Paper short abstract:

This paper explore how ‘hidden towns’ in conflict settings (Minova and Rubaya in the Democratic republic of Congo) are both political arenas in their own right and constitute vital nodes in much broader political-economic networks that reach far beyond the geographical confines of eastern DRC.

Paper long abstract:

This article seeks to provide a clearer empirical and conceptual understanding of the profoundly political character of rapid urbanization in Central Africa. Here, the paper focuses on two ‘hidden (secondary) towns’ in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo – Rubaya and Minova – that have recently emerged as unplanned urban settlements in the Congolese rural hinterlands as an outcome of the country’s rural-urban reconfigurations in a context of mineral exploitation, war, and forced displacement. These ‘booming’ cities have no official administrative status, and are at the centre of fierce competition over resources, people and control. Based on collaborative ethnographic fieldwork in both cities and the provincial capital-cities they are formally attached to, we study the political dimensions of urbanity from an interdisciplinary and bottom-up perspective. More specifically, we argue that these ‘hidden towns’ are both political arenas in their own right and constitute vital nodes in much broader political-economic networks that reach far beyond the geographical confines of eastern DRC.