“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
Cityscapes 4: After Informality (Africa Centre for Cities, November 2013)
Photographer Jodi Bieber’s portrait of a member of the Dube Young Blood Shotokan Karate Club in Soweto introduces the focus of the fourth issue of Cityscapes: Soweto. Is it a viable model of what happens after informality? The question does not propose a simple answer. Soweto’s redevelopment is uneven. There are malls, loft developments, a theatre. More significantly, there are roads and basic services. Change is afoot, but not for all.
Also in the issue: a grouped series of reports, essays and interviews tracing a zigzag path connecting Tel Aviv to Naples to Berlin to Guangzhou, all cities where African migrants are a feature of the urban matrix. There is a speculative logic at work in this grouping.