Urban Life-Worlds in Motion: African Perspectives ed. by Hans Peter Hahn, Kristin Kastner (review)

Life in African cities is constantly in motion. People, things, ideas, values, and wealth circulate within cities as well as between them. Urban Life-Worlds in Motion: African Perspectives, edited by Hans Peter Hahn and Kristin Kastner, brings together detailed case studies of urban movement in West Africa. The chapters in this volume cover topics ranging from international internet scams in Cameroon, the gendered dynamics of rural/urban migration in Dakar, and the challenges faced by Burkinabe who return to Ouagadougou after living in Côte d’Ivoire.

Urban Life-Worlds in Motion’s most significant contribution is to offer multiple perspectives on the complex intersection of space, mobility, and value. In his introduction, Hahn conceptualizes mobility in a way that highlights the importance of the images and practices associated with particular places in creating spatial hierarchies of value. The value that people give to a place is shaped by culture and political economy, and this valuation influences the movements of people and their engagement with other places. For example, Primus Tazanu’s chapter examines the perceptions of non-migrant youth in urban Cameroon concerning bushfallers—young people, primarily men, who leave the country and engage in conspicuous consumption when they return. Non-migrants consider bushfallers to be immoral because they believe that although bushfallers follow a lifestyle associated with wealthier countries, they have not properly earned their wealth. In other words, bushfallers are stigmatized by non-migrants because of a mismatch between their consumer practices and place of origin. Tension is created when practices do not map onto imagined geographies of value. Similarly, in Tilman Musch’s chapter on Tuareg traders, movement between Niger and Nigeria is motivated not only by opportunities for earning an income, but by perceived qualities of place. Musch explains that for these traders, Nigeria signifies a more modern and urban way of life.

The connections between people and technologies of movement is an important theme running through many of the chapters. Bettina Frei examines how the internet brings together people from different places and their associated regimes of value. Contrasting values are exemplified in Frei’s discussion of “puppy-fraud,” in which Cameroonian scammers sell non-existent dogs to European customers. Although the ability to spend large amounts of money to purchase a dog is quite far from the reality of most young Cameroonians, the internet allows them to engage with others and profit from their desires for purebred puppies. Dogs and technology are also relevant for Gabriel Klaeger’s study of roadside vendors in Accra, some of whom sell dog chains to wealthy car owners. These hawkers learn to conform their bodily movements to the rhythms of traffic and the movements of vehicles.

Abdoulaye Kane discusses the importance of mobile phone technology in allowing information to sometimes move faster between continents than it does between neighboring villages. The internet, mobile phones, and automobiles are all technologies that facilitate the rapid movement of people and information in a way that supports the construction of imagined places and interactions between people with drastically different expectations about value and material exchange.

Although nearly all of the chapters are grounded in detailed ethnographic description, with the exception of Kane’s chapter concerning transnational linkages in the Senegal River Valley, there is little discussion of individual people and their stories. Kane offers detailed case studies of individuals to attract the reader’s interest, with compelling insights into the complexities of transnational communication and movements of people and wealth.

The individual chapters in Urban Life-Worlds offer useful information to think about, but I would like to see more theorization in the introduction and conclusion. Hahn notes that the chapters avoid making assumptions about what African cities are, and this is certainly appropriate, but the volume’s impact would be greater if the editors drew on the case studies to say more about the nature of African cities. Furthermore, all of...