SESSION 9

TRANSFORMING AFRICAN CITY-MAKING THROUGH AN ETHICS OF CO-PRODUCTION

Many African regimes can be described as highly centralized or even autocratic but that says little about the internal workings of local urban authorities or the ways in which decisions regarding urban development are made or contested. Although the Arab Spring of 2011 boosted a literature on popular politics and bottom-up resistance, the link between associational movements, urban practitioners and local authorities is rarely explored, let alone the influence of a broader developmentalist ethos onto the political imagination coming from the street.

How are urban visions practiced and shaped in everyday life and how can critical interrogations of the imagination of urban futures in and for Africa inform more transformative ways of city-making?

This panel invites contributions that reflect on the (potential of) an alternative praxis of city-making in more collaborative and inclusive ways. Such transdisciplinary research may include a variety of experimental research tools, methods and partnerships such as: the use of audio-visual tools, research with or “embedded” in organizations such as local authorities, civic associations, development agencies or community-based organizations, or those that combine in otherwise unconventional ways the use of diverse urban research approaches and disciplines.