As Long as They Don’t Bury Me Here: Social Relations of Poverty in a Namibian Shantytown

Title: As Long as They Don’t Bury Me Here
Subtitle: Social Relations of Poverty in a Namibian Shantytown
Author: Inge Tvedten
Series: Basel Namibia Studies Series 11
Publisher: Basler Afrika Bibliographien
Basel, 2011
ISBN 9783905758245 / ISBN 978-3-905758-24-5
Softcover, 17x24 cm, 216 pages, images, maps, tables, index

Description:

An increasing number of poor Southern Africans live in poverty-stricken urban slums or shantytowns. Focusing on four shantytowns in the northern Namibian town of Oshakati, this book analyses the coping strategies of the poorest sections of such populations. The study is based on fieldwork conducted intermittently during a period of ten years. It combines theories of political, economic and cultural structuration, and of the material and cultural basis for social relations of inclusion and exclusion as practise. The poorest shanty dwellers are marginalised or excluded from vital urban and rural relationships and forced into social relations of poverty amongst themselves. Having experienced long-term processes of impoverishment, the very poorest and most destitute in the shantytowns tend to give up improving their lives and act in ways that further undermine their position.

Content: As Long as They Don’t Bury Me Here: Social Relations of Poverty in a Namibian Shantytown

Basel Namibia Studies Series
Telling their story over many years
An Introduction by Michael Bollig
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Introduction
The Setting
Poverty in Anthropology
Analytical Framework
Chapter Outline
The Making of Oshakati and its Shantytowns
Colonial Encounters
War and Atrocities
Oshakati - A Place Where People Meet7
Moving to Town
Urban Complexity
Shanty Relationships
Shanty Poverty at Independence
Global Space and Urban Place
Flows of the State
Flows of the Market
Flows of the Media
Democracy Comes to Town
The Shanty Population and Inequalities
Population and Household Characteristics
Material Conditions
Conclusion
Social Relations of Poverty
Rural Links
Urban-Rural Links
The Better-Off
The Poor
Age and Gender
Rural-Urban Links
Dealing with Uncertainty
Urban Connections
The Cosmopolitans
The Straddlers
Men Straddlers
Women Straddlers
The Shanty Localists
Localised Men
Localised Women
Social Isolation
Intra-Household Relationships
Forms of Domesticity
Cohabitation
Single-Headed Households
Conjugal Unions
Manhood and Womanhood
Intergenerational Relations
Violence and Abuse
Overwhelmed by Poverty
Conclusions
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Tables
Bibliography
Index