Dirty Familiars:  Colonial Encounters in African Cities
by Stephanie Newell

Abstract:
This essay argues that the category of dirt has a long history of use in anti-cosmopolitan discourses and hate-speech in urban encounters, dating back at least to the colonial period, and that, when used to interpret the tastes and consumption practices of cultural strangers, dirt marks both a failure of interpretation and a visceral acknowledgement of that failure on the part of the beholder.

Keywords:
Dirt; imperialism; Africa; Lever Brothers; homophobia; ethnicity; urbanization.