As colonizers thought to accommodate African populations, contain and control labor forces, they disrupted, reshaped and colonized the most intimate living space: the home. Housing was often more a promise than a reality. Nonetheless, it left many different traces: from colonial times to the present, from bureaucratic correspondence to personal memories.

Moving beyond the purely physical space of home, the first meeting of this working group will be dedicated to the sources available to retrace the complexities of housing politics in (post)colonial Africa from historical, linguistic and anthropological perspectives.

Speakers: Martina Barker-Ciganikova, Kirsten Rüther, Daniela Waldburger & Carl-Philip Bodenstein (Department of African Studies, University of Vienna), editors of The Politics of Housing in (Post)Colonial Africa. Accommodating Workers and Urban Residents (De Gruyter, 2020 – open access).

The discussion will be informal (Q&A). Students/Ph.D. researchers are more than welcome!

Working group convener: Anaïs Angelo (Department of African Studies, University of Vienna).