Paper short abstract:

Through the deciphering of one of the Luanda's most central musseques, Chicala, this paper serves as an introduction to the idea of informality as a coherent possibility, one deserving to be part of the city's "global" status.

Paper long abstract:

With the end of Angolan civil war, in 2002, Luanda embarked on an overwhelming course of regeneration. The country's abundant natural resources have attracted massive foreign investment which, in accordance with the abiding policy of 'progress', is irremediably transforming the city's social and spatial order. Official planning strategies have so far largely ignored the role of the musseques (informal settlements) in the city's functioning, preferring to replace them with imported, uprooted, urban models. Entire neighbourhoods are being pushed to ever more peripheral resettlement colonies, to make place for speculation-fuelled, large-scale real-estate developments.

This paper challenges the prevailing cliché, one promoting a 'neoliberal city' surrounded by 'run down shanty towns'. It proposes an alternative, more inclusive, approach to urbanity. Through the deciphering of one of the city's most central musseques, Chicala, the investigation serves as an introduction to the idea of informality as a coherent possibility, one deserving to be part of the Luanda's "global" status.

The argument is sustained by ongoing primary research, grasping each feature of Chicala's civic life as a microcosm of Luanda and the World. On the one hand, scrutiny of the residents' areas of work shows how the site functions as part of a larger urban metabolism, with over half of the local residents commuting to the city centre (working for governmental institutions or multinational companies). On the other hand, trade routes of everyday goods, from production to the local market, underline the existence of a genuine dialogue between the neighbourhood and international commercial networks.