Introduction: Jorge Figueira [to be confirmed] (DARQ e CES)


Abstract

This talk draws on long term research on urban physical development in Sub-Saharan Africa, and draws on engagement by the author with urban issues in Mozambique, and Maputo in particular.  It argues for an approach to urban land rights, management and planning that is based on understanding of both a) the realpolitik of urban land in the region as well as b) the mental models and organizational practices of so-called ‘informal’ land access mechanisms.

Professor Jenkins argues that urban land in Sub-Saharan Africa has been used primarily for elite group benefit from the pre-colonial period all through the colonial period, with different forms of control of access. Many of these, however have been based on, or have included, forms of social redistribution, to underpin elite hegemony. In the post-colonial period controls of access to urban land were relaxed in practice although many ruling elites established an anti-urban bias in development, which is arguably just a different form of the same approach. In recent years mechanisms to control urban land access are currently being re-instated, which the chapter argues primarily benefit elite groups. This is related to the interests of international capital as well as changing class structure. Will these new developments mean a radical change in approach to urban land access, or is it just a transition period to another manifestation of negotiated power balance?

The argument is that the dominant normative analysis that underpins development approaches to urban physical and economic development need to recognise factors such as the above in dealing with the contextual specificities of urban areas and their predominant realpolitik. However it is also based on dissatisfaction with a separate largely descriptive critical literature based on cultural studies, but that is not based on empirical investigation. In this Prof Jenkins advocates for an investigative approach that is firmly based on the parameters of contextual analysis as well as understanding ‘perceptions of the possible’. This approach, instead of investigating why African urban areas do not conform to essentially Northern norms, or indigenous rural ‘traditions’, investigates how African urban dwellers continue to produce and adapt urban forms within their socio-cultural and political economic realities - and discusses how this might be realistically enhanced within specific and general contexts.
 

Bio

Paul Jenkins is an architect, planner and social researcher who has worked on a wide range of aspects in the built environment: architecture, construction, housing, planning and urban studies. This has included professional practice, policy-making, teaching/training and research - and has been with a variety of private sector, non-governmental, local & central government, international aid and community-based organisations, as well as academic institutions.

More than half of his four decade career has been based in Central and Southern Africa (Malawi, Botswana, South Africa, Angola and especially Mozambique). Most recently he was Professor for Architecture Research at the Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture (University of Edinburgh) and Professor of Human Settlements at the School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo; the University of Sao Paulo; as well as the School of Architecture & Planning at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits). He took over as Head of School of Architecture & Planning at Wits in September 2013.

Paul has published widely on Sub-Saharan African urban issues, with many academic journal papers as well as a series of more globally focused books, including; “Urban development and civil society: the role of communities in sustainable cities”, Earthscan (2001); “Place identity, participation and planning”, Routledge (2004); “Housing and Planning in the Rapidly Urbanising World”, Routledge (2006); “Architecture, Participation and Society”, Routledge (2010); and most recently “Urbanization, Urbanism and Urbanity: home spaces and house cultures”, Palgrave MacMillan: Africa Connects (2013). The latter book examines Maputo as an in-depth case study of the ‘urban’ in Sub-Saharan Africa through an international, multi-disciplinary research programme which he initiated, entitled Home space in the African city (2009-12).

His current research focuses on the nature of knowledge and the role of socio-cultural values in architecture and urban development, challenging dominant conceptions of the “modern”. He is working on two new books, one which again draws on the Home Space research – this time focusing on ‘popular architecture’ (provisionally entitled “Modernization, Modernism and Modernity in an African City”); and one for Routledge: “Order and disorder in urban space and form”, drawing on historic and contemporary approaches to urbanism and urbanization, as implemented in Brazil. He is also implementing a research-through-design project in peri-urban Maputo.
Paul continues to work closely with colleagues in the Faculty of Architecture & Physical Planning in Maputo – the most recent joint project being an initial study of the architecture of recent middle class housing. This collaborative work will go forward in 2014-15 with a (South African funded) post-doctoral project examining the impact of the expanding middle class on the city, and another (Canadian funded) post-doctoral project examining how architecture education can influence ‘popular architecture’.
 

Activity with the project “Urban Aspirations in Colonial/Postcolonial Mozambique: Governing the Unequal Division of Cities”