Suturing the City

Filip De Boeck is professor of anthropology at KU Leuven, Belgium, whose research explores urban life, art, and imagination in Central Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sammy Baloji is a visual artist based in Brussels and Lubumbashi. His work has been exhibited and published internationally.

• Preface: Suturing the City. Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds The Last Post. Congo, (Post-)colonialism and Urban Tales of Unrest The Urban Politics of Syncopation Mountains I: Pic Sörensen Corpus Vile. Death and Expendable Youth in Kinshasa Mountains II: Pungulume ‘Illuminating the Hole’: Kinshasa’s Makeovers between Dream and Reality Ngaliema’s Revenge. Urban Expansion, Chiefs and The Politics of Land Coda: Occupation and the Politics of (Co-)Presence NotesReferencesIndexIndex of IllustrationsMap of Kinshasa

‘This brilliant collaboration between an anthropologist and a photographer has resulted in not only a handsome volume that does justice to word and image alike, but also something far more important – a beautifully successful balance between thoughtful ethnography, thought-provoking and appropriate theory, and a visual essay that sensitively and imaginatively investigates its themes rather than just illustrating them.’ - Christopher Morton, University of Oxford