Paper short abstract:

This proposal aims at showing the diversity of the builders’ profiles in Khartum, through the lens of their building materials use. By describing their different strategies, it will shed light on the daily material making of the Sudanese capital city.

Paper long abstract:

Khartum has known a construction boom in the 2000s and 2010s, mainly linked to the exploitation of petrol resources, but also to the attraction of foreign investments, especially from the Gulf countries. However, the vertical and horizontal growth of the city results from the action of a wide diversity of actors.

By this proposal, I would like to question the rationales and strategies of the different builders – from the individual building his own house to the architect working for big investors – through their building materials choices (traditional red brick, industrial brick or cement block). These choices depend on several factors (price, technical characteristics, habit, subjective representations) and highlight the way these builders picture themselves in the city.

I would argue that these different case studies (according to the localisation, the type of building…), provide a precise insight in the daily making of Khartum. For instance, the debates on the building materials seem to be a relevant entry point to study the relationship between the clients and the architects or the contractors. What are their priorities? What are the « good » building practices according to them?

This proposal relies on a fieldwork of several months led in Khartoum between February 2020 and May 2022. I led a multisited ethnography of construction and of building materials production, marketing and use in the Sudanese capital city, by directing around a hundred interviews with actors at every step of the red brick supply chain (workers, producers, drivers, suppliers, architects, inhabitants, contractors…).