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Aesthetic Dissent: Urban Redevelopment and Political Belonging in Luanda, Angola
Author(s) -
Gastrow Claudia
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12276
Subject(s) - urbanism , dissent , politics , ambivalence , sociology , boom , gentrification , political economy , state (computer science) , redevelopment , capital (architecture) , political science , urban planning , gender studies , economic growth , architecture , law , history , civil engineering , archaeology , economics , engineering , psychology , social psychology , algorithm , environmental engineering , computer science
Over the previous decade, African cities experienced a wave of frenzied construction driven by imaginations of world‐city status. While these projects provoked new discussions about African urbanism, the literature on them has focused more on the paperwork of planning than actual urban experiences. This article addresses this lacuna by investigating residents' reactions to the post‐conflict building boom in Luanda, Angola. I show that Luandans' held highly ambivalent orientations towards the emerging city. Their views were shaped by suspicions about pacts between Angolan elites and international capital that recapitulated longstanding tensions over national belonging. These concerns were voiced via discussions of the very aesthetics of the new city. Buildings became catalysts for expressions of dissent that put into question the very project of state‐driven worlding. The paper therefore argues that the politics of aesthetics are central to grasping the contested understandings of urbanism currently emerging in various African cities.