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In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the government of Rwanda hired American and Singaporean design firms to transform the image of Kigali from a wounded city into a competitive destination for foreign investment. The firms produced promotional images of a post-conflict tabula rasa waiting to be rebuilt by foreign investors as an urban solution to climate change. However, to make this marketing image real, much of the actual city would need to be destroyed and its residents converted to consumers of green housing and service delivery systems.
Kigali is an ethnography of a city that is being destroyed so that it can be rebuilt for the end of the world. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork with Kigali residents as they navigate the catastrophes induced by sustainable urbanism, this book offers a searing critique of capitalist solutions to climate change and an account of the city’s popular alternatives to sustainable urbanism.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the government of Rwanda hired American and Singaporean design firms to transform the image of Kigali from a wounded city into a competitive destination for foreign investment. The firms produced promotional images of a post-conflict tabula rasa waiting to be rebuilt by foreign investors as an urban solution to climate change. However, to make this marketing image real, much of the actual city would need to be destroyed and its residents converted to consumers of green housing and service delivery systems.
Kigali is an ethnography of a city that is being destroyed so that it can be rebuilt for the end of the world. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork with Kigali residents as they navigate the catastrophes induced by sustainable urbanism, this book offers a searing critique of capitalist solutions to climate change and an account of the city’s popular alternatives to sustainable urbanism.
Price: $34.95
Pages: 238
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Series: Atelier: Ethnographic Inquiry in the Twenty-First Century
Publication Date:
21 October 2025
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520409972
Format: Paperback
“In his provocative and empirically grounded book, Shearer presents a compelling analysis of green capitalism and the dark side of state-led dispossession that underpins the pursuit of sustainable urbanism in the Global South. . . . A vital read for anyone interested in urban studies, African studies or the politics of climate change. “
Samuel Shearer is Assistant Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Introduction: Capital of the African Century
2. Production: Making an African Metropolis
3. Brand: Ruled by Fictions
4. Destruction: Making Fictions Real
5. Repair: Punk Urbanism
6. Recycle: Wasted Space
Epilogue: Urban Humanities for a Broken World
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
General Index
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Introduction: Capital of the African Century
2. Production: Making an African Metropolis
3. Brand: Ruled by Fictions
4. Destruction: Making Fictions Real
5. Repair: Punk Urbanism
6. Recycle: Wasted Space
Epilogue: Urban Humanities for a Broken World
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
General Index