Simon Bekker

During the past decade, an extraordinary disconnect regarding the futures of states in sub-Saharan Africa has emerged: ‘Aspiring Africa, the world’s fastest growing continent’ (in the words of The Economist on its title page), on the one hand, and, in the words of an economist, ‘informalised and subsistence Africa, with swathes of survivalist pockets of existence, remains the overriding economic reality’ in these states, on the other.

What influence does living or working in a given area, an area delimited –even if informally - from its surroundings, have on those inside and those outside this distinct area?