Housing middle-classness: formality and the making of distinction in Luanda

Abstract

As one of the primary personal sites of financial investment, expression and public performance, housing has stood at the centre of contemporary studies of class in Africa. This article adds to the existing literature on housing and class by exploring residents’ desires for formal housing in post-conflict Luanda, Angola. Luanda's residents increasingly believed that access to formal housing, not necessarily always legally but rather aesthetically defined, was a primary means of affirming middle-class status. By highlighting the links between class, urban formality and the state, the article argues that formal housing became a means for both the state and Luandans to produce middle-classness. Existing beliefs about comportment and urban aesthetics, which anchored subjective understandings of class in the house, intersected with a political economy in which the state played a central role in enabling access to new residences. As such, formality has become a key means through which middle-classness is transforming urban landscapes, opening up discussions about aesthetic belonging, financial stability and the role of the state in the making of Africa's middle classes.

Never enough: neoliberalizing Namibian middle-class marriages

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“…Very often, such performances of middle-classness are accomplished through conspicuous consumption, especially through housebuilding (Durham 2020;Gastrow 2020;Mercer 2014;Ndlovu 2020) and the celebration of lifecycle rituals (Pauli 2011;Solway 2016;Van Dijk 2012;. Lentz (2020: 453) interprets these middle-class consumption practices as 'typical of the era of neoliberal globalization'.…”

Blomsterhager og shambaer: Hagebruk innenfor og utenfor en eliteskole i Kenya

“…Slik viser artikkelen hvordan sosiale ulikheter gjennomsyret mellommenneskelige relasjoner, saerlig på tvers av skolens innside og utside (se også Holte, 2016). Den påfølgende analysen av elevenes hageprat uttrykte en vending mot Bourdieu i litteraturen om klasse og sosiale forskjeller i Afrika (Gastrow, 2020;Spronk, 2014a;Werbner, 2018). Forståelsen av klasse anlagt her gikk utenom fokus på materiell rikdom, inntekt og produksjonsforhold, som tidligere har preget litteratur om klasse og sosiale forskjeller i Afrika og som også har vaert nevnt i artikkelen.…”

“…Elevene ved skolen var hovedsakelig barn av en postkolonial svart elite eller øvre middelklasse som hadde vokst raskt over hele det afrikanske kontinentet i rundt ti år før feltarbeidet mitt (Ellis, 2011) og som antropologer de senere årene har begynt å forstå i lys av Pierre Bourdieus begrepsapparat (f.eks. Gastrow, 2020;Spronk, 2014a;Werbner, 2018).…”

Ganz gewöhnliche Viertel

“…Eine kritische postkoloniale Forschung sollte demnach an Vergleichen zwischen gewöhnlichen Wohnvierteln interessiert sein und somit die Annahme des vermeintlich besonderen ‚Slums' hinterfragen und intra-städtische Hierarchien überwinden. Verstärkt sollten dabei auch Viertel in Städten des Globalen Südens in den Blick genommen werden, die bislang weniger Aufmerksamkeit erhieltendas gilt insbesondere für prekäre Mietswohnungen (Huchzermeyer 2011b; Mayson/Charlton 2015), aber auch für neu entstehende Siedlungen am Stadt rand (Meth 2020;Gastrow 2020).…”