African Urban Spaces: History and Culture

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March 28-30 2003




Friday, March 28

1:00 p.m. - Welcome, Texas Union

2:00-3:30 p.m. - PANEL SESSION A

3:45-5:15 p.m. - PANEL SESSION B


Saturday, March 29

9:00-10:30 a.m. - PANEL SESSION C

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. - PANEL SESSION D

2:00-3:30 p.m. - PANEL SESSION E

3:45-5:45 p.m. - PANEL SESSION F


Sunday, March 30

9:00-10:30 a.m. - PANEL SESSION G

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. - PANEL SESSION H

Friday, March 28

1:00 p.m. – Welcome, Santa Rita Room, 3.502, Texas Union

2:00--3:30 p.m. – PANEL SESSION A

A1: REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDER IN URBANAFRICA

Venue: African American Culture Room, 4.110

Chair -- Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, Dept. of English, University of Houston

Juluette Bartlett Pack, Texas Southern University and the University of Phoenix -- From Western to African Feminism: The Plight of Poor Women in Modernity and Tradition in Tess Onwueme's Shakara: Dance-Hall Queen

Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, Dept. of English, University of Houston -- Urban Spaces and Lost Voices in Tess Onwueme’s Tell It to Women

Daintee Glover Jones, University of Houston -- Spaces and Boundaries in Zula Sofola's Song of a Maiden

Tina Nguyen, University of Houston -- In Search of Self: Creation and Re-Creation of Identity through Movement and Migration in African Drama

Ijeoma C. Nwajiaku, Dept. of English, University of Ibadan -- The Urban Heroine in Nigerian Female Fiction: An Equipoise


A2: CLAIMING SPACE: IDENTITY AND IMMIGRATION

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Jeremy Rich, Dept. of History and Political Science, Cabrini College

Arojo Ayodeji Julius, Ibadan, Nigeria -- Rural-Urban Drift: A Case Study of the Major Cities in Africa

Jaysveree M. Louw, Department of History and Philosophy of Education, University of the Free State -- Rural-Urban Migration in South Africa: Problems and Challenges

Chima J. Korieh, Central Michigan University -- Urban Food Supply and Vulnerability in Nigeria during the Second World War

Rasheed Olaniyi, Dept. of History, Bayero University -- Yoruba Commercial Diaspora and Settlement Patterns in Pre-Colonial Kano

Jeremy Rich, Dept. of History and Political Science, Cabrini College -- Where Every Language is Heard: Foreign West African and Asian Migrants in Colonial Libreville, 1860-1914

A3: FACING THE COURTS: LEGAL ISSUES IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

Venue: Chicano Culture Room, 4.206

Chair – Akin Alao, Center for African and African American Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Akin Alao, Center for African and African American Studies, University of Texas at Austin -- Law and Legal Control in Colonial Nigeria: The Magistrate Court and the Enforcement of Township Regulation in Warri Province

Yemisi Bamgbose, Private and Business Law, University of Ibadan, Cultural Reflections in the Penal System in Nigeria

David Taylor, Faculty of Law, University of South Africa -- Where There is a Way There is a Will: How Traditional African Homesteads Reflect the Legal Consequences of Succession

CM Van Der Bank, Advocate of the High Court, Principal Lecturer, Vaal Triangle Technikon, South Africa -- Law as an Instrument of Change in a Traditional Milieu in Human Rights and Development in South Africa


3:45--5:15 p.m. – PANEL SESSION B

B1: PRECOLONIAL URBAN LANDSCAPES IN WEST AFRICA

Venue: African American Cultural Room, 4.110

Chair -- W. Ogbomo, History/African American Studies, Eastern Illinois University

Jare Ajayi, African Agency for an Enhanced Socio-Ethics and Traditional Order (ASETO) -- Urbanising Without Tears: A Peep Into Some Pre-Colonial African Societies

W. Ogbomo, History/African American Studies, Eastern Illinois University -- Benin: The Evolution of a West African City

Akin Ogundiran, Dept. of History, Florida International University -- Frontier Towns and the Making of Urban Landscape in Yorubaland, 1600-1850

Aribidesi Usman, African American Studies, Arizona State University -- Urbanism at the Periphery: Oral-Ethnohistoric and Archaeological Understanding of Settlement Growth in Northern Yoruba

