State of Slum

Precarity and Informal Governance at the Margins in Accra

Paul Stacey (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

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English

Zed Books Ltd
16 December 2021

Development studies; Homelessness; Urban communities; Anthropology; Political oppression & persecution

Series: Politics and Society in Urban Africa

Home to eighty thousand people, Accra’s Old Fadama neighbourhood is the largest illegal slum in Ghana. Though almost all its inhabitants are Ghanaian born, their status as illegal ‘squatters’ means that they live a precarious existence, marginalised within Ghanaian society and denied many of the rights to which they are entitled as citizens.

The case of Old Fadama is far from unique. Across Africa, over half the population now lives in cities, and a lack of affordable housing means that growing numbers live in similar illegal slum communities, often in appalling conditions. Drawing on rich, ethnographic fieldwork, the book takes as its point of departure the narratives that emerge from the everyday lives and struggles of these people, using the perspective offered by Old Fadama as a means of identifying wider trends and dynamics across African slums.

Central to Stacey’s argument is the idea that such slums possess their own structures of governance, grounded in processes of negotiation between slum residents and external actors. In the process, Stacey transforms our understanding not only of slums, but of governance itself, moving us beyond prevailing state-centric approaches to consider how even a society’s most marginal members can play a key role in shaping and contesting state power.

By: Paul Stacey (University of Copenhagen Denmark)
Imprint: Zed Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 135mm,
Weight: 277g
ISBN: 9781786992031
ISBN 10: 1786992035
Series: Politics and Society in Urban Africa
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 16 December 2021
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Paul Stacey is a postdoctoral researcher in global development at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen. He has undertaken research projects for Oxfam America, the Danish Institute for International Studies, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is his first book.