This special issue focuses on state housing in Africa as a space of living. This topic is prompted by two factors: firstly, an empirical recognition that increasing numbers of African citizens are living in state-supported housing, particularly in urban areas; and secondly, an academic awareness that there is insufficient scholarship addressing the everyday realities of living in (as opposed to legislating or delivering) state housing. The special issue has a history in a panel session convened by the authors at the 6th European Conference on African Studies held in Paris in July 2015, and we are grateful to the conference organisers for providing the physical and intellectual space for the ideas presented in this special issue to emerge.