"How does an urban population of poor African Muslims best confront narratives imposed from the outside about their cityscape in order to improve their lives? This case study reveals the contradictions between Eurocentric notions of preservation and survival for people whose poverty has reduced many of them to one meal a day. Joy ties together history and life in a "heritage site," home to living populations, whose rights to self-determination have taken a back seat to the "universal value" of the buildings in which they live." --Current Anthropology
