evolving forms of sociality in these urban communities, and in order to begin unravelling these concerns, I address the following questions in the dissertation’s empirical chapters: (1) What role does mobility play in shaping Africa's urban future? (2) Is there a link between community membership, trust, and political participation in each of the three cities? (4) Is there an association between the spatial distribution of xenophobic violence incidents in South Africa and socioeconomic indicators in its cities? (3) What methods are appropriate for analysing xenophobic violence in cities, and how is it spatially organised? The body of work is essentially an examination of two sides of the same coin. The first two empirical chapters (chapters 3 & 4) look at the convivial types of local engagement while the second section (chapters 5 & 6) addresses the contentious modes of engagement. Numerous implications arise as a result of the continent’s increasing urbanisation, and I am interested by both moments of cooperation and those of contention. This thesis is structured as follows: a broad introduction situates the work within the intellectual tradition of urban and migration studies and provides an overview of migration-fuelled urban expansion in the region from the colonial era to the present. Four chapters address critical empirical gaps in our knowledge of the social nature and dynamics of urban communities in sub-Saharan Africa. I suggest that migration continues to be a critical aspect in the so-called triad of rapid urban expansion, which includes rural-to-urban migration, urban natural population growth, and rural reclassification as urban. The empirical chapters employ two distinct datasets to conduct its analyses. The first two empirical chapters are based on quantitative survey data collected as part of a multi country study of urban mobility and translocality in Africa. Three cities in sub-Saharan Africa served as the primary research locations for the February–April 2021 fieldwork: Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Accra. Each chapter in the dissertation is interconnected but self-contained. The dissertation's overall goals are to gain an understanding of how people interact in novel and creative ways in cities, to examine the emergence of new hybrid cultures and modes of social interaction, and to reflect on the implications for future political engagement and modes of social interaction in sub-Saharan cities. This work takes a Lefebvrian approach to understanding how social interactions generate and shape space (Molotch, 1993). This approach views these interactions within and across space as mutually constitutive rather than strictly geographical. Finally, this thesis argues that African cities display multiple forms of sociality, which necessitates reconsidering spatially bound units of analysis and an appreciation for social interactions that are both translocal and highly localised. Urban communities continue to be nodes in interaction networks that defy conventional rural-urban geographical categorisation. Additionally, interactional modes are instrumental and transitory, rather than constitutive of an emerging, unified political community. The primary reason for conducting this research therefore was to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of social organisation in Africa's urban neighbourhoods and to examine any broad trends and patterns that may indicate how these spaces will evolve in the future. Despite widespread interest in the dynamics of urbanisation on the continent, particularly from an economic perspective, much remains unknown about the sociospatial and political dynamics emerging and evolving as a consequence of the macro changes wrought by human mobility.