The African Urbanism Colloquium set out to inspire a dialogue between artists and academics on how to think and theorize the specificity of African cities. At the root of the litany of, and frustrations with, ongoing urban poverty and local under-performance lies a set of assumptions about African cityness that asks to be challenged. ‘Unless we can imagine and develop a more credible account of everyday urbanism, the desire for urban improvement will remain a frustrated yearning’ (Edgar Pieterse – founder of the initiative).
In an interdisciplinary dialogue, the initiative aims to open up new lines of thought and imagination able to offer more complex and persuasive accounts of contemporary African cityness. Capturing the complexities of everyday urbanism, including its affective dimensions, requires an engagement with the city through various media, from text to sound, to pictures and choreographies.
Resource collections
- Evaluating humanitarian action
- UN Habitat - Urban Response Collection
- Urban Response - Urban Crisis Preparedness and Risk Reduction
- Urban Response Collection - Community Engagement and Social Cohesion
- Urban Response Collection - Economic Recovery
- Urban Response Collection - Environment and Climate Change
- Urban Response Collection - Housing, Land and Property
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Crisis Response, Recovery and Reconstruction
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Resilience