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Researching the Cultural Politics of Dirt in Urban Africa

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Abstract

This chapter reflects on the intellectual, ethical, and methodological challenges of a project on “The Cultural Politics of Dirt in Africa, 1880–present,” involving teams of researchers in Nairobi and Lagos. In addition to the challenges of translating interviews into English and ensuring continuity of fieldwork methods between Lagos and Nairobi, the possibilities and risks of a century-long cultural history are discussed, as well as the potentialities of cross-continental, comparative approaches in cultural history projects of this type.

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Newell, S. (2016). Researching the Cultural Politics of Dirt in Urban Africa. In: Puri, S., Castillo, D. (eds) Theorizing Fieldwork in the Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-92834-7_11

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