Pieterse, E. & Simone, A. (eds.). (2013). Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities. Johannesburg, South Africa: Jacana Media and African Centre for Cities.
Rogue Urbanism is the outcome of a research exploration by the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town. It arises from the need to push forward a debate on how we can think and theorise the specificity of African cities. Its unique ambition is to produce new and relevant theoretical work on African urbanism in a way that works within the border zone between inherited theoretical resources, emergent postcolonial readings and artistic representations of everyday practices and phenomenology in African cities.
The result is a series of exchanges between scholars and artists, which showcase an ensemble of diverse perspectives through which an account of African cityness can be advanced. The art featured in Rogue Urbanism affords the reader glimpses into both the quiet moments, as well as the bustle that reveal the inner life of a community and citizens, shaping the relationships between identity and urbanity.
Through a series of textual and photographic essays by Akin Adesokin, Akintunde Akinleye, Jenny Mbaye, Matthew Barac, Namdi Elleh, Filip de Boeck, Dominique Malaquais, Mário Micalau, Elvira Dyangani Ose, AbdouMaliq Simone, Mark Swilling, Joseph Tonda, amongst many others, Rogue Urbanism seeks multiple alternatives in approaching and understanding the African city without suggesting that a comprehensive grasp is possible.
Beautifully designed and packaged, Rogue Urbanism enlarges and deepens the search for the rogue intensities that mark African cities as they find their voice and footing in a truly unwieldy world
The project was co-ordinated and co-edited by Tau Tavengwa who also worked as designer of the book
