Keeping house in Lusaka

The small, densely populated township of Mtendere affords an unobstructed view of the high-rise hotels and office buildings in Zambia's capital city of Lusaka - a vivid illustration of the proximity of poverty and wealth in urban Africa today. In Keeping House in Lusaka, Karen Tranberg Hansen draws on two decades of field research in this former squatters' colony to challenge assumptions about the rural-urban divide in Africa that have dominated the thinking of much of Western social science. Focusing on such broad themes as household dynamics, gender politics, and informal economy in Mtendere, the book opens a window on the experiences of urban people living through one of Africa's most dramatic economic declines in the postcolonial era. Keeping House in Lusaka argues that African urbanism is not purely a product of colonialism but a result of a wide variety of influences both local and foreign. Set against the backdrop of Zambia's colonial history and its political and economic conditions since independence in 1964, Hansen's study provides rich insight into the cultural effects of rapid urbanization and development in the Third World.