Abstract As one of the primary personal sites of financial investment, expression and public performance, housing has stood at the centre of contemporary studies of class in Africa. This article adds to the existing literature on housing and class by exploring residents’ desires for formal housing in post-conflict Luanda, Angola. Luanda's residents increasingly believed that access to formal housing, not necessarily always legally but rather aesthetically defined, was a primary means of affirming middle-class status. By highlighting the links between class, urban formality and the state, the article argues that formal housing became a means for both the state and Luandans to produce middle-classness. Existing beliefs about comportment and urban aesthetics, which anchored subjective understandings of class in the house, intersected with a political economy in which the state played a central role in enabling access to new residences. As such, formality has become a key means through which middle-classness is transforming urban landscapes, opening up discussions about aesthetic belonging, financial stability and the role of the state in the making of Africa's middle classes.

中文翻译：

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住房中产阶级：罗安达的形式和区分

摘要 作为金融投资、表达和公共表演的主要个人场所之一，住房一直是非洲当代阶级研究的中心。本文通过探讨冲突后安哥拉罗安达居民对正式住房的渴望，对现有的住房和阶级文献进行了补充。罗安达的居民越来越相信，获得正式住房（不一定总是合法的，而是具有美学定义的）是确认中产阶级地位的主要手段。通过强调阶级、城市形式和国家之间的联系，本文认为正式住房成为国家和罗安达产生中产阶级的一种手段。现有的关于举止和城市美学的信念，锚定了对房子阶级的主观理解，与政治经济相交叉，在这种经济中，国家在获得新住宅方面发挥着核心作用。因此，形式已成为中产阶级改变城市景观的关键手段，开启了关于审美归属感、金融稳定和国家在非洲中产阶级形成中的作用的讨论。