Spaces of Aspiration, Liberation and Exclusion: the Politics of Urban Space in an African Democracy
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SPACES OF ASPIRATION, LIBERATION AND EXCLUSION: THE POLITICS OF URBAN SPACE IN AN AFRICAN DEMOCRACY BY STEPHEN D. MARR A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 Stephen D. Marr 2 To My Parents and Grandparents 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It seems strange that all the labor of the past 9 years is to be distilled into these last few concluding lines. More to the point: I’ve long fantasized about this day and all the people I’d thank for the lessons they’ve imparted, perhaps even going so far as to narrate a few mildly hilarious anecdotes about some of the individuals I’ve encountered over the course of this project. It was to be a great moment. And it still is. Although at this final stage of looming deadlines I feel these final paragraphs resemble more a feeble monument to my own exhaustion—more a whimper than a bang. To make a fanboy analogy sure to cause no small amount of cringing, I’ve carried this burden all the way up to the fires of Mount Doom, and now that I can be rid of it, I’m not sure how to draw things to a close. Hopefully I’ll manage to find my verbal footing—“here at the end of all [dissertation] things”—while doing a serviceable job thanking everybody who made the journey possible, in ways big or small, whether they know it or not. The writing has been occasionally exhilarating, frequently tedious, more than slightly terrifying; how I managed to cobble together a couple hundred pages from a mess of fieldnote scribbles acquired through a mixture of street corner conversations, barroom blustering and a host of other improvisations, I’m not quite certain. I do, however, know two things: first, I’m glad this is over and that I can begin to comport myself as a real live human person, again engaged with long-term friends and family who have been recently reduced to digitized apparitions, unreturned emails and “missed calls” on my cell phone. Second, and in spite of my own inattentiveness over these past months and years, these same people have been unceasingly supportive throughout the writing process, even if they didn’t quite understand what I was doing or why I was doing it or why I wasn’t finished already. I owe them all some debt of gratitude I will likely never be able to repay. 4 For starters, I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my friends from Notre Dame, St. Ed’s and Lafayette 12 and 13. The regular 4am conversations, often over beer at the end of a late night of avoiding work, occasionally interrupted by exploding fireworks or flying pumpkins, went a long way in shaping my own thinking about the world and the people in it. If you read this, and perhaps one or two of you will, you’ll no doubt make fun of me for saying so, but it’s true. At the University of Florida too, I don’t think I would’ve made it through without the camaraderie and friendship of the many folks I know in the Political Science Department and the Center for African Studies. In what no way amounts to an exhaustive list, special mention is reserved for: Ryan Bakker, Melinda Negron, Wadley, Liz “the Beav” Beaver, Noelle Mecoli, Parakh Hoon, The Doodle, Matt DeSantis, Laura Dehmlow, Greg Markowski, Todd Leedy, Andy Lepp, Andrew Woods, Kenly Fenio, Joe Kraus, Kevin Fridy, Jason Gainous, and Matt Caverly. I remember fondly all the time spent at the Copper Monkey, the Top (despite the sometimes insufferable presence of Gainesville’s scenesters), the Salty Dog; not too mention the weekly “Chinese Food Saturday’s,” an afternoon rite often sponsored by Bakker, in which everyone ate while watching me scream myself hoarse at a usually dismal performance of Notre Dame’s football team. You’ve all both corrupted and enhanced my time at UF—no small feat, that. I’d also like to give a special mention to the staffs of the Department of Political Science and the Center for African Studies. Debbie Wallen and Sue Lawless-Yanchisin have been amazing helps over the past 9 years(!) I’ve been at UF, and, I think it is pretty safe to say that without them, I’d still be trying to figure out how to register for my first semester’s classes. And at the CAS, Professor Leo Villalon, Corinna Greene and (now) Dr. Todd Leedy have been especially supportive of not just me, but of all the graduate students in their domain. Keep up the 5 ASA trips—and the next time we’re all at Bukowski’s, the drinks are on me. Professor Villalon deserves further thanks for taking me on as a member of my committee a few years back, despite his approximately one million other responsibilities. He is a charismatic and warm person for which we are all better for knowing. I would also be neglectful if I didn’t single out the help and guidance of two former members of the UF Political Science faculty who were great mentors to me early in my grad student career. Professor Dennis Galvan would patiently listen to all of my crazy research ideas, complaints, and threats to leave the program before calmly settling me down and putting things in perspective. I always left his office feeling better than when I entered it. Dr. Michael Chege was my advisor in the year prior to my leaving for Botswana for the first time in 2002. In the weeks preceding my trip, I was more than a bit apprehensive and nervous about what to do when I got to Botswana. I went to his office one afternoon in the hopes that he would give me a schematic on how I was to “do” fieldwork or for what I should be looking. Instead of detailed instructions however, he merely told me to “keep my eyes open and something would appear.” At the time, I thought that was fairly terrible advice teetering on the verge of “new age-y” inanity, but in retrospect, after my time in the field, his suggestion seems incredibly wise—I was just too immature and inexperienced at the time to know it. These days, my current committee of dissertation advisors has been equally awesome: providing advice when asked, prodding when needed, and otherwise leaving me to myself to seek out my own voice and approach. I can’t begin to express my appreciation to them for granting me the freedom to pursue my own admittedly odd research project. I didn’t meet with much resistance, even after they heard what I intended to do, or that I wanted to make shopping malls (in Botswana) an integral component of the research. And in fact, the only time they told 6 me “no” was when they rejected my idea to add a survey to the research so as to make it more “political science-y”. Apart from the mentoring help, I’ve learned much from all of you: Professor Luise White taught me to pay attention to the whispered stories and backroom gossips I would have no doubt otherwise dismissed, while Professor Aida Hozic taught me about both the importance of (pop) culture and politics, as well as its performance. Without Professor Peggy Kohn’s seminar on “Cities and Citizenship” it’s likely that I would never have undertaken this project. So it is with much gratitude that I thank her for not just opening my eyes to another side of political science, but being one of the project’s biggest supporters. It is probably safe to say that she knew what this project was about long before I did. Professor Goran Hyden, along with his wife Melania, has been a tremendous help to me through these dissertation years. A student couldn’t ask for a better mentor and advisor. Dr. Hyden, more than anyone, was willing to let me follow my own path—in research, thinking, writing, pretty well everything—while also reining me back in when he felt I was going a bit too far afield. Beyond the realm of academics, Dr. Hyden is kind and generous, always willing to make time for his students. I won’t soon forget the regular end-of-semester parties that the Hydens would throw for students and the larger African studies community—nor Mama Hyden’s famous chapati. For whatever virtues are to be found in the upcoming pages, much of the credit goes to the influence and guidance of Dr. Hyden and the rest of the committee. I would also like to thank Dr. JoAnn Moody, the Northeast Consortium for Faculty Diversity and Monmouth University for providing me with the space, time, and resources to do much of the writing for this project. It’s not much of a stretch to think that without this year to write uninterrupted I’d be years away from finishing. My colleagues and friends at Monmouth University were welcoming and made the writing experience far less lonely than it otherwise 7 might have been. I’d like to single out Dean Stanton Green and Judy Ramos from the School of the Humanities and Social Societies; and Joy Crane, Rekha Datta, Joe Patten, Ken Mitchell, and Kevin Dooley from the department of political science. And, of course, my year and a half in Botswana would not have been possible without the help of people too numerous to mention.