B2: YOUTH ASSOCIATIONS AND THE PRODUCTION OF URBAN MUSIC AND POLITICS

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Charles Ambler – University of Texas, El Paso

Susann Baller, Humboldt-University Berlin -- Creating the Postcolonial City: Urban Youth Clubs in Pikine (Senegal)

Ndiouga Benga, Dept. of History, University Cheikh Anta Diop -- Meanings and Challenges of Modern Urban Music, Dakar, Senegal (c. 1960 - c. 2000)

Ebenezer Obadare, Dept. of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science -- Manufacturing Civil Society: Militarism, Urban Youth and the Politics of Democratic Transition in Nigeria

AbdoulMaliq Simone, New School University -- A Terrain of Invisibility: New Modes of Social Collaboration in Urban Africa

João M. Monteiro, Dept. of Sociology, Salve Regina University -- From Coal Depot to Cesária’s Home: Mindelo at the Crossroads of the World

B3: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF LANGUAGE

Venue: Chicano Culture Room, 4.206

Chair – Fallou Ngom, Dept. of Modern & Classical Languages, Western Washington University

Anthony Attah Agbali (Rev. Fr.), Dept. of Anthropology, Wayne State University -- The Nigerian Construction of Social Identity: Nigerian Pidgin English, Urbanity and National Integration

Augustine Agwuele, Dept. of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin -- Decreolization, Metropolitanization: Continuum in Nigerian Pidgin English

Fallou Ngom, Dept. of Modern & Classical Languages, Western Washington University -- Linguistic and Sociocultural Hybridization in Senegalese Urban Spaces

5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. Reception

Venue: Quadrangle Room, 3.304

7:00 p.m. Keynote Lecture

Venue: Flawn Academic Center (building to the east of the Union), Room 21

A New Start for African Urban History: Space and Society

Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch

Professeure émérite, Université Paris-7 Denis Diderot

Chair: Joni L. Jones, Department of Theatre and Dance, Center for African and African and American Studies University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at Austin


Saturday, March 29

8:30 a.m. – Coffee, Santa Rita Room, 3.502, Texas Union

9:00--10:30 a.m. – PANEL SESSION C

C1: GHANAIAN COMMUNITIES: INTERACTIONS AND IDENTITIES WITH THE ATLANTIC WORLD

Venue: African American Cultural Room, 4.110

Chair -- Christopher R. DeCorse, Dept. of Anthropology, Syracuse University

Christopher R. DeCorse, Dept. of Anthropology, Syracuse University -- Under the Castle Cannon: Urbanism and Social Transformation on the Gold Coast, 1400-1900

Michel R. Doortmont, Dept. of History and International Relations, University of Groningen, The Netherlands -- Gold Coast Urban Elites and Coastal Town Life, 18th-20th Centuries: Economic, Social and Cultural Continuities and Discontinuities on the Edge of the Atlantic World

Julius N. Fobil, Environmental Engineer, University of Ghana, Legon, and Raymond A. Atuguba, Legal Resource Center, Accra -- Traditional African Cities: Parables and Myths in the Contemporary Globalized World

Larry W. Yarak, Department of History, Texas A&M University -- A West African Cosmopolis: Elmina (Ghana) in the Nineteenth Century

C2: LITERARY IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICAN URBAN SPACES

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Bernth Lindfors, Dept. of English, University of Texas at Austin

Ellease Ebele Oseye, African Literature, Pace University -- Urban Spaces: Life and Fiction Share Cultural Reflection

Andrea Hilkovitz, Program in Comparative Literature, University of Texas at Austin -- Urbanization and Its Discontents: Anxieties of the City in Nigerian Popular Literature

Dennis Lensing, Huston-Tillotson College -- “It All Became a Confusion”: The African City and the Failure of Heteroglossia in the Works of Buchi Emecheta

Bernth Lindfors, Dept. of English, University of Texas at Austin – Soyinka’s First Fieldtrip to Abidjan and Accra

Tera Maxwell, Dept. of English, University of Texas at Austin -- The Carnivalesque in Tutuola’s Palm-Wine Drinkard

