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- Convenors:
-
Martin Murray
(University of Michigan)
Cecil Madell (University of Cape Town)
Send message to Convenors
- Chairs:
-
Martin Murray
(University of Michigan)
Cecil Madell (University of Cape Town)
- Discussant:
-
Martin Murray
(University of Michigan)
- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Urban Studies (x) Inequality (y)
- Location:
- Philosophikum, S68
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
The expansion of informal settlements have posed serious challenges for urban planners in Africa. This session features scholars with planning and research expertise who will share their experiences about overcoming the challenges to making improvements for those living in informal settlements.
Long Abstract:
As size and scope of informal settlements in urban Africa have proliferated, urban planners have faced a cascading range of challenges that hinder their efforts to bring improvements to the lives of those who get by without proper infrastructure, good governance, and sanitary accommodation. For urban planners, how to upgrade informal settlements, squatter encampments, and other irregular settlement typologies constitutes a genuine "wicked problem." As Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber argued a long time ago, "wicked problems" by their very nature undermine the possibility of a workable solution by conventional common-sense approaches, as the apparent "solutions" might expose yet other complex problems. Informal settlements represent complex social systems that consist of not only various types of housing accommodation but also modes of livelihood. Informal settlements consist of a full range of seemingly insurmountable problems: limited opportunities for income generation, insufficient or nonexistent infrastructure, unhealthy conditions, environment risks, and clouded property relations. Transforming informal settlements for the better involves complex interventions into evolving power dynamics that are not always visible on the surface. Improving the lives of those who live in informal settlements depends on planners and city officials who are innovative problem-solvers and willing to collaborate with all stakeholders involved in the planning process, including members of informal settlement communities. Rather than relying on "one-size-fits-all" solutions, planners need to depend upon local knowledge, listen to the residents of informal settlements and garner their trust in order to produce tangible results.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 June, 2023, -Fana Sihlongonyane (University of the Witwatersrand)
Paper short abstract:
Many cities in the continent are growing rapidly through informal activities. The paper seeks to look at stigmatisation of people involved in informality historically and how a de-stigmatisation can open more prospects for affirmative development for people involved in informal activity.
Paper long abstract:
Many cities in the continent are growing rapidly through informal activities. The International Labour Organization estimates that more than 66% of total employment in Sub-Saharan African is in the informal sector. Women’s labour force participation rates in African countries are some of the highest. With a pervasive informal sector, peri-urbanisation and street congestion have become significant processes of urban development in the continent. Consequently, informality is a sore thorn in the urban realm of most cities. One of the major challenges for informality is the stigmatisation of its image. According to Erving Goffman, stigma is a special kind of relationship between attribute and stereotype and it is the process by which the reaction of others spoil normal identity. Stigma theories explain the exclusion of stigmatised persons from normal social interaction in terms of social reaction theory (also known as labelling theory). This paper will focus on Edwin Lemert and Howard Becker’s theoretical concept of labelling. By examining how the labelling theory is applied to chronic illness and deviance, the reader will understand how people involved in informal activities are stigmatised as socially and morally unacceptable and henceforth get displaced and marginalised. The paper seeks to look at stigmatisation of people involved in informality historically and how a de-stigmatisation can open more prospects for affirmative development for people involved in informal activity.
Nana-Yaw Andoh (University of Michigan)
Paper short abstract:
Current policies regarding urban informality tends to focus on providing affordable housing. However, my research shows that residents of informal settlements are heavily dependent on social networks. Therefore, the successful incorporation of social networks in policies must be closely examined.
Paper long abstract:
Much of the scholarly literature and journalistic discourse around urban informality reduces its complexity to the singular theme of a lack of affordable housing. As a result, current policies focus on providing “affordable housing” including upgrading and new development initiatives as the solution to mitigating the proliferation of informal settlements. These policy approaches ignore the fact that while informal settlements begin as a consequence of a lack of affordable housing options for the urban poor, the end result of their spatial organization is often driven by the dependence of its residents on their social networks. Therefore, the act of viewing informal settlements through the reductionist lens of a lack of affordable housing produces policies that ignores, and erases, the established culture of a place. The purpose of this paper is to argue what slums, informal settlements, and squatter encampments offer its residents besides the basic needs of shelter. This paper explores the importance of social networks – political, livelihood, familial, and friendship networks – and its impact on the built environment of informal settlements. By recognizing the importance of social networks and how these relationships shape the built environment of informal settlements, better policies can be crafted using networks as a critical criterion. Policies based on social networks will ease the transition of informal settlement residents into new housing and improved living conditions, and create sustainable projects, thus increasing the likelihood of mitigating the proliferation of informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa.
Cecil Madell (University of Cape Town)
Paper short abstract:
For many poor urban dwellers in Africa, the only way to survive informally is through accessing unsecured shelter. The state views informal land and building occupation as illegal and undesirable and an approach embedded in organic incrementalism is advocated as a more appropriate response.
Paper long abstract:
In cities and towns such as those in Africa, poor urban dwellers are structurally unemployed, are dependent on the state’s social welfare grants to survive, face a myriad of challenges and are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation. For many, the only option is to find ways to survive informally is to access unsecured shelter and rudimentary utility services. The state views informal land and building occupation as undesirable and an interim arrangement that requires formalisation and improvement, even though the state is completely overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge and has scant capacity to deliver formal housing and services. It is argued that the interventions pursued by the state are at disjuncture with shelter activities and ‘strategies’ households engage in to mobilise and leveraged resources and how they survive daily. This paper seeks to uncover more appropriate responses the state should consider, emanating from theory and practice over the last three decades in Africa. There is a need to better understand settlement informality and the daily reality of survival of impoverished urban dwellers and an approach embedded in organic incrementalism is advocated.