António Tomás, author of "In the Skin of the City: Spatial Transformation in Luanda," explores the rich history and rapid transformation of Luanda, Angola. He highlights the experiences of squatters as central to understanding urbanization and the shifting boundaries between the city's affluent center and informal settlements. Tomás shares personal anecdotes that illuminate issues of identity and spatial dynamics while drawing interesting comparisons between Luanda and cities like Paris. His insights challenge conventional views on post-colonial urban development.
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Tomás's Background
António Tomás was born in Luanda and witnessed its transformation after Angola's independence in 1975.
He later pursued journalism and playwriting in Lisbon before getting a PhD at Columbia University and returning to Africa.
insights INSIGHT
Luanda's Transformation
Luanda's transformation after independence involved a significant population shift, with settlers leaving and Angolans moving in.
This led to a negotiation of the city's divisions and the redefinition of its boundaries.
insights INSIGHT
Concept of "Skin"
The concept of "skin" in the book refers to the porous and shifting boundaries of Luanda, separating center and margins, settler and native.
It's not about protection, but separation, reflecting how humans create distinctions for survival.
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In the Skin of the City, Spatial Transformations in Luanda
In the Skin of the City, Spatial Transformations in Luanda
Spatial Transformations in Luanda
António Tomás
António Tomás's "In the Skin of the City" offers a nuanced exploration of Luanda, Angola's capital, focusing on its spatial transformations since independence. The book delves into the city's historical development, shaped by Portuguese colonialism and the subsequent struggles for urban space. Tomás uses the metaphor of 'skin' to represent the city's porous boundaries, highlighting the constant negotiation between different groups and power dynamics. He examines the role of squatters in shaping Luanda's urban landscape and challenges conventional understandings of urbanization in the Global South. The book's interdisciplinary approach combines ethnographic research, archival work, and personal experiences to provide a rich and insightful account of Luanda's complex history.
A cidade e a infancia
A cidade e a infancia
José Luandino Vieira
In his book,In the Skin of the City: Spatial Transformation in Luanda (Duke UP, 2022), António Tomás traces the history and transformation of Luanda, Angola, the nation’s capital as well as one of the oldest settlements founded by the European colonial powers in the Southern Hemisphere. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research alongside his own experiences growing up in Luanda, Tomás shows how the city’s physical and social boundaries—its skin—constitute porous and shifting interfaces between center and margins, settler and Native, enslaver and enslaved, formal and informal, and the powerful and the powerless. He focuses on Luanda’s “asphalt frontier”—the (colonial) line between the planned urban center and the ad hoc shantytowns that surround it—and the ways squatters are central to Luanda’s historical urban process. In their relationship with the state and their struggle to gain rights to the city, squatters embody the process of negotiating Luanda’s divisions and the sociopolitical forces that shape them. By illustrating how Luanda emerges out of the continual redefinition of its skin, Tomás offers new ways to understand the logic of urbanization in cities across the global South.
Comfort Azubuko-Udah is an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, cross-appointed in the Department of English and the African Studies Centre. Her work engages narrativizations of African spaces and places with ecocritical and geocritical lenses.
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