C3: CLASS IDENTITIES IN URBAN SOUTH AFRICA

Venue: Texas Governors Room, 3.116

Chair -- Thomas McClendon, Dept. of History, Southwestern University

Corinne Sandwith, Programme of English Studies, University of Natal -- The Importance of Being Educated: Strategies of a Black Urban Intelligentsia, South Africa, 1935-1950

André Van den Berg, School for Entrepreneurship and Business Development -- The History of Labour Relations in South Africa (1893 – 1993): A Story of a Long and Intense Struggle

Wessel Visser, Dept. of History, University of Stellenbosch -- Afrikaner Working Class Organizations and the Search for a Cultural Identity: The Case of the Mine Workers’ Union


10:45 a.m. --12:15 p.m. – PANEL SESSION D

D1: RACIAL AND POLITICAL SPACES IN URBAN AFRICA

Venue: African American Cultural Room, 4.110

Chair -- Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Professeure émérite, Université Paris-7 Denis Diderot

Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Professeure émérite, Université Paris-7 Denis Diderot -- From Residential Segregation to African Urban Centers: The Modalities of Change, Léopoldville (Kinshasa) 1960, Nairobi 1965, Harare 1990, Johannesburg 1994. A Comparison

Godwin R. Murunga, Dept. of History, Northwestern University, History Dept. -- “Inherently Unhygienic Races”: The Construction of Settler Power in Nairobi, 1899-1907

Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi, Dept. of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- Captured and Steeped in Colonial Dynamcs and Legacy: The Case of Isiolo Town in Kenya

Carolyn E. Vieira-Martinez, Dept. of History, University of California Los Angeles -- Degrees of Understanding: The Portuguese of Luanda, Angola c. 1600

D2: URBAN CULTURES: THE RURAL-URBAN CONTINUUM

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Gregory H. Maddox, Dept. of History, Geography & Economics, Texas Southern University

Jare Ajayi, African Agency for an Enhanced Socio-Ethics and Traditional Order (ASETO) -- Human Factor in Urbanisation Processes

Liza Debevec, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of St. Andrews -- From Sumbala to Maggi Cubes: Shifting from Tradition to Modernity (and Back Again) in Urban Cooking and Eating Practices in South West Burkina Faso

James E. Genova, Dept. of History, Indiana State University -- Africanite and Urbanite: The Place of the Urban in Imaginings of African Identity During the Late Colonial Period in French West Africa

Gregory H. Maddox, Dept. of History, Geography & Economics, Texas Southern University -- Wagogo Leo! The Production of Rural Culture in Urban Dar es Salaam

Susan J. Rasmussen, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Houston -- Remembering and Forgetting: Commemorative Public Events in Tuareg Urban Settings

D3: CONFLICT AND LIBERATION: ISSUES IN RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Venue: Texas Governors Room, 3.116

Chair -- Lillian Ashcraft-Eason, Africana Studies and Dept. of History, Bowling Green State University

Anthony Agwuele, Institut Für Philosophie, Universität Leipzig – Eclecticism of African Philosophy and the Universalists Monocultural Agenda

L. Djisovi Eason, Bowling Green State University -- Ritualistic Clashes: African Traditional Religion in Cotonou

Ashimuneze K. Heanacho, Philosophy and Educational Foundations, Central Michigan University -- Immanency, Theism, and Liberation: An Epistemology of Africa’s Urban Malaise

Susan M. O’Brien, Dept. of History and Religious Studies, The Pennsylvania State University -- Urbanization, Modernization, and Islamic Identity in Kano, Nigeria

Leo E. Otoide, Dept. of History, University of Benin, Benin City -- Traditional Religion, Christianity and Urbanization in Benin City

12:15--2:00 p.m. – Lunch Break



2:00 --3:30 p.m. – PANEL SESSION E

E1: URBAN ISSUES IN POST APARTHEID SOUTHERN AFRICA

Venue: African American Cultural Room, 4.110

Chair -- Barbara Harlow, Dept. of English, University of Texas at Austin

Derik Gelderblom. Dept. of Sociology, University of South Africa -- Rural Outsiders, Urban Insiders: Has Anything Changed in Post-Apartheid South Africa?

