STREET LIFE UNDER A ROOF, youth homelessness in South Africa

213pp., illus., maps, paperback, Champaign, 2015

In this book Emily Margaretten draws on ten years of fieldwork to explore life at Point Place, a condemned, off the grid, five story apartment building in Durban that is home to over a hundred teenagers and young adults.

"An exemplary ethnography of post-apartheid life. Margaretten takes us to a place that few people know even exists: a self-run shelter for homeless young people in Durban. What emerges is a searing portrait of drugs, violence, and AIDS but also of compassion, loyalty, and humanity." Mark Hunter, author of "Love in a Time of AIDS: inequality, gender, and rights in South Africa"

"An important contribution to the anthropology of youth in Africa. Margaretten's rich, experience-near, ethnographic descriptions support a complex analysis of the lives of South African street youth in a context of dramatic inequality. It is nearly impossible to read 'Street Life under a Roof' without feeling a connection with the youth of Point Place and taking a deep interest in their struggles with love, family, and money." Daniel Mains, author of "Hope Is Cut: youth, unemployment, and the future in urban Ethiopia"

Emily Margaretten is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Ripon College.