Innovative study of state politics, identity and buildings that sheds new light on the links between the material and the ideational realms of contemporary life in Africa. Buildings shape politics in the ways they define communities, enable economic activity, reflect political ideas, and impact state-society relations. They are materially and symbolically interwoven with the everyday lives of elites and citizens, as well global flows of money, goods, and contracts. Yet, to date, there has been no research that explicitly connects debates about Africa's domestic and international politics with the study of architecture. This innovative book fills this gap, providing a new and compelling reading of the politics of identity in sub-Saharan Africa through an examination of some of its most significant buildings. Using case studies from nine countries across sub-Saharan Africa, this volume reveals how they are commissioned and built, how they enable elites to project power, and how they form a basis for popular conceptions of the state. Exploring a diverse range of buildings including parliaments, airports, prisons, ministries, regional institutions, libraries, universities, shopping malls, public housing, cathedrals and palaces, the contributors suggest a innovative perspective on African politics, identity and urban development. This book will be a compelling reference for scholars and students of African politics, development studies and city life in its elaboration of and challenges to established concepts and arguments about the relationship between material objects and political ideas. This book is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND.

This book reconceptualises the idea of the state in Ethiopia. It focuses on the cultural and political processes of state formation, and reveals the complexity of state-society relations as they unfold in the everyday context of local life. It does so by exploring specific configurations of governance practices, development activities and discourses, and bureaucratic representations that are rooted in the ongoing contingencies of power relations and social contexts. The book places the lives, subjectivities, and experiences of farmers, pastoralists, women, traders, shopkeepers, daily labourers, the rural youth, state functionaries, and NGO workers in two rural localities in different regions of Ethiopia at the centre of ethnographic enquiry. The book offers a rich and compelling ethnographic account while making distinctive theoretical contributions to the analysis of the state in Africa. It foregrounds the Ethiopian experience as an important component of the politics of everyday life in Africa, at the same time as making important linkages between Ethiopia and politics in the rest of the continent that are often overlooked in Ethiopia-specific studies. Providing an invaluable insight into the workings of the state in Ethiopia, it will be of interest to scholars of state, society, development, governance, and African politics.

This book reconceptualises the idea of the state in Ethiopia. It focuses on the cultural and political processes of state formation, and reveals the complexity of state-society relations as they unfold in the everyday context of local life. It does so by exploring specific configurations of governance practices, development activities and discourses, and bureaucratic representations that are rooted in the ongoing contingencies of power relations and social contexts. The book places the lives, subjectivities, and experiences of farmers, pastoralists, women, traders, shopkeepers, daily labourers, the rural youth, state functionaries, and NGO workers in two rural localities in different regions of Ethiopia at the centre of ethnographic enquiry. The book offers a rich and compelling ethnographic account while making distinctive theoretical contributions to the analysis of the state in Africa. It foregrounds the Ethiopian experience as an important component of the politics of everyday life in Africa, at the same time as making important linkages between Ethiopia and politics in the rest of the continent that are often overlooked in Ethiopia-specific studies. Providing an invaluable insight into the workings of the state in Ethiopia, it will be of interest to scholars of state, society, development, governance, and African politics.