Paper short abstract:

This contribution discusses the transfer of the research program distinctiveness of cities to Africa and reflects on critical points. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates how the study of middle-class milieus in Nairobi and Mombasa benefits from this perspective and which adaptations are necessary.

Paper long abstract:

Everyone knows that Lagos is very different from Cape Town and that the inhabitants of both cities vary in their everyday life routines from the residents of Nairobi - but why is this the case? And how is it possible to study the "city-ness" of cities, their particular character and the locally specific actions of their occupants? The distinctiveness of cities/Eigenlogik der Städte (Berking 2012/Löw 2012) is among the most established approaches in Urban Theory in German speaking countries and looks for answers to these questions. Moreover, the distinctiveness is a tool that analyses how social phenomena are being embedded in a city´s environment and meaning horizons.

This contribution discusses the transfer of the distinctiveness of cities to urban Kenya and how the study of middle-class milieus in Nairobi and Mombasa benefits from this research perspective. Thereby, the paper shows how examining African cities as "ordinary cities" is possible, but only by considering "African" particularities that Northern Urban Theory does not take into account. Namely, Northern theory does not reflect on the political dimension and the absence of the welfare state that leave African cities without the homogenizing effects of the European nation state (Janowicz 2008). Other aspects that EuroAmerican theories neglect are urban-rural ties, multiple centers of life and the extended family as a household unit. The empirical part contrasts the middle-class milieus in Nairobi and Mombasa through the lens of the distinctiveness. Ethnographic data indicate how the composition of lifestyles, boundaries and practices of middle-income groups differ in both settings.