Identity and Lifestyle Construction in Multi-ethnic Shantytowns

Book excerpt: This dissertation examines the construction of identity and different lifestyles of the Al-Baraka shantytown community. The concepts of lifestyle and localization process are used as basic tools of analysis to develop a theoretical model that can be applied elsewhere. The localization process reveals how Al-Baraka people adopt different kinds of behaviors, institutions and activities from various origins, and re-invent them locally to be their own. The author concludes that the social identity of Sudan today is not confined to a simplistic binary opposition (Arab vs. African), but is constituted by social identities comprised of more complex sets of practiced lifestyles. (Series: Contributions to the Africa Research / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung, Vol. 64) [Subject: African Studies, Politics, Sociology]