Paper short abstract:

Using research findings from 6 different city studies this paper analyses the politics of crisis in African cities through the lens of safety and security focusing on critical themes including police brutality, informal security provision, gendered vulnerabilities and residents' practices.

Paper long abstract:

Residents of African cities, especially those living in poorer communities, face various manifestations of insecurity, lack of safety and crisis tied to differential political, economic, social and geographic factors. Where state collapse or fragility pertains, e.g. Mogadishu, violence shapes inclusion and exclusion, alongside varying responses from residents and other actors to manage insecurity. Displacement compounds (gendered) experiences of violence alongside politico-spatial exclusion. Residents’ efforts to secure livelihoods and obtain services intersects with shifting insecurities and changing political crises of leadership (Chonka, Somali Public Agenda & TANA, 2023). Political crisis is expressed through contradictory practices of informal security providers working at times in concert with often-failing state structures in politically fragile contexts. They simultaneously foster insecurity while providing critical responses to everyday experiences of violence, such as in Maiduguri (see Adzande, 2023). The reality of exceptional police brutality, which shapes and terrorises the everyday lives of residents is a further feature of political crisis. In Nairobi for example, absent political will undergirds the collapse of police reform processes, tied explicitly to their work to protect elite interests. In such contexts, the politics of crisis can be inverted through a focus on residents’ practices to support and manage violence and insecurity through reciprocity etc (Gluck and Kimari, 2023). This paper thematically explores findings from 6 expert ACRC research teams focusing on Mogadishu, Nairobi, Freetown, Lagos, Bukavu, and Maiduguri to explore the politics of crisis at different scales and within different sectors, through the lens of safety and security.