African Migrations: Patterns and Perspectives

5. Belonging amidst Shifting Sands: Insertion, Self-Exclusion, and the Remaking of African Urbanism

5 BELONGING AMIDST SHIFTING SANDS INSERTION, SELF-EXCLUSION, AND THE REMAKING OF AFRICAN URBANISM LOREN B. LANDAU I have been here for six years, but I don’t think any right thinking person would want to be South African. . . . They are just so contaminated. —SOTHO MIGRANT IN JOHANNESBURG, 2005 AFRICAN URBANIZATION AND THE MEANING OF BELONGING In the diversity of African cities, dynamic and overlapping systems of exchange , meaning, privilege, and belonging are the norm. These systems stem from longstanding patterns of political and economic domination— apartheid, indirect colonial domination, monopolistic party rule (Zlotnick 2006)—enacted across national territories, mixing together groups that might otherwise have chosen more autonomous trajectories. With differences and diversity heightened by recent mobility, Africa’s cities are increasingly characterized by greater disparities of wealth, language, and nationality along with shifting gender roles, life-trajectories, and intergenerational tensions. Through geographic movement—into, out of, and within cities—urban spaces that for many years had only tenuous connections with the people and economies of the rural hinterlands of their own countries are increasingly the loci of economic and normative ties with home villages and diasporic communities spread (and spreading) across the continent and beyond (Geschiere 2005; Malauene 2004; Diouf 2000). Despite our limited knowledge of African urban realities, planners and scholars continue to adopt analytical and policy tools drawn from European, North American, and (to some extent) Latin American experi- Loren B. Landau 94 ences to manage and describe these cities and their populations (Simone 2004). These are valuable reference points, but amidst these cities of constantly “shifting sands” (Bauman 2000), they often lead us to overlook African cities’ varied historical trajectories and systems of symbolic and material exchange (Winkler 2006; Diouf 2000; Sommers 2001; Tomlinson et al. 2003; Simone 2001; Landau 2006). Given how quickly new social formations are being fashioned and remade by geographic and social mobility and displacement, it is unclear what forms of inclusion, solidarity, or mutual recognition are desired by those involved (Taylor 1992; Pollock et al. 2000; Habermas 1998). It is similarly difficult to identify who has the authority to set the terms of engagement. In such environments, we see the regular demon of outward conflict, political mobilization, and violence (Horner 2007; Jackson 2006; Wa Kabwe Segatti and Landau 2007; Landau and Haithar 2007). Less visible are the various forms of inclusion, belonging, and identity being forged through the pragmatic strategies of those involved. Rethinking the nature of belonging means addressing what Kabeer (2005: 1) argues is an “empirical void” where “the views and perspectives of ‘ordinary’ citizens are largely absent. We do not know what citizenship means to people—particularly people whose status as citizens is either non-existent or extremely precarious—or what these meanings tell us about the goal of building inclusive societies.” Given the lack of systematic accounts from across the continent, this chapter uses evidence and anecdotes I have collected in southern Africa to open space for further empirical and conceptual investigations. It works from the starting point that to further our discussions of belonging within African cities, we must look outside policy frameworks and deductive theoretical frameworks to understood where and how inclusion is being negotiated, the actors involved, and the motivations for their participation. If successful, this excursion will encourage greater ecumenicalism in the conceptual categories and normative bases for further investigation and deliberation. However, benefiting from these inquiries necessitates a willingness to explore messy and often contradictory behaviors and beliefs among those being studied. Instead of theory testing, the novelty of these emerging social forms require a willingness to induce: to help build a vocabulary of belonging that maps the practices of those moving in and through Africa’s cities. To these ends, this paper sets out to achieve two modest, interrelated objectives. First, in highlighting the distinctiveness of African cities, it empirically challenges three premises typically informing discussions of urban inclusion: the presence of a dominant host community or political order; states’ primacy as both the source of exclusion and the most potent tool for fostering inclusion; and the mutual incompatibility of forms of 95 Belonging amidst Shifting Sands exclusion and inclusion. To counter, I begin from the ontological premise that despite their sometimes violent exclusion and fragmentation, African cities are also inclusive cities. They are, after all, where almost half the continent’s population now lives—and the percentage is growing. More fundamentally, what outwardly appears as exclusion and...