Barbara Harlow, Dept. of English, University of Texas at Austin -- Durban Works

Neville Hoad, Dept. of English, University of Texas at Austin -- The Fragility of African Cosmopolitanism: “Hillbrow” in Contemporary South African Literature

Anne Kelk Mager, Dept. of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town -- Liquor and Heritage: Shebeens, Breweries and Memory in South Africa, 1960-2000

Fatima Müller-Friedman, Dept. of Geography, University of Cambridge – “Just Build it Modern”: Post-Apartheid Spaces on Namibia’s Urban Frontier

E2: THE TRANSFORMATION OF LAGOS

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Christopher Adejumo, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin

Wale Adebanwi, Dept. of Political Science, University of Ibadan -- The City and Hegemonic Politics: The Press and the Struggle for Lagos in Colonial Nigeria

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf (independent scholar) and Jeremy Weate (Goldsmiths College, University of London) -- Ojuelegba: the Sacred Profanities of a West African Crossroad

Bayo A. Lawal, Dept of History, University of Lagos -- Crises of African City Centers: The Colonial Antecedents of Traffic Congestion, Markets and Street Trading in Lagos

Ayodeji Olukoju, Dept of History, University of Lagos -- Moving the Masses: Urban Transport in Lagos since the 1930s

Hakeem I. Tijani, U.S. Judge Advovate General’s Office, Ft. Hood, Texas, When Patrons are No Longer Patrons: Rewriting the History of a Lagos Suburb

E3: ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN URBAN AFRICA

Venue: Texas Governors Room, 3.116

Chair -- Paul Lovejoy, Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, York University

Mark Dike DeLancey, Dept. of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University -- Moving East, Facing West: Islam as an Intercultural Mediator in Urban Planning in the Sokoto Caliphate

Michael Ralph, Dept. of Anthropology, The University of Chicago -- Oppressive Impressions, Architectural Expressions: The Poetics of French Colonial (Ad)vantage, Regarding Africa

Eric Ross, Dept. of Geography, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco -- Sufi City: Archetypes, Land Art and Suburban Subdivisions in Touba, Senegal

Kheira Tabet-Aoul, Département d’Architecture de l’Université des Sciences et Technologie d’Oran Algeria and Fouzia Meliouh, Département d’Architecture de l’Université Mohamed Khider de Biskra Algeria -- “Modern” Versus Traditional Housing in the Algerian Sahara : The Inhabitant Adaptation Dilemma


3:45 – 5:15 p.m. – PANEL SESSION F

F1: PERSPECTIVES ON URBANIZATION IN EAST AFRICA

Venue: African American Cultural Room, 4.110

Chair -- Luise White, Dept. of History, University of Florida

Thomas Gensheimer, Dept. of Architectural History, Savannah College of Art and Design -- The Impact of Globalizing Forces on the Medieval Swahili City

Kefa M. Otiso, Dept. of Geography, Bowling Green State University -- Colonial Hangovers and the Challenge of Urban Management in Kenya

Meshack Owino, Dept. of History, Rice University -- War and Urbanization in Colonial Kenya: A Case Study of Maseno Town

Gerald Steyn, Dept. of Architecture, Technikon Pretoria -- Foreigners and Fear: Factors That Shaped the Nineteenth Century Landscape

F2: CELEBRATING THE HYBRIDITY OF CULTURES

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Joni L. Jones, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Texas at Austin

Jeffery Glenn Strickland, Florida State University -- Public Rituals in the Urban South: African-American Ceremonies in Charleston, South Carolina during Reconstruction

Rebecca Lorins, Comparative Literature, University of Texas at Austin -- Slaves/Soldiers/Students: the Place of the “Southerner” and the Theater of Displacement on the Outskirts of Khartoum, c. 2002

Olivier J. Tchouaffe. Dept. of Radio-TV-Film. University of Texas at Austin -- Immigration, Globalization, and Identity. A Critical Look at Ngangura Mweze’s Pieces d’Identites

Constanze Weise, University of Bayreuth -- Celebrating the Hybridity of Cultures in a Nupe Town (Nigeria): History, Power, and Identity in Kutigi since 1770

