Paper short abstract:

In this paper I will analyze the lived experiences of Abidjan’s inhabitants who have to cope with destruction and displacement with regard to large-scale infrastructure projects, and the struggle for recognition and visibility related to the politics of infrastructure in Abidjan.

Paper long abstract:

For many inhabitants of North-Abidjan, large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Fourth Bridge construction project and the metro construction project are in the first instance experienced through destruction and displacement, while the developmental promise of infrastructure and “émergence” associated with these projects remains out of reach for many. In my PhD research I analyze how residents inhabit the spaces and times in between destruction and development, and propose to look at eviction as a socially navigated process and struggle in which residents have to cope with multiple socio-infrastructural, affective and temporal displacements over many years. In this paper I will draw on seventeen months of multi-sited fieldwork from 2019 to 2022 in different neighborhoods of North-Abidjan that were evicted or partly destroyed for large-scale infrastructure projects such as Boribana (Attécoubé), Quartier Mairie (Adjamé) and Mossikro (Yopougon). I will focus specifically on the lived experiences, temporalities and practices of inhabitants in these impacted neighborhoods as they attempt to cope with the precarities, displacements and tensions that come with living in between destruction and development. Additionally, I engage with the work of long-time collaborator Sekou Sylla, the president of a local NGO who defends the rights of Abidjan’s precarious and displaced populations and who was also recently evicted from his home in Mossikro to make way for the Fourth Bridge. Thus I also wish to draw attention more generally to the negotiations, aspirations and struggle for recognition and visibility that underlie the micro-politics of infrastructure and displacement in Abidjan.