| Abstract: | The dominant 'paradigms' in urban studies have not only failed to yield systematic explanations of the nature and origin of the rural-urban migration of unskilled workers, but have mystified the dynamics of urban growth in the Sudan. The author criticizes the conventional wisdom which has replaced the 'spatial' connotation of migration with a 'social' categorization, viz. rural-urban migrants are unskilled workers, denoting exclusion from the 'urban power structure' and corroborating the general ideological degradation of manual work by the hegemonic classes. In his critique, the author reconsiders three main issues in Sudanese urban studies: the dynamics of urban population growth; the concept of rural-urban wage labour migration and the increasing immigration by non-wage earners; the social and historical specificity of the 'urban' and the 'peripheral-capitalist' nature of Sudanese urbanism. The basic process underlying the rise and growth of urban areas in Sudan is one of peripheral capital accumulation. Bibliogr. |
AfricaBib 
Book chapter
Leiden University catalogue
WorldCat