Description
Book SynopsisWith
In the Skin of the City, António Tomás traces the history and transformation of Luanda, Angola, the nation’s capital as well as one of the oldest settlements founded by the European colonial powers in the Southern Hemisphere. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research alongside his own experiences growing up in Luanda, Tomás shows how the city’s physical and social boundaries—its skin—constitute porous and shifting interfaces between center and margins, settler and Native, enslaver and enslaved, formal and informal, and the powerful and the powerless. He focuses on Luanda’s “asphalt frontier”—the (colonial) line between the planned urban center and the ad hoc shantytowns that surround it—and the ways squatters are central to Luanda’s historical urban process. In their relationship with the state and their struggle to gain rights to the city, squatters embody the process of negotiating Luanda
Trade Review"Tomás's analysis is a generous mélange of ethnographic and historical study of Luanda's changing urban condition over time, offering palimpsests of a changing city. . . . [
The Skin of the City] is at its best when it focuses on the interconnections between various urban processes, inscribed locally, as well as the borders that enable such urban remaking." -- Shakirah E. Hudani * Journal of Planning History *
"A very readable introduction to the city—and one that both draws the reader into an engaged understanding as well as providing plentiful material for further study. . . . [T]he book is highly recommended for emerging generations of urban scholars interested in not only the south and especially Sub-Saharan Africa, but also wider urban space and form, and ongoing dynamic urban transformations worldwide." -- Paul Jenkins * Journal of Southern African Studies *
"Tomás’s book is an engaging and exhaustive study of the history, politics, economy, and culture of a constantly changing and unpredictable African capital city. In this sense, it will undoubtedly become a reference for researchers interested in urban studies, history, anthropology, and similar disciplines." -- Melusi Nkomo * Exertions *
"
In the Skin of the City is a finely crafted book about the political economy of one of the biggest cities in the Global South, which speaks to urban, social, and political theory. It builds on thorough research, engages its audience with a compelling narrative, and is a must-read for anyone who has an interest in Luanda, Angola, and urban Africa more generally." -- Till Förster * American Ethnologist *
Table of ContentsMaps and Figures ix
Abbreviations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: The Frontier Within 1
Part I. Formation
1. Un-building History to Build the Present 29
2. Ordering Urban Expansion 59
Part II. Stasis
3. A Place to Dwell in Times of Change 91
4. A City Decentered 119
Part III. Fragmentation
5. Reversing (Urban) Composition 147
6. The Urban Yet to Come 176
Coda: Is Luanda Not Paris 204
Glossary 215
Notes 219
Bibliography 241
Index 261
