Sind Städte in Afrika "unkennbar"? Ethnologische Stadtforschung in Afrika/Are cities in Africa 'unknowable'? Urban anthropology in Africa

This article reviews anthropological contributions to the study of urban Africa since the 1930s. The pioneers of urban anthropology in Africa were South African researchers like Monica (Hunter) Wilson and Ellen Hellmann who looked at informal economies, changing social relations and emerging middle class aspirations among labour migrants well before the researchers at the Rhodes Livingstone Institute. Other important early contributions include Balandier's and Miner's studies about Brazzaville and Timbuktu. These and other anthropological approaches to cities in Africa anticipated perspectives and topics that only later became part of the anthropological mainstream: the attention to individual experiences, the focus on new forms of social organization rather than on "culture", the appropriation of modernity through material culture and alternative life-styles, and the application of unconventional methods. Today, anthropological research in urban Africa covers a broad range of issues. However, these anthropological contributions have been overlooked both in and outside the discipline, partly because not every ethnography in urban Africa defines itself as "urban anthropology". The article criticizes recent characterizations of cities in Africa as "elusive" or "unknowable" and argues that African cities are in fact known by their inhabitants. Empirical research should focus on what and how they know.