Everyday Cosmopolitanism in African Cities: Places of Leisure and Consumption in Antananarivo and Maputo Du cosmopolitisme quotidien dans les villes d'Afrique. Lieux de loisirs et de consommation à Antananarivo et Maputo. En Fr

Résumé En

Too often, African cities are not considered fully part of the world, treated as “off the map” or as underdeveloped peripheries not contributing to cultural globalisation. But African cities host many foreigners from all over the world, especially since the 1990s, including Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Brazilians, Europeans, and of course, people from other African countries. The numerous migrants from countries of the global South are a new phenomenon and are be the focus of this paper, approached from the perspective of urban society as a whole. This is a major issue among the rapid changes experienced in urban African societies, but it has received little academic attention until now as far as everyday life and ordinary places are concerned. The paper deals with the issue of a neighbouring cosmopolitanism at the very local place.The paper focuses on the spatial practices of these people from abroad: where and how they live in the studied cities, what they do there, and above all, where they go to socialize: local places of sociability where there may or may not be cosmopolitan interactions as well as newly created, so-called “ethnic” places such as restaurants, casinos and other leisure settings. It explores the social and cultural interaction processes in such places, wherein locals and foreigners develop interactions and create new practices and representations from abroad. Locals in particular develop new forms of exoticism that are turned to many parts of the world, not only toward Western references. Residents of African cities are as cosmopolitan as urbanites elsewhere in the world, especially as much as Westerners, who do not have a monopoly over cosmopolitanism as an attribute.Ethnographic methods were used to research these cosmopolitan practices and representations in Antananarivo (Madagascar) and Maputo (Mozambique), mainly through observation and interviews of foreign residents and locals interacting with them.