African cities in conversation: who are we listening and talking to?

The “where” of urban geography as a discipline, and Urban Geography as a journal, has changed significantly over the last 40 years. Here, we take a quantitative and qualitative look at this history. We find, unsurprisingly, some articles about African cities in the journal before 2010, and a notable and ongoing uptick since. Drawing on debates over how southern cities ought to be studied, we identify different framings and lines of argumentation. Some authors frame their case in reference to theories derived primarily from global northern cities, while others focus their literature review on regional scholarship. Some push against, and some seek to advance, universal understandings of what a city is, and ought to be. We reflect on positive changes as well as where we collectively might head as the field and journal continue working to make sense of how to theorize, and where to theorize from.