F3: DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

Venue: Texas Governors Room, 3.116

Chair – To Be Scheduled

Doug T. Feremenga, University of California, Irvine -- Urban Planning and Development in Harare, Zimbabwe: A Historical Perspective

D.M. Mello, Vista University, South Africa -- The Development of Settlement Patterns and Their Impact on Service Delivery in South Africa

Hugo Noble, Department of Sociology, University of South Africa -- Decision-makers, Local Government and Local Economic Development: Local Government as Development Agent


7:00 p.m. – Holiday Inn, cash-bar opens

7:30 p.m. – Banquet (Invitation only)

Banquet Toast: Edmund T. Gordon, Director, Center for African and African American Studies, University of Texas at Austin


Sunday, March 30

8:30 a.m. – Coffee, Santa Rita Room, 3.502, Texas Union

9:00--10:30 a.m. – PANEL SESSION G

G1: FACTORS IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Venue: Texas Governors Room, 3.116

Chair -- Chair -- Dennis Cordell, Dept. of History, Associate Dean for General Education, Southern Methodist University

Peter Abue, Development Communication, Cornell University -- On Globalization, Rural Poverty and Institution Building in Nigeria: An Alternative Strategy for Reclaiming Democracy on a Localized Foundation

Thomas Ngomba Ekali, Dept. of History, University of Buea -- The Fluctuating Fortunes of Anglophone Cameroon Towns: The Case of Victoria (Limbe) from Pre-Colonial Times

Olasiji Oshin, -- Commercial Highways, Urbanization and National Integration: Impact of Nigerian Railway

Egodi Uchendu, Department of History, University of Nigeria -- Trends in the Evolution of Asaba and Gboji-Gboji Agbor as Urban Areas in Anioma

G2: SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES ON URBANIZATION

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Michael F. Fonge, Dept. of Sociology, University of Houston

Moussa Dembele, Dept. of Architecture and Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology , Japan -- Disintegration of West African Ethnic Structure by French Colonization: Two Case Studies of Urban Evolution in Djenne and Bamako

Anene Ejikeme, Dept. of History, Barnard College, Columbia University -- Hooligans in Town: The Genealogy of an Idea, 1940-1998

Laurent Fourchard, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan -- Urban Poverty, Urban Crime and Crime Control The Lagos and Ibadan cases 1930-1945

Raphael Chijioke Njoku, Dept. of History, Dalhousie University -- Urbanization, Tradition and Identity Formation in Colonial Africa: The Influence of the Family on the Rise of Igbo State Unionism in Nigeria, 1920-1966


10:45 a.m. --12:15 p.m. – PANEL SESSION H

H1: AILING CITIES: HEALTH, AGRICULTURE AND DISORDER

Venue: Texas Governors Room, 3.116

Chair -- Sheryl McCurdy, University of Texas-Houston

Olayemi Akinwumi, Institute of Ethnology, Free University, Berlin -- Urban Violence in Nigeria: Ethnic Militias and their Activities since the 1980s

Rufus Akinyele -- Administering the Urban Space: Health and Sanitation in Abeokuta, 1920-1940

Omar A. Eno, York University, and Salad M. Barrow, BRT-Nairobi -- Somalia’s City of the Jackals: Politics, Economy, and Society in Mogadishu (1991-2001)

Atieno Ndede-Amadi, Dept. of Accounting and MIS, Bowling Green State University -- An Infrastructure Viability Framework for the Agricultural Economies of Sub-Sahara Africa: The Case of the Human Infrastructure

Kola Subair, Lagos State University-- Environmental Incidence of Economic Development on Agricultural Activities in Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria

H2: ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY URBAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Venue: Eastwoods Room, 2.102

Chair -- Edward I. Steinhart, Dept. of History, Texas Tech University

Ibrahim Abdullah, Freetown, Sierra Leone -- The Making Of A Subaltern City? Culture, Space, and Agency in Contemporary Freetown

Som Simon Elate, Architect / Scholar, University of Karlsruhe – African Urban History in the Future

Reinford Khumalo, Graduate School of Business Leadership, University of South Africa -- Urbanization in South Africa: A Look at the Causes, Effects, and the Way Forward to Its Minimization

H. M. Sirayi, University of South Africa -- South African Urban Regeneration: The Role of Cultural Policy