Blog
Martina Barker-Ciganikova
Residents’ wishes – How much do we know?
When researching a colonial housing scheme, one of the main challenges I encountered was to locate in archival records the voices of the house owners, the actual dwellers and inhabitants ... read more!
Daniela Waldburger and Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
I have a story on that ...
In this blog-post, we will share - as announced in our last posting on getting access to the field - some few insights in selected personalized stories we made during our interviews ...read more.
Daniela Waldburger and Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
Accessing the field
Debates on how to do field research have been held for as long as there is field research. Entering and accessing one’s own research site, however, is always a new experience ... read more.
Kirsten Rüther
Sending Signals: Houses in the Lives and Biographies of a Zambian Alderman, a President’s Spouse, an African Clerk and Many Others
Let’s admit it right away: Many of the texts I am going to talk about are not a great pleasure to read. I am talking of personal narratives, autobiographies and popular biographies, ... read more.
Martina Barker-Ciganikova
Archival encounters
Halftime in our project, one year after our opening workshop and with a number of research stays behind us, piles of excerpted and even higher piles of unprocessed data lying on our work desks we felt a certain urge to exchange our experiences on our archival encountersand approaches in some depth. ... read more.
Daniela Waldburger
Cardboard
Let’s call her Maman Aimée. She is in her 50ies and l was going to meet her for the second time this August. I had interviewed her for the first time last year. Maman Aimée grew up in this neighbourhood of Lubumbashi...read more.
Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
A House to be … in Ngwenya
Ever since my main informant Jonathan and I have started working together, housing has not only been the topic of my research from a mainly historical perspective, but it was following us on our paths through Livingstone through personal conversations as well ... read more.
Kirsten Rüther
Blessing the House in the Hot Harmattan Breeze
Tuba, part of Accra right on the western fringes of the city, is located perhaps some 30 km from the centre, where Accra is merging quickly with former villages. Up until more recently – popular memory does not remember exactly – the land used to belong to chiefs ... read more.
Daniela Waldurger
"Votre page madame" - cleaning in style in Elisabethville
After its foundation in 1906, one of the most important players of interest in the mining sector in Katanga was the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK). Especially after in the 1930s the International Labour Organization (ILO) lobby put pressure on the UMHK to abandon forced work, the UMHK had to search for ...read more.
Martina Barker-Ciganikova
“Where is Vasey?” In search of a colonial housing scheme
Digging through the Kenya National Archives files on colonial housing in Thika, my primary focus soon became the Vasey Housing Scheme. While, in general, the housing shortage in Kenya was described as “acute” in 1945, by 1949 the responsible officials even talked of a “state of emergency” having a “serious...read more.
Kirsten Rüther
Down, Down, Down from (Roof)-Top to Ground – Travel Notes about Houses and Housing in Mozambique
We were descending. Participating in a student excursion to South Africa and Mozambique we had finished the “South African part” of the programme, for which I had been largely responsible. I was sitting in the back of the coach. Feeling relaxed...read more.
Martina Barker-Ciganikova
What cue the British National Archives in Kew gives about housing in Africa
That housing in the colonies was an important topic for the British Colonial Office (CO) is evidenced by the amount and the detail of the records available in the National Archives situated in Kew...read more.
Carl-Philipp Bodenstein
From the archives into the field - Thoughts on oscillating between different sources of knowledge
The National Archives of Zambia situated in the government district in Lusaka right next to the Ministry of Home Affairs are proudly subtitled as "The Memory of the Nation". The first time I saw this label...read more.
Martina Barker-Ciganikova
Some reflections on 'Studying housing in interdisciplinary perspective'
When compiling the list of workshop participants many months before our November workshop entitled “Studying Housing in Interdisciplinary Perspective”, I would not have guessed...read more.
