Consumption of Landed Properties in Africa

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates the impact of ethnic entombment practices on the consumption of housing market in a heterogeneous society. It illustrates the dynamics in relationships, either in inter-family interactions or exchanges between ‘the living and the dead'. This signifies an expanded traditional frontiers of stakeholders (e.g., marketers and governments) in the negotiation of consumption in the market. Particularly, the chapter analyses how circumstances of customs and belief systems impact the supply of houses and consequent deterioration of neighbourhoods (e.g., slumming). It draws on narratives gathered from in-depth interviews conducted with eleven informants/gatekeepers undertaken in a large metropolitan city in the South-West region of Nigeria. Findings reveal the interchange between culture and consumption in housing market and how the affective potentiality of a tradition initiates emotive configurations that shape a community's housing stock aesthetic exposition.