Rise of Africa's Middle Class

Henning Melber, a political scientist and sociologist, is the van Zyl Slabbert visiting professor for sociology and political sciences at the University of Cape Town. He is senior advisor at the Nordic Africa Institute and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, having previously held directorships in both institutions. He is also extraordinary professor at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Pretoria and the Centre for Africa Studies at the University of the Free State, as well as a senior research fellow at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. From 1992 to 2000, he was director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU).Melber has been co-editor of the Africa Yearbook since its first publication in 2005, is managing co-editor of Africa Spectrum and editor-in-chief of the Strategic Review for Southern Africa. His latest publications include (as co-editor) Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency (2014) and (as author) Understanding Namibia (2015) and A Decade of Namibia (2016).

This is a much-needed addition to the literature on the political mobilization of the middle class … the empirically rich insights into diverse middle-class phenomena highlight the conceptual challenge of the middle-class label.

• ‘Somewhere above Poor but below Rich’: Explorations into the Species of the African Middle Class(es) - Henning Melber1. African Middle Classes: Lessons from Transnational Studies and a Research Agenda - Carola Lentz2. Human Development and the Construction of Middle Classes in the Global South - Tim Stoffel3. Africa’s Middle Class, Africa’s Entrepreneurs and the 'Missing Middle' - Oluyele Akinkugbe and Karl Wohlmuth4. Deconstructing the Myth of the African Middle Class - Sirkku K. Hellsten5. Kenya – An Unconscious Middle Class? Between Regional-Ethnic Political Mobilisation and Middle Class Lifestyles - Dieter Neubert6. Middle Class Activism in Nigeria: From Nationalist Struggle to Social Media Campaign - Nkwachukwu Orji7. Emerging Middle Class Political Subjectivities in Post-war Angola - Jon Schubert8. The Middle Class of Mozambique and the Politics of the Blank Slate - Jason Sumich9. South Africa’s Black Middle Class Professionals - Amuzweni L. Ngoma10. The Middle Class of Dar es Salaam and Kiswahili Video-Films - Vicensia ShuleConclusion: How Much Class Have the African Middle Classes? - Henning Melber