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DIY Urbanism in Africa: Politics and Practice

Author/EditorMarr, Stephen (Malmoe University, Sweden (Author)
Mususa, Patience (Nordic Africa Institut (Author)
ISBN: 9781786999023
Pub Date30/11/2023
BindingPaperback
Pages256
Dimensions (mm)234(h) * 156(w)
An examination of Africa's urban resident's experimentations with living amidst crisis, to explore and understand responses to diminishing state presence and social marginalisation in distressed cities elsewhere in the world.
£21.99
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Availability: 2 In Stock
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Across Africa, protracted economic crises and enduring class stratification have impacted a majority of the continent's city-dwellers, meaning that urban residents are forced to draw on their own resources and skills, often adopting experimental approaches to sustaining access to services and livelihoods.

This 'do-it-yourself' urbanism has generally been appraised through a developmental lens, in which case studies are understood in isolation. In this book, a comparative and cross-regional approach seeks to analyze this phenomenon across the continent, and to gain an understanding of the dynamics of DIY urbanism in a range of cities where urban residents experience economic distress and marginalization.

Does DIY urbanism present a form of resistance, or merely an acquiescence, to the inequalities that make it necessary? And what prospect is there for a radical politics to come out of this grassroots organization, to make cities work better for their poorest, and most marginalised, residents?

Across Africa, protracted economic crises and enduring class stratification have impacted a majority of the continent's city-dwellers, meaning that urban residents are forced to draw on their own resources and skills, often adopting experimental approaches to sustaining access to services and livelihoods.

This 'do-it-yourself' urbanism has generally been appraised through a developmental lens, in which case studies are understood in isolation. In this book, a comparative and cross-regional approach seeks to analyze this phenomenon across the continent, and to gain an understanding of the dynamics of DIY urbanism in a range of cities where urban residents experience economic distress and marginalization.

Does DIY urbanism present a form of resistance, or merely an acquiescence, to the inequalities that make it necessary? And what prospect is there for a radical politics to come out of this grassroots organization, to make cities work better for their poorest, and most marginalised, residents?

Stephen Marr is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Political Studies at Malmoe University, Sweden. Patience Mususa is Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden. She has previously lectured at the University of Cape Town's department of Social Anthropology (South Africa), and at the Copperbelt University's School of Architecture (Zambia).

Introduction Part I: Conceptual Framing 1. DIY Urbanisms Old and New 2. DIY Urbanism in Distressed Cities in Africa 3. Reconnaissance Discourse of DIY and Urban Living in Nigeria 4. DIY Urbanism in an African Context and its Potential as a Collaborative Placemaking Tool for Bridging Africa's Urban Infrastructure Deficit Part II: Case Studies 5. Political Economy of Community-led Security Provisioning in Urban Africa 6. The Production of Urban Space through Multi-scaled Political Networks in Lagos, Nigeria 7. Historicizing Precarity and DIY Urbanism in Accra, Ghana 8. Exploring Street Informality as Design Method: Experiences from Nigerian and Ghanaian Cities 9. Self-made Urbanism Handbook: The Case of Freetown, Sierra Leone 10. Resistance or Utopia? DIY Eco-communities in Durban, South Africa 11. Disability and Urbanism in Malawi 12. DIY Urbanism in Boom and Bust: a Perspective from Africa's Copperbelt Conclusion

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