Reflections on Identity in Four African Cities edited by Simon Bekker & Anne Leilde.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Leildé, Anne.

Bekker, S. B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nationalism--South Africa.

Nationalism.

Nationalism--Africa.

Group identity--South Africa.

Group identity.

Group identity--Africa.

South Africa--Civilization.

South Africa.

Africa--Social life and customs.

Africa.

Africa--Civilization.

South Africa--Social life and customs.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 pages)

Place of Publication:

[Stellenbosch] : African Minds, 2006

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Identity has become the watchword of our times. In sub-Saharan Africa, this certainly appears to be true and for particular reasons. Africa is urbanising rapidly, cross-border migration streams are swelling and globalising influences sweep across the continent. Africa is also facing up to the challenge of nurturing emergent democracies in which citizens often feel torn between older traditional and newer national loyalties. Accordingly, collective identities are deeply coloured by recent urban as well as international experience and are squarely located within identity politics where reconciliation is required between state nation-building strategies and sub-national affiliations. They are also fundamentally shaped by the growing inequality and the poverty found on this continent. These themes are explored by an international set of scholars in two South African and two Francophone cities. The relative importance to urban residents of race, class and ethnicity but also of work, space and language are compared in these cities. This volume also includes a chapter investigating the emergence of a continental African identity. A recent report of the Office of the South African President claims that a strong national identity is emerging among its citizens, and that race and ethnicity are waning whilst a class identity is in the ascendance. The evidence and analyses within this volume serve to gauge the extent to which such claims ring true, in what everyone knows is a much more complex and shifting terrain of shared meanings than can ever be captured by such generalisations.

Notes:

"This book arose out of an international three-year collaborative programme launched in 2001 and funded by South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF) and France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)"--Pref. and acknowledgements.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-241) and index.

CC BY

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9786613113924

9781283113922

1283113929

9781920355869

1920355863

9781920355876

1920355871

OCLC:

768119679