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Representing an African City and Urban Elite: The Nightclubs, Dance Halls, and Red-Light District of Interwar Accra

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The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities

Part of the book series: Africa Connects ((AFC))

Abstract

It is well known that cities are not static monoliths. They do not contain an assemblage of tidy spaces packaged into a larger discrete unit. The physical spaces of cities are themselves endowed with social values that are often antagonized and contested. Even more, inhabitants of cities frequently project their own mental maps onto urban topographies, and they do so in ways that shape lived experiences of urban life and physical space. In the 1920s and 1930s, the residents of Accra, the then administrative center of the British Gold Coast, confronted their own complex ordering of space as various segments of society competed to shape its physical and imagined terrain.

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Wasu, London, England

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Authors

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Mamadou Diouf Rosalind Fredericks

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© 2014 Mamadou Diouf and Rosalind Fredericks

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Prais, J. (2014). Representing an African City and Urban Elite: The Nightclubs, Dance Halls, and Red-Light District of Interwar Accra. In: Diouf, M., Fredericks, R. (eds) The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities. Africa Connects. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137481887_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137481887_9

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51631-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-48188-7

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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