African Urban Research Conference

Extract

The conference, sponsored by the African Research Committee and the African Studies Group of the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee, was held June 2-4, 1966, at the Kenwood Conference Center, Milwaukee. Conferees were as follows: D. W. Griffin (University of California, Los Angeles); Peter C. W. Gutkind (McGill University): Ruth Simms Hamilton (Iowa State University); George Jenkins (University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee); G. Wesley Johnson (Stanford University); John Paden (Northwestern University); Michael Safier (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee); Henry J. Schmandt (University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee); W. M. Swanson (Yale University); and Alvin Wolfe (Washington University).

African urban studies are on the verge of escape from scarcity into bulky unintelligibility. At least sixteen books are being prepared by Americans for publication; most of them are single-instance studies by junior scholars, although six of them will present comparable materials gathered according to the “Bohannan plan.” (See African Urban Notes, I [April 1966], 1). In addition, some thirty Americans and Africans are presently in Africa or writing dissertations based on field research, and at least twenty more Americans are planning field research. Furthermore, the ARC conferences on unemployment, the West Indian Ocean area, geography, and migration have recommended still more urban research. Although this does not mean that a surfeit is threatened in any sector of urban studies, African urban research will probably be marked for some time by increasing descriptive affluence and continuing theoretical poverty. The essential need in this area of African studies is to provide for more meaningful development of a sizable movement whose momentum seems assured for the immediate future.