Paper short abstract:

New large transport infrastructures materialize visions of urban modernity and set into motion a re-spatialization of informality in the city. These speculative infrastructures interact with informal practices in highly diverse ways, ranging from displacement to appropriation.

Paper long abstract:

Large-scale transport infrastructures emerging in many African cities represent attempts to materialize particular visions of urban modernity. Such projects tend to induce significant socio-spatial transformations in the city, such as the emergence of real estate developments along their paths. Less understood are the ways in which these new infrastructures set into motion a re-spatialization of informality in the city. This paper examines this encounter between speculative infrastructure and informality, to explore the complex and diverse ways in which they interact. In Maputo, Mozambique, the construction of a ring road gave rise to highly diverse dynamics in different parts of the city. In some densely informally occupied areas, it caused the displacement of vendors and residents, not only to create space for the new infrastructure but also to replace such informal spaces with new ’modern’ urban forms. Such displacements have not been uncontested and have in some cases significantly delayed the mega-project. In the periphery of the city, vendors have appropriated and re-shaped spaces on or close to the new road infrastructure. Their emerging gatherings at roundabouts, bus terminals and circulation nodes instantiate an urban development that undermines dominant visions. The paper draws upon theorizations of infrastructure as a medium and outcome of social, political and economic processes and as a mediator of everyday life, to examine how the materialities and fates of speculative transport infrastructures are shaped by the practices of highly diverse actors including citizens’ everyday informal practices, and to explore their experiences and interactions with such infrastructures.