Urban agglomerations host the most vital and creative societies. This applies particularly to Africa, where cities have the highest growth rates world-wide and where the urban population is younger than anywhere else. Urban life-worlds are the basis for the development of new lifestyles and new cultural phenomena. Based on empirical ethnographic research, this book presents case studies that enhance our understanding of the dynamics of urbanity in Africa and beyond - by envisioning cities as crossroads where cultures, biographies and networks meet.

Featuring contributions by such leading scholars as Mike Goodman (Baruch College), Benjamin Huybrechts (University of Liege), Andrew E. G. Jonas (University of Hull), Roger Lee (University of Chicago), Peter North (Swansea University), and Katinka Weber (University of Liverpool), this collection explores alternative modes of economic and social exchange, including credit unions, alternative currencies, sustainable consumption, and social enterprises, and their performance in relation to and beyond the economic mainstream. The volume introduces a framework for transitioning to a more...

Based on a multi-sited ethnographic case study on transnational care chains between Milan (Italy) and Lima, Huancayo, and Cuzco (Peru), the book explores how social inequalities are reproduced through the care practices that follow the introduction of Peruvian migrants into home-based elderly care. Anna Katharina Skornia adopts an innovative approach in combining research on transnational care and migration with a perspective on entangled inequalities. In particular, the study sheds light on the role of state regulations in contributing to these inequalities as well as their ambiguous...