Short Abstract

We invite submissions that centre the stories and experiences of those who make the African city through their everyday activities and interactions. We focus on what they do, but also their perspectives, imaginaries, motivations and aspirations; these are the prisms from which cities are made.

Long Abstract

This panel invites submissions that centre the stories and experiences of those who make the African city. Rather than a focus on the grand plans or visions of city making that have generated scholarship on for example Eko Atlantic in Nigeria, Tatu City in Kenya, and Akon City in Senegal, we build on studies of African cities that highlight their fragmented and speculative character.

We propose that African city-making emerges from intersections between the numerous actors who imagine and create the social, political, economic, physical and ecological infrastructures of the city. We thus invite papers that focus on the sites that the majority of African urban residents inhabit; the individuals and collectives who organise, build and provide dwellings and urban landscapes or services such as water and sanitation; the entrepreneurs who make and organise land markets and trading places, recreational activities and transportation; and the political actors who seek to order the multiple, heterogeneous urban experiences. We seek papers that centre what they do, but also their perspectives, imaginaries, motivations and aspirations; these are the prisms from which cities are made.

The papers can follow the conventional form of scientific narrative, for example extended cases or biographies, or adopt a multimodal style of representation. They can draw from historical or ethnographic accounts, literature, film and popular culture; and from varying disciplinary perspectives, for example, anthropology, architecture, political science, history, and archaeology.

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