In Durban, South Africa, “shackdwellers are taking their municipality to court. The government evicted poor residents from their homes … [in order to allow the construction of a road] … and threw them into transit camps, where they live ‘like a fish in a tin’, waiting for more permanent housing that never comes. [One of the conditions of the eviction order was that the occupiers would be provided with permanent housing within a year. The deadline for doing so expired almost two years ago and nothing has been done to comply with the order.] It’s not easy to make the state behave in ways that aren’t like a state. But this is shackdweller statecraft” (from Dear Mandela and Raj Patel).

Further Reading

Kwame Nkrumah today

New documents looking at British and American involvement in overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah give us pause to reflect on his legacy, and its resonances today.

Goodbye, Piassa

The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.