Brandon M Finn | University of Michigan (original) (raw)

Papers by Brandon M Finn

Energy Research and Social Science, 2024

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is the primary livelihood for an estimated 40 million peop... more Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is the primary livelihood for an estimated 40 million people in 80 countries and supports an additional 130 to 270 million people in mining communities. With the emergence of critical minerals necessary for decarbonization efforts, ASM has emerged as a crucial form of production to help meet global demand. Despite its importance, ASM miners and communities are routinely ostracized and pathologized. Rather than the cause of social deprivation, this article argues that ASM reflects broader social, political, and historical inequalities. We contend with four main arguments against ASM before elaborating on three reasons that ASM ought to be responsibly supported. These reasons are ASM's ability to enable economic redistribution, meet increased global demand for critical minerals, and advance social justice. Inclusive regulation and governance rather than exclusion and plausible deniability constitute the pathway to addressing attendant social and environmental challenges associated with ASM practices. This paper identifies pathways to inclusive regulation of ASM and proposes avenues for future research and interventions. Ultimately, ASM must be understood as a central social justice issue of our time, especially in the context of global decarbonization efforts.

Cities, 2025

Lubumbashi is the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) southernmost province of Ha... more Lubumbashi is the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) southernmost province of Haut-Katanga, 1 and it lies at the crossroads of global decarbonization and neocolonialism. Drawing on our research in the Copperbelt region of the DRC, we present an analysis that serves to unsettle urban theory by placing Lubumbashi at the center of historical geopolitical events over the 20th and 21st centuries. The city's centrality to geopolitics remains today, as Lubumbashi is the headquarters for major mining companies extracting copper and cobaltminerals essential to decarbonization. We tie Lubumbashi's historical urban development to the region's immense natural resources and extractive potential. We show that the human rights abuses associated with contemporary cobalt mining, such as child labor, social displacement, and structural marginalization, are new forms of old colonial practices. We aim to encourage an expansive critical imagination in urban planning and geography that invites theorizing the history and global significance of understudied African cities,which are central to but often silent within analyses of global capitalism.

Cities, 2024

Informal settlements in African cities are faced with a combination of severe economic, infrastru... more Informal settlements in African cities are faced with a combination of severe economic, infrastructural, and health-related challenges, which we hypothesize are linked to historical urban planning processes. During the early 20th century, British colonial spatial policies in Anglophone Africa used disease management as a spatial planning tool to promote urban marginality and reinforce spatial and racial segregation. This paper interrogates the relationships between historical urban spatial policies and contemporary infectious disease risk in African cities. We expand on the recently developed term 'pandemic urbanization' to ask how: a) unequal colonial urban planning policies in Freetown, Accra, and Nairobi exposed their residents to illness and infectious disease, and assess if b) infectious disease outcomes have historically been used to 'justify' residential segregation, particularly on racialized lines. Using a critical literature review, our analysis shows that urban planning's capacity to manage health crises in African cities remains inadequate, particularly in informal settlements. This paper provides important insights into how such neglect has created 'pandemic urbanization' across the continent's major cities and argues that urban planning works in tandem with public health crises-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-to spatially produce urban marginality. We argue for a refocusing of urban planning on the central livelihood and survival issues confronting African cities to address pandemic urbanization and move beyond colonial imprints in contemporary planning practice and theory.

Habitat International, 2024

Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare, faces severe infrastructural challenges. The city is presented w... more Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare, faces severe infrastructural challenges. The city is presented with major constraints in its ability to adequately provide services for its growing population while losing essential streams of revenue required for infrastructural maintenance and development. This occurs in the context of the decentralization from the Zimbabwean national government to its cities. Cities like Harare are tasked with mandates to govern but are not provided the adequate financial means nor support to sustain their population or aging infrastructure. In this paper, we study this issue by conducting a broad literature review on decentralization and unfunded urban mandates, before narrowing our focus to decentralization and urban governance in sub-Saharan Africa. We then interrogate Harare as a case study, drawing on two rounds of interviews in 2015 and 2022 to identify key aspects of Harare's infrastructure crisis, which we tie to its unfunded mandates. We conducted 51 semi-structured expert interviews, and 4 extensive focus groups with a total of 32 people in order to revisit key themes that were prevalent during the first round of interviews. This was complemented by a review and analysis of national and city budgets and other relevant reports to demonstrate trends on revenue generation, capital expenditure and dynamics around intergovernmental fiscal transfers (IGFTs). We offer novel insights into Harare's infrastructure crisis, while also raising several urban financing and decentralization themes that are applicable from a global perspective.

