DIY Urbanism in Africa: Politics and Practice

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Description

Across Africa, protracted economic crises and enduring class stratification have impacted a majority of the continents 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

Reviews

This lively and important new collection pushes the study of the politics of urban development in African cities in to new terrain. A must-read for students of the African city. * Claire Mercer, London School of Economics, UK *

Author Bio

Stephen Marr is Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at Malm University and Associate Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute. Marr is guest researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute and the Center for Globalization and Development at the University of Gothenburg. Patience Mususa is a Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa and holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cape Town. She has previously lectured at the University of Cape Towns department of Social Anthropology (South Africa), and at the Copperbelt Universitys School of Architecture (Zambia).