{"id":36360,"date":"2011-08-04T10:59:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T15:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=36360"},"modified":"2013-11-09T06:16:50","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T11:16:50","slug":"erasing-the-city-of-nairobi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/08\/04\/erasing-the-city-of-nairobi\/","title":{"rendered":"Erasing the City of Nairobi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Scientopia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sadie M. sent in an example of the reproduction of the idea that “Africa” is an arid, desolate place where nature still dominates civilization. \u00a0The snapshot Sadie sent in was of Nairobi. \u00a0Nairobi is the 12th largest city on the continent of Africa with a population of over 3 million in the city and its surrounding suburbs. \u00a0It is the capital of Kenya and an economic, political, and financial hub in the region.<\/p>\n

This is Nairobi on Google maps<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what comes up if you Google image Nairobi<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nairobi is also not a desert plain. \u00a0The name, in Maasai, translates into\u00a0“the place of cool waters” and it is popularly known as “Green City in the Sun” (wikipedia<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Despite all of this, Sadie’s snapshot shows that an in flight magazine depicted Nairobi as a savanna full of elephants and bereft of people. \u00a0The other two destinations featured —\u00a0New York and Sydney — are pictured as they are.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So there we have it: Another piece of advertising erasing the bustling, successful economies of Africa, and instead reproducing the idea that the entire continent is an uncivilized desert full of exotic animals.<\/p>\n

See also: How Not to Write about Africa<\/a> and The Single Story of “Africa.”<\/a><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Scientopia. Sadie M. sent in an example of the reproduction of the idea that “Africa” is an arid, desolate place where nature still dominates civilization. \u00a0The snapshot Sadie sent in was of Nairobi. \u00a0Nairobi is the 12th largest city on the continent of Africa with a population of over 3 million in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,701,1787,341],"class_list":["post-36360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economics","tag-modernprimitive","tag-nation-kenya","tag-ruralurban"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36360"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58748,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36360\/revisions\/58748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}