1. Introduction: Africa's Middle Classes in Critical Perspective; Tabea Scharrer, David O'Kane and Lena Kroeker
Section 1: Rethinking Concepts of Middle Classes in Africa
2. Turning the Poor into Something More Inspiring: The Creation of the African Middle Class Controversy; Dominique Darbon
3. The Narrative of 'the African Middle Class' and its Conceptual Limitations; Dieter Neubert and Florian Stoll
4. Anthropology and Class in Africa: Challenges of the Past and Present
Section 2: The Recurring Rise and Return of Middle Classes in Africa; David O'Kane and Tabea Scharrer
5. The Ghanaian Middle Class, Social Stratification, and Long-Term Dynamics of Upward and Downward Mobility of Lawyers and Teachers; Jan Budniok and Andrea Noll
6. The Nubians of Kibera 'Revisited': Detribalized Natives, Slum Dwellers, Middle class?; Johanna Sarre
7. Saving and Serving the Nation: HIV Politics and the Emergence of New Professional Classes in Botswana; Astrid Bochow
Section 3: The Political Consequences of the Middle Classes.-8. Propertied Citizenship in a Township and Suburb in Johannesburg; Barbara Heer
9. Thinking Sierra Leone and Building a New Middle Class: Political Expression and Political Values at the University of Makeni; David O'Kane
10. African Middle Classes: Formation and Destabilizing Effects
Section 4: Formation of Social Interconnections and Interdependencies; Jason Musyoka
11. Pathways into the Middle: Rites of Passage and Emerging Middle Classes in Namibia; Julia Pauli
12. Middle Class Approaches to Social Security in Kenya; Lena Kroeker
13. Middle Classes and 'Moderate Prosperity' in Rural Madagascar; Tsiry Andrianampiarivo
14. Afterword. The (Idea of) African Middle Classes: Theorizing from Africa; Rachel Spronk.