Journal of Planning Literature, 2024

Africa is predicted to be the fastest urbanizing continent over the next century, with its primar... more Africa is predicted to be the fastest urbanizing continent over the next century, with its primary and secondary cities expected to experience rapid growth. On the continent, over 70 percent of daily trips are made by walking. Yet, pedestrian-friendly city spaces remain underexplored in research on Africa as city planning regimes continue a long-established trend of prioritizing vehicular mobility. In response to this knowledge gap, and with the recent increased scholarly focus on spatial justice in African cities, we argue that it is essential to prioritize pedestrian accessibility within them. In this paper, we highlight vulnerable urban populations who are impacted by exclusive urban planning design and policies by focusing on children, women working in informal economies, and older adults. We conduct a critical literature review of the history and patterns of urban (spatial) planning on the continent, as well as mobility and transport infrastructure in African cities. We then outline a forward-looking section that assesses effective urban planning proposals relating to mobility and African urban development, as we consider how urban interventions can be applied to address the needs of vulnerable urban populations. Finally, we link the theoretical and applied components of the paper to scholarly discussions of spatial justice and articulate the progressive possibilities of African urban futures as central to future city development. We conclude with research directions on pedestrian accessibility and spatial justice in African urban planning agenda.

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2024

As a term, the 'structure of informality' aims to elucidate how informality is produced, and why ... more As a term, the 'structure of informality' aims to elucidate how informality is produced, and why it persists. I argue that informality is engendered through the informal/formal dialectic, which constitutes a multiscalar process that creates global inequalities across time and space. We can better understand informality by studying colonial socio-spatial inequalities created through urbanization. Taking seriously the arguments put forward by Cobbinah and Olajide, I argue that the structure of informality must also be applied to understand contemporary neocolonial practices in relation to sustainable development. These practices include the use and misuse of informality in relation to three topics: (1) as a mode of generating and sustaining socio-spatial and economic inequalities; (2) the nascent and undertheorized relationship between informality and climate change; and (3) the importance of understanding and theorizing global informality at the heart of sustainable development to influence policy and practice. These topics have grown in salience because of the global push towards decarbonization, and despite informality being a dominant mode of economic, spatial, and political life in most of the world. Informality lies at the heart of sustainable development, thus making it essential to re-energize debates on its structures, forms, and driving forces.

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2023

The study of urban informality has exploded since Keith Hart theorized the term the 'informal sec... more The study of urban informality has exploded since Keith Hart theorized the term the 'informal sector.' This explosion has coincided with a growing interest among urban scholars who train their eyes toward the 'Global South.' Informality is used as shorthand for any number of urban experiences and realities ranging from the economy to governance, housing, the state, agency, political resistance, the urban form, and poverty. Much scholarship carefully illustrates different versions and modes of 'informality,' while equating the term's first use with the provenance of the practice itself. Despite the global heterogeneity of informality, its instantiation can be traced further back than the 1960s and 1970s. Nearly half a century since the advent of the term the 'informal sector,' we are still left with a deceptively simple question. If the creation and practice of informality predate African independence, where does it come from? This paper argues that the Zambian Copperbelt's early 20th-century history of urbanization and migration produced the informal/formal dialectic, establishing the grounds for inequalities that proliferate in the present. The structure of 'informality' finds its roots in colonial spatial strategies central to the formation of global capitalism. Through this dialectic, urbanization became a key mode of colonialism.

