Power and Informality in Urban Africa

Laura Stark is Professor of ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She was previously the director of the exchange network Living with Informal Settlements, Tackling Urban Poverty (LIFT UP), funded by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Annika Björnsdotter Teppo is Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Dr. Teppo has previously headed the cluster for Urban Dynamics at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden. She has been granted a title of docent in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

• Chapter OneExamining Power and Informality in Urban Africa - Laura Stark & Annika TeppoPART I: Gold feverChapter TwoHybrid governance in an impermanent mining settlement in Burkina Faso - Cristiano LanzanoChapter ThreeArtisanal gold mining and rapid urbanisation in Mali - Sidylamine BagayokoPART II: Goods, services, needs: actors in the marketChapter FourMigratory youth porters and metal scrap dealers in Accra - Esther Danso-Wiredu and Adjoa AfriyieChapter FiveWomen’s neighbourhood vending as a survival strategy in Dar es Salaam - Tiina-Riitta LappiChapter Six“If only they would see us as honest workers”: Motorcycle taxi drivers’ rights to livelihood in Kampala - Caroline Wamala-LarssonChapter SevenMobile phone theft, resale and violence in Dar es Salaam - Laura StarkPART III: Urban renewal: planning versus implementationChapter EightYouth, shelter, and liminal urbanism in Addis Ababa - Susanna MyllyläChapter NineNeighborhood Open Spaces: Co-production and spatial transformation in Addis Ababa - Segen Tesfamarian, Elias Yitbarek Alemayehu and Laura StarkChapter TenFrom musseque to high-rise: Luanda’s renewal in times of abundance and crisis - Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues

This excellent edited volume continues the tradition of Zed producing work on informality in cities on the African continent. A wide variety of scholars will find much to ponder in these pages. There is a particular focus on the intersections between power inequality and informality, but across a diversity of urban contexts. The ethnographic approaches of the authors bring these diverse contexts to life.