Paper short abstract:

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data collected over a 20-year period, this paper analyses the changing nature of peripheral areas of Accra and contributes to discussions of the boundaries and varying applicability of the terms rural, peri-urban, suburban and urban.

Paper long abstract:

Peripheries of cities have long been seen as the spaces and places where the rural and urban come together and where distinguishing between the two is at its most tricky. In a sub-Saharan African context, these areas have typically been referred to as peri-urban. This term refers to the outskirts and hinterland of cities, which are hybrid transitional zones characterised by mixed rural and urban land uses and livelihoods. Recently, however, some scholars working in these areas in a range of sub-Saharan African countries have started to use the term suburban, which is defined as decentralised urban spaces with peripheral locations characterised by low population densities and relative newness. In this paper we draw on research conducted initially in 1995/6 on aspects of land, housing, livelihoods and mobility in several areas on the periphery of Accra. Follow-up research has subsequently been conducted in the same places, now spanning a 20 year period. This research has generated a unique quantitative and qualitative data set with which to explore the nature of the changes taking place in these areas materially, economically, socially, culturally and politically. In order to understand these changes, the multiple links and flows of people, goods and ideas through these areas, and how these differ over time, are examined. This analysis feeds into a conceptual discussion of the boundaries and varying applicability of the terms rural, peri-urban, suburban and urban in a sub-Saharan African context.

Paper short abstract:

I use case studies from Zanzibar and Dakar to engage with urban theory by and inspired by Henri Lefebvre. I am arguing for a non-Eurocentric re-conceptualizing of Lefebvre's ideas, built from the experiences of cities in Africa with ideas of 'the village' and 'the suburb'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper works toward a non-Eurocentric conceptualization of planetary urbanism. I engage and critique relevant urban thought from Henri Lefebvre as well as the new wave of urban theorization inspired by Lefebvre's idea of complete, planetary urbanization. I argue that urbanization in Africa, largely absent from Lefebvre's works, presents new twists to what he would have called a theory of complexification. I use case studies from Zanzibar and Dakar to examine the production of urban nature over the last two centuries and the complex positionality and representation for ideas of 'the village' and 'the suburb' in these two urban contexts. I end with reflection on the implications of these cases for any claims for universalizing the 21st century's processes of urbanization and urbanism on the planet.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on cement which materializes the “planetary urbanisation”. Tracking the cement chain from the extraction sites to the private building plots, this paper questions new forms of urbanization and the contemporary city making in the West African urban corridor from Accra to Lagos

Paper long abstract:

In a context of « planetary urbanisation » (Brenner, Schmid, 2016), this paper focuses on what constitutes the materiality of the urban process: that being, "cement". Following the material and the social lives of cement, the paper aims (1) to analyse the spatiality of the "cement chain" (extraction, production and circulation) which links rural, suburban and urban spaces; and (2) to understand the technical, political and social uses of cement in producing urban corridors (building and dwelling perspectives). Mobilising urban political ecology literature (Heynen et al. 2005; Gandy, 2002) and urban subaltern studies (Bayat 1997, Robinson 2006, Roy 2011) we pay attention both to the urban metabolism and the everyday city-dwellers practices. Along the West African urban corridor between Lagos and Accra, we follow the cement chain, tracing the pathways of cement bags, starting from the quarry to the block manufacturing stages, and ending in private building plots. Finally, the paper questions the cement supposed sustainability over time and space. It discusses the apparent consensus around cement as an element of development whereas cement production is really energy intensive.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the space of hegemonic regimes contest, opposition and citizenship dynamics in an electoral context beyond its alleged urbanity and through the example of the 2015 elections inTanzania and Zanzibar

Paper long abstract:

This paper questions and discusses the space of hegemonic regimes contest, opposition deployment and electoral citizenship beyond an alleged urbanity that restricts cities as the sole space of political alternance. The case of the 2015 elections in Tanzania and Zanzibar that unprecedently challenged the party-state hegemony and micro territorial control, provides with an interesting field of understanding by showing that some rural areas not only in Zanzibar but also in the mainland, were very much engaged, linked and connected to opposition parties dynamics. Based on a study of the electoral practices, representations and places of urban opposition actors (residents, candidates, etc.) in Zanzibar and Arusha, this paper provides an understanding on how villages and cities formed an uninterrupted space of action and exchanges during the steps of the electoral process such as voter registration, primaries elections, campaign, voting, electoral crisis, and within public places like barazas, meetings stadiums, parti office, etc.. Beside, it shows that the mobility of individuals and their connectivity through the use of smartphones and social medias like Whatsapp, is contributes to the ubiquist electoral territoriality. Further, it reveals that the space of opposition and electoral citizenship is better apprehended as a circulation space that links and connects not only villages, towns and capitals, but also the urban diaspora. Lastly, it informs on the hegemonic regimes contest in an electoral context, as a common and shared space-time articulated between localities and transnationality more or less urbanised.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how the anticipation of a satellite city project in Dar es Salaam is affecting land transactions far into the city’s peri-urban hinterland. It examines the strategies employed by residents to secure their future livelihoods through engaging with private land surveying companies.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how plans to construct a satellite city in Dar es Salaam have stimulated an economy of anticipation reaching far into the peri-urban hinterland. Specifically, it investigates how residents in the periphery of the city engage in land transactions with private surveying companies in an effort to secure their land ownership rights and optimise their future livelihoods based on their anticipation of profound changes in the coming years.

Since the government announced its intentions to construct Kigamboni New City, the scarcely populated peninsula of Kigamboni has been proposed as the future arena for economic activity. However, implementation of the New City has been marred by incessant delays due to political opposition and protests by Kigamboni residents reluctant to leave the area destined for redevelopment. Meanwhile, the urban fringes surrounding the project area are experiencing a boom in land sales. In particular, private surveying companies have saturated the hinterland. They buy land from villagers at an attractive price, and transform it into enclaves for the future middle class. In return, the villagers receive formal title deeds to smaller plots within their original land claim or capital enough to pursue life elsewhere.

Based on ethnographic research, the main argument of the paper is that the anticipation of the New City has had a ripple effect far beyond its project boundary - the case exemplifies how urban mega projects recast the understanding of centre-periphery, fundamentally changing the way people in the urban fringe envision themselves as part of the city's ongoing development.