Cement citizens: housing, demolition and political belonging in Luanda, Angola

Abstract

Slum demolition in the name of urban renewal is a common practice in contemporary African cities. Many organisations have tracked the rights violations that demolitions entail. What has been overlooked, however, is the political significance of slums, which this paper argues produce their own imaginations of ‘good urbanism’ becoming critical sites for the imagining of urban political belonging. Exploring the case of urban redevelopment and slum demolition in Luanda, Angola, this paper argues that in this megacity, quotidian notions of citizenship are mediated through the material and aesthetic worlds of slum housing construction, more specifically the cement-block house. It draws on theories that understand citizenship and belonging not simply as juridical categories but more substantively produced through shared imaginations and symbolic worlds. This paper shows that urban politics needs to be understood as mediated through deeply material struggles over emplacement and incorporation that hinge on competing normative visions of the urban.

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