New Book from the Nordic Africa Institute:

Hansen, Karen Tranberg and Mariken Vaa (Eds.):
Reconsidering Informalities: Perspectives from Urban Africa
ISBN 91-7106-518-0, 235 pp.,
Published by the Nordic Africa Institute, 2004
Price: SEK 250, Euro 25, GBP 16.95

Keywords: Informal economy, land use, livehoods, planning, urban housing, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

This book brings together two bodies of research on urban Africa that have tended to be separate: Studies of urban land use and housing, and studies of work and livelihoods. Africa’s future will be to an increasing extent urban. Nevertheless, the inherited legal, institutional and financial arrangements for managing urban development are inadequate. The recent decades of neo-liberal political and economic reforms have increased social inequality across urban space. Access to employment, shelter and services is precarious for most urban residents. Extra-legal housing and unregistered economic activities proliferate. Basic urban services are increasingly provided informally. The result is the phenomenal growth of the informal city and extra-legal activities. How do urban residents see these activities? What do they accomplish through them? How can these “informal” cities be governed?
The case studies are drawn from a diverse set of cities on the African continent. A central theme is how practices that from an official standpoint are illegal or extra-legal do not only work but are considered legitimate by the actors concerned. Another is how the informal city is not exclusively the domain of the poor, but also provides shelter and livelihoods for better-off segments of the urban population.

Karen Tranberg Hansen has a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology, University of Washington (Seattle), 1979. She is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Professor of Anthropology

Mariken Vaa (b. 1937) obtained her Mag. Art. degree in sociology from the university of Oslo in 1967 and has been working in institutions of higher education and research since then, primarily in Urban and Regional Studies.
From 1997- 2002 she was coordinator of the programme Cities, Governance and Civil Society in Africa at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden, and is currently professor of development studies at Oslo University College, Norway.

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Reviews
One of the most striking aspects of African cities today is the extent and scope of informality. Based on original and recent research in nine African countries, this carefully edited book takes a fresh look at the interface between the formal, legal system, and the informal, often illegal or extra-legal system that is so pervasive in the organization of people’s livelihoods, and in shelter and basic services. In fascinating detail, the authors explore such issues as the conversion of urban space from planned to unplanned, the transformation in power arrangements between men and women, and the challenges that municipalities face when the bulk of their people live in poverty. To the extent that Africa’s place in the emerging global system reproduces informality in her cities, the editors call for contextualized local research and a "continuous reconsideration" of Africa's informal urban economies. Aid agencies and national government planners take note! A very important collection.
Richard Stren, Professor of Political Science, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, Toronto, Canada

Contents
Preface

Chapter 1. Introduction
Karen Tranberg Hansen and Mariken Vaa

SECTION I: LOCALITY, PLACE, AND SPACE
Chapter 2. Sharing Public Space in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville Immigrant Fishermen and a Multinational Oil Company
Gabriel Tati

Chapter 3. The Right to Stay in Cato Crest Formality and Informality in a South African Development Project
Knut G. Nustad

Chapter 4. Who Rules the Streets? The Politics of Vending Space in Lusaka
Karen Tranberg Hansen

SECTION II: ECONOMY, WORK, AND LIVELIHOODS
Chapter 5. Trade and the Politics of Informalisation in Bissau, Guinea
Ilda Lourenço-Lindell

Chapter 6. Home Based Enterprises in a Period of Economic Restructuring in Zambia
Barbara Mwila Kazimbaya-Senkwe

Chapter 7. Home Industries and the Formal City in Harare, Zimbabwe
Amin Y. Kamete

SECTION III: LAND, HOUSING, AND PLANNING
Chapter 8. Land Use Planning and Governance in Dar es Salaam. A Case Study from Tanzania
Marco Burra

Chapter 9. Actors and Interests. The Development of an Informal Settlement in Nairobi, Kenya
Rose Gatabaki-Kamau and Sara Karirah-Gitau

Chapter 10. The Law and Access to Land for Housing in Maseru, Lesotho
Resetselemang Clement Leduka

Chapter 11. Upgrading an Informal Settlement in Cape Town, South Africa
John Abbott

Chapter 12. Beyond the Formal/Informal Dichotomy. Access to Land in Maputo, Mozambique
Paul Jenkins

Abbreviations
Glossary
Biographical Notes
Index