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Africa's informal workers : Collective agency, alliances and transnational organizing in urban Africa
- 2010
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Editorial collection (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous examination of the informalization and casualization of work, which is changing livelihoods in Africa and beyond.Gathering cases from nine countries and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and from a range of sectors, this volume goes beyond the usual focus on household 'coping strategies' and individual agency, addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal workers make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organized actors, providing grounds for tension but also opportunities for alliance. The collection examines attempts at organizing across the formal-informal work spheres, and explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers.Part of the ground-breaking Africa Now series, Africa's Informal Workers is a timely exploration of deep, ongoing economic, political and social transformations.
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- Axelsson, Linn, 1977-
(author)
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Making Borders : Engaging the threat of Chinese textiles in Ghana
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The borders of the twenty-first century come in many forms and are performed by an increasing number of actors in a broad variety of places, both within and beyond the territories of nation-states. This thesis sets out a detailed political geography of how borders operate to reconcile the often conflicting demands of open markets and security. Focusing on Ghana, where there is a widespread fear that the inflow of Chinese versions of African prints will lead to the collapse of the local textile industry, the study explores where and when borders are enforced, who performs them and what kinds of borders are enacted in order to maintain and protect the Ghanaian nation and market without compromising the country’s status as a liberal economy. It combines interviews and documentary sources with analysis drawn from border, security and migration studies to explore three sets of spatial strategies that have defined the Ghanaian approach to the perceived threat of Chinese African prints. They are the institution of a single corridor for African print imports, the anti-counterfeiting raids carried out in Ghana’s marketplaces, and the promotion of garments made from locally produced textiles as office wear through the National Friday Wear and Everyday Wear programmes. These strategies stretch, disperse and embody the borders of the state or nation to control trade in ways that resolve the fears of both open flows and closed borders. This thesis thus seeks to show how a geographical analysis can clarify the specificities of how borders now work to control mobility. In doing so, it not only unsettles conventional assumptions about what borders are and where they are supposed to be located, but also the idea that borders primarily are used to constrain the mobility of certain people while facilitating economic flows. Furthermore, this thesis adds to the understanding of the variety of responses to the inflow of Chinese consumer products to the African continent.
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- Borén, Thomas, Professor, 1967-, et al.
(author)
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Special issue : Urban contestations
- 2023
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In: Journal of Urban Affairs. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0735-2166 .- 1467-9906. ; 45:1, s. 1-1
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)
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- Fält, Lena, 1985-
(author)
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New urban horizons in Africa : A critical analysis of changing land uses in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- African cities increasingly aspire global recognition and this has prompted a rapid transformation of the built environment in many urban locales. This thesis provides empirical and conceptual insights into this recent trend through a critical analysis of contemporary land use changes in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. More specifically, this thesis examines the prevailing discourses on desirable urban development amongst urban planners and policy makers in this city region; how and by whom certain city visions are integrated into the built environment; how certain marginalised groups (represented by ‘informal’ street vendors and former residents of an ‘informal settlement’) respond to dominant city visions; and the socio-spatial consequences of contemporary urban interventions.The present thesis is based upon three qualitative case studies of transforming urban areas in the Greater Accra Region. The methods used include semi-structured interviews, observations and policy analysis. Theoretically, this thesis combines critical urban theory, the governmentality perspective and post-colonial urban theory to examine different aspects of the processes behind changing land uses and their consequences. The three cases are analysed in separate papers and discussed together in a comprehensive summary.The first paper analyses the logics behind a state-led demolition of a centrally located informal settlement. The paper shows that ‘conflicting rationalities’ exist between marginalised residents of informal settlements and state actors regarding their understanding of Accra’s built environment. While the demolished settlement constituted a place of affordable housing, place-specific livelihood strategies and sociability to the former residents, state authorities perceived the neighbourhood as problematic and made use of market-driven, ‘generative’ and ‘dispositional’ rationalities to justify the demolition and make space for new urban developments.The second paper explores the everyday governance of informal street trade in Osu, a rapidly transforming inner suburb of Accra. The paper highlights the important role played by individual landowners in the regulation of street trade in public space and demonstrates that street vendors, state authorities and landowners express ambiguous attitudes on the contemporary and future presence of informal trading in Accra due to prevailing aspirations of making Accra a globally recognised city.The third paper analyses the planning and materialisation of Appolonia City, a new satellite city under construction in peri-urban Accra. The paper demonstrates that far-reaching processes of privatisation in terms of land ownership, urban planning and city management are taking place through this project. Appolonia City has been enabled by state- and traditional authorities, together with the private developer, on the basis of multiple rationalities. The paper suggests that Appolonia City will become an elite development in contrast to the project’s stated goal of social sustainability.On the basis of the aggregated findings of the three case studies, this thesis concludes that a strong ‘global city’ ideal informs contemporary urban transformation in the Greater Accra Region; that the privatisation of communal land plays a key role in enabling (new types of) urban intervention; and that the needs of the urban poor are largely disregarded in these processes.
