Overview

How do people live together in cities shaped by inequality? This comparative ethnography of two African cities, Maputo and Johannesburg, presents a new narrative about social life in cities often described as sharply divided. Based on the ethnography of entangled lives unfolding in a township and in a suburb in Johannesburg, in a bairro and in an elite neighborhood in Maputo, the book includes case studies of relations between domestic workers and their employers, failed attempts by urban elites to close off their neighborhoods, and entanglements emerging in religious spaces and in shopping malls. Systematizing comparison as an experience-based method, the book makes an important contribution to urban anthropology, comparative urbanism and urban studies.

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9783837647976

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This very well-written book [...] addresses a number of critical questions to both urban studies and anthropology in doing so. This capacity and willingness to engage conventions within the two disciplines makes the book important, highly readable, and valuable to scholars well beyond those interested in the cities of Maputo and Johannesburg. Bjorn Enge Bertelsen, Anthropos, 115 (2020)

»The book is an invaluable contribution to urban anthropology and to urban studies in general, and will prove useful more widely across the humanities and social sciences.« Ellison Tjirera, Anthropology Southern Africa, 06.05.2022 »Das Buch ist [...] für all jene Stadtforscher_innen geeignet, die an African urbanism interessiert sind oder nach neuen theoretischen Konzepten als Werkzeuge kritischer Stadtforschung suchen.« Nicole Baron, sub \ urban, 9/1-2 (2021) »This very well-written book [...] addresses a number of critical questions to both urban studies and anthropology in doing so. This capacity and willingness to engage conventions within the two disciplines makes the book important, highly readable, and valuable to scholars well beyond those interested in the cities of Maputo and Johannesburg.« Bjorn Enge Bertelsen, Anthropos, 115 (2020) Besprochen in: ORLIS, 1 (2020) www.kommunalweb.de, 1 (2020)

This very well-written book [...] addresses a number of critical questions to both urban studies and anthropology in doing so. This capacity and willingness to engage conventions within the two disciplines makes the book important, highly readable, and valuable to scholars well beyond those interested in the cities of Maputo and Johannesburg. -- Bjorn Enge Bertelsen, Anthropos, 115 (2020)

Author Information

Barbara Heer, born in 1982, is an anthropologist living in Basel. She holds a PhD from the University of Basel. Her work focuses on urban diversity in Southern Africa and Switzerland. She is engaged in practice and politics.

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