Socio-Spatial Transformations

This theme explores the constitution of social subjectivities and citizenship across a diverse of African sites whether origins, stations or destinations for people on the move. At its heart is a concern over the meaning of socio-spatial regulation in an era of mobility. Drawing on quantitative, qualitative, and visual methodologies in considers the material and moral transformations of spaces and institutions related to human movement. It surfaces poorly understood places and processes connected to the making of social, political, and ethical communities and boundaries.

This theme incorporates the work of the South African Research Chair in Mobility and the Politics of Difference, and Xenowatch. This includes multi-sited research on mobility, urbanisation, and political possibilities and broader inquiries into the meanings of political community and identity within fluid, often translocal sites. It employs traditional quantitative approaches coupled with oral history, critical cartography, narrative analysis, eco-system mapping, and highly localised political ethnographies in Southern and Eastern Africa. Most work is conducted collaboratively with local and international partners, colleagues, and graduate students. Reflecting a diversity of interests, the results speak to multiple audiences across the social sciences and public domain.