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- Ince, Anthony, et al.
(author)
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After riots : Towards a Research Agenda on the Long-term Effects of Urban Unrest
- 2023
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In: Journal of Urban Affairs. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0735-2166 .- 1467-9906. ; 45:1, s. 84-101
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Urban societies are experiencing intensified social frictions which have manifested in a growing occurrence of riots. Urban riots are often treated as ephemeral outbursts which create only short-term or immediate responses by the state or residents. However, this paper aims to move beyond such present-centrism by proposing a research agenda for studying their contextually longer-term legacies. Particular consideration is given to three thematic areas: (a) policy responses, (b) temporalities and urban memory, and (c) feelings and subjectivities. Drawing upon empirical illustrations concerning riots in London (2011) and Stockholm (2013), the paper uncovers variations within and across the two cities, such as differing state and private sector interventions; reshaping of civil society; and how residents variously resist, adapt to, and promote change. The paper thus reflects upon how riots’ afterlives in different urban contexts are constructed, mobilized and contested. Such variations point to the importance of the situated study of urban riots’ diverse legacies.
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- Jongh, Lennert, 1983-
(author)
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Governing street and market vending in Kitwe, Zambia : Shifting rationalities and vendors' individual and collective agency
- 2021
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis studies the governing of street and market vending in the Zambian city of Kitwe. Street and market vending has often been studied in relation to neoliberal urban developments. Such studies have shown how governing practices are driven by ambitions to create “world-class cities” and to attract (international) investment. This study aims to deepen the current understanding of governing street and market vending by studying (i) how multiple rationalities within government shape diverse governing practices over time, (ii) how entanglements between vendors associations and government influence the governing of street and market vending, and (iii) how vendors’ agency stretches across national and international space. The study makes use of a qualitative research methodology consisting primarily of interviews with street and market vendors, their associations’ representatives, and government. The interview material has been supplemented by observations and (online) documents, such as reports in the media.Paper I studies the governing of street vending between 2013 and 2018 in the city of Kitwe. The paper illustrates that the multiple rationalities of the national and local governments and entanglements with vendors and their associations have influenced governing practices. They have contributed to changes in governing modes over time and a variety of compromises. Paper II investigates how government’s selective enforcement of regulations has positioned market vendors and their associations in “gray spaces” between legality and illegality. Results highlight how these developments have strengthened the bonds between some associations and the ruling political party, and have sidelined other associations from market spaces. Possibilities of a more autonomous organizing of market vendors is thereby jeopardized.Paper III examines the agency of vendors by exploring how they have used associational activities as platforms to establish relationships with other vendors located in other localities. Through the use of mobile phones, these connections have become part of vendors’ everyday lives. Governing practices are also impacted by these connections as vendors’ discussions include propositions pertaining to their access to central city spaces.Taken together, the papers uncover how the governing of street and market vending is influenced by divisions within government and by complex relationships between vendors and the government. The papers also illustrate the agency of vendors and their associations, particularly the practices through which they seek to influence how they are governed and shape solidarities that stretch across space.
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- Kamete, Amin Y., et al.
(author)
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The Politics of 'Non-Planning' Interventions in African Cities : Unravelling the International and Local Dimensions in Harare and Maputo
- 2010
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In: Journal of Southern African Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0305-7070 .- 1465-3893. ; 36:4, s. 889-912
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Urban planning bases its interventionist strategies on the reasoning that change has to be rationally managed and that control is necessary in the 'public interest'. In Africa, for various bureaucratic and political reasons, urban planning has often been notoriously lax. In the face of uncontrolled urban development, many urban governments have abandoned comprehensive planning and increasingly resort to ad-hoc 'sanitising' measures of various kinds. This paper explores the forces and rationales that lie behind the intensified use of such 'non-planning' strategies. It draws on examples from Harare and Maputo, where urban authorities applied forceful measures to remove unplanned settlements and market places. In these cases the forces at work behind the scenes included the political strategies of elites seeking to maintain and strengthen political control over urban areas, rationalising and legitimising such unpopular interventions by appealing to ongoing efforts at 'city marketing' through international events, and referring to the imperative of upholding a modern city image. We discuss the tensions that arose from these decisions and the subsequent political processes among the intended 'victims', and between them and the authorities. In comparing and contrasting the cases of Harare and Maputo, we bring out the dilemmas of planning resorting to 'non-planning' and the complex politics triggered by such interventions.
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