Urban secrets? Affinities and anthropologies of South African cities

Urban archives and Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project

“…Whereas the essays collected in the companion special issue "Urban Secrets? Affinities and Anthropologies of South African Cities" (Kratz, Weintroub, and Murray 2019), sought to complicate the notion of the secret or hidden in the urban anthropologies of cities in Africa and beyond, our concerns here are different. In this volume, we consider what it might mean to extend our inquiry beyond the grand narratives and ordinary ways of archiving or writing 'History' (Dhupelia-Mesthrie and Weintroub this volume), as well as to trouble the boundaries of academic and disciplinary convention (Sacks, Witz).…”