at Google ScholarTitle data
Philipps, Joschka ; Kagoro, Jude:
The Metastable City and the Politics of Crystallisation : Protesting and Policing in Kampala.
In: Africa Spectrum.
Vol. 51
(2016)
Issue 3
.
- pp. 3-32.
ISSN 1868-6869
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/000203971605100301
Abstract in another language
When protests break out in downtown Kampala they tend to transform a fluid urban environment into bounded political camps, and myriad ambiguous concerns into comparatively clear-cut political issues. This article traces this process and conceptualises Kampala’s urban politics as a politics of crystallisation: as attempts to structure highly fluid dynamics into something concrete. The article is based on ethnographic research amongst opposition activists and the police forces. Both seek to activate political boundaries and make people gravitate towards their respective side. But in line with the fluidity of urban everyday life, they also work and collaborate across these boundaries. The national regime and the opposition thus function not as permanent, stable structures, but as processes, as fields of gravity whose emergence is incited and inhibited, financed, and policed. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon’s theory of
individuation and AbdouMaliq Simone’s work on urbanity, this analytical framework offers a dynamic reading of urban contentious politics in general, and a reinterpretation of the paradoxes of power in African politics in particular.
Further data
| Item Type: | Article in a journal |
|---|---|
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Keywords: | Uganda; Kampala; political protest; power and rule; police; Gilbert Simondon |
| Institutions of the University: | Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Chair Sociology of Africa Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Chair Sociology of Africa > Chair Sociology of Africa - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke |
| Result of work at the UBT: | No |
| DDC Subjects: | 300 Social sciences 300 Social sciences > 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology 300 Social sciences > 320 Political science |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Aug 2024 08:06 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Aug 2024 08:06 |
| URI: | https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/90251 |