Document Type
Review Essay
Abstract
[First paragraph]
In their edited volume, Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis, Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe, offer their readers a glimpse of contemporary Johannesburg from multiple vantage points, combining to create a singleness of vision that reveals a fractured and layered modern metropolis. However, the cohesiveness that binds this book should not be mistaken for theoretical fixity of the African metropolis. Recognizing that city forms "outpace the capacity of analysts to name them" (25), the editors of Johannesburg seek to unfix rather than fix the meanings of African modernity. As promised in the title, Johannesburg is depicted as elusive, uncontainable and incomplete throughout the pages of this book.
Repository Citation
Marshall, Sandy. "On S. Nutall and A. Mmembe, eds. Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–4. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss1/15