Middle Classes in Africa

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction: Africa’s Middle Classes in Critical Perspective

   • Tabea Scharrer, David O’Kane, Lena Kroeker

   Pages 1-31

3. Part I

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 33-34

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   2. Turning the Poor into Something more Inspiring: The Creation of the African Middle Class Controversy

      • Dominique Darbon

      Pages 35-55

   3. The Narrative of ‘the African Middle Class’ and Its Conceptual Limitations

      • Dieter Neubert, Florian Stoll

      Pages 57-79

   4. Anthropology and Class in Africa: Challenges of the Past and Present

      • David O’Kane, Tabea Scharrer

      Pages 81-105

4. Part II

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-108

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   2. The Ghanaian Middle Class, Social Stratification, and Long-Term Dynamics of Upward and Downward Mobility of Lawyers and Teachers

      • Jan Budniok, Andrea Noll

      Pages 109-134

   3. The Nubians of Kibera ‘Revisited’: Detribalized Natives, Slum Dwellers, Middle Class?

      • Johanna Sarre

      Pages 135-156

   4. Saving and Serving the Nation: HIV Politics and the Emergence of New Professional Classes in Botswana

      • Astrid Bochow

      Pages 157-176

5. Part III

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-178

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   2. Propertied Citizenship in a Township and Suburb in Johannesburg

      • Barbara Heer

      Pages 179-201

   3. Thinking Sierra Leone and Building a New Middle Class: Political Expression and Political Values at the University of Makeni

      • David O’Kane

      Pages 203-222

   4. African Middle Classes: Formation and Destabilizing Effects

      • Jason Musyoka

      Pages 223-245

6. Part IV

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 247-248

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   2. Pathways into the Middle: Rites of Passage and Emerging Middle Classes in Namibia

      • Julia Pauli

      Pages 249-272

   3. Middle-Class Approaches to Social Security in Kenya

      • Lena Kroeker

      Pages 273-292

   4. Middle Classes and ‘Moderate Prosperity’ in Rural Madagascar

      • Tsiry Andrianampiarivo

      Pages 293-310

   5. Afterword. The (Idea of) African Middle Classes: Theorizing from Africa

      • Rachel Spronk

      Pages 311-326

7. Back Matter

   Pages 327-376

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​This volume challenges the concept of the ‘new African middle class’ with new theoretical and empirical insights into the changing lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diverse middle classes are on the rise, but models of class based on experiences from other regions of the world cannot be easily transferred to the African continent. Empirical contributions, drawn from a diverse range of contexts, address both African histories of class formation and the political roles of the continent’s middle classes, and also examine the important interdependencies that cut across inter-generational, urban-rural and class divides. This thought-provoking book argues emphatically for a revision of common notions of the 'middle class', and for the inclusion of insights 'from the South' into the global debate on class.

Middle Classes in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as NGOs and policy makers with an interest in African societies.

• Social class
• Social mobility
• Imperialism
• Capitalisim
• Post-colonialism
• Africa's Middle Classes
• Nubians of Kibera
• Emerging Middle Classes in Namibia
• area studies

“The volume is well structured, offers nuanced questions, and engages with relevant challenges relating to current trends in social formations of African societies.” (Henning Melber, Africa Spectrum, Vol. 53 (1), 2018)

• Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, Bayreuth, Germany

  Lena Kroeker

• Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany

  David O'Kane, Tabea Scharrer

Lena Kroeker is Research Fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany

David O’Kane is an Associate of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany

Tabea Scharrer is Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany

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