The proliferation of informal settlements and growing risks of climate change across African citi... more The proliferation of informal settlements and growing risks of climate change across African cities pose core questions to urban planning theory and practice. Where do informal settlements fit into future climate adaptation plans? What constitutes a 'just' climate transformation for African urbanization? And how does a 'just' climate transformation address the concerns of Africans in informal settlements? We conduct a literature review to highlight the importance of local, community-based knowledge production and action in addressing African urbanization and climate change. We show how informality and climate change impact each other across diverse African cities and conduct a detailed case study based on Accra, Ghana. We argue that national and global approaches to planning for urbanization and climate change are required to strengthen local community-based knowledge production and action.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for scholars to rethink how cities and urban spaces cre... more The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for scholars to rethink how cities and urban spaces create and reproduce disproportionate social outcomes. The social, economic, and public health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa have been shaped by the country's legacy of "pandemic urbanization." Pandemic urbanization refers to the use of urban space as a mechanism to create social, economic, and racialized divides in the name of pandemic control. Illness and infectious disease are used as instruments for segregation, and as justification for segregation through spatial policies. Through a systematic review and synthesis of peerreviewed literature, this paper argues that the early urbanization of preapartheid South Africa, which is intimately tied to the control of bubonic plague, tuberculosis, and Spanish influenza outbreaks in the early 20th century, is central to the country's current inequalities, including those brought into stark relief by COVID-19. It shows that methods of labor and infectious disease control worked in tandem to structure South African spatial division. In doing so, this paper synthesizes important literature to tie the production of South African urban space to the active creation of categories of "race." South Africa's historical geography informs global discussions on racial capitalism, as the country's past illustrates a process well beyond its borders. Given the centrality of urbanization and space within this history, a theorization highlighting spatial justice should be at the heart of pandemic and post-pandemic responses.

Urban Studies, 2022

Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces climate change's ha... more Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces climate change's harshest consequences. Ramifications of climate change pose daunting multi-scalar urban challenges, specifically because urbanisation across most African countries is embedded in, linked to and defined by various notions of informality. However, there is limited theoretical attention to the confluence of African urbanisation, informality and climate change. This article addresses this issue by laying out three fundamental matters of this relationship. First, it analyses urban informality in the context of three domains: the informal economy, informal settlements and the state. Second, it highlights the significance of climate change to theoretical and empirical studies of informality. We propose that climate change poses challenges to the practice of informality and its contemporary theorisation, prompting new questions about how African informality is understood and framed. Finally, it discusses new perspectives on planning for climate change and urban informality that do not frame 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches as necessarily mutually exclusive. Climate change fundamentally challenges life within informal economies and settlements, and its synthesis within debates on African urbanisation is urgently required. Notably, and in turn, the global discourse on climate change also requires specific attention to the theories and practices of informality.

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic exposes countries and people in sub-Saharan Africa to severe risks because ... more The COVID-19 pandemic exposes countries and people in sub-Saharan Africa to severe risks because of structural global inequalities. There is a simultaneous risk of the use of public health action to enact oppressive governance policies, which is happening in response to COVID-19 in many countries. In this commentary, we use the example of 20th-century pandemic control in pre-apartheid South Africa to illustrate how public health crises can engender oppressive social, economic, and spatial transformations.

Partha Chatterjee's work on postcolonial politics articulates the limits of participation and gov... more Partha Chatterjee's work on postcolonial politics articulates the limits of participation and gov-ernance in contexts of stark inequality. Chatterjee's argument can be stretched within the South African context of protest and political contestation as it demonstrates that civil and political societies are fluid, political categories. From student to shack dweller movements, political society in South Africa disrupts top-down, dichotomous notions of 'administration' or 'governance'.

As Rwanda pursues its goals of becoming a middle-income country by 2020, it enacts increasingly i... more As Rwanda pursues its goals of becoming a middle-income country by 2020, it enacts increasingly intolerant policies towards informal traders—seeking to promote a clean, efficient, contemporary image of itself to the world. In its preoccupation with constructing itself as a modern urban centre, Kigali has become a city that does not cater to the majority of its people. This paper investigates the livelihood practices of young men in Kigali and argues that the city's prescriptive, exclusivist policies are detrimental to the people that are most unable to meet its rigid norms. Arguing for a more dynamic understanding of Kigali as a post-conflict city, I contend that, since Rwanda's Bopen moment^ after its genocide in 1994, the city's ambitious development goals have been rendered in a way that is both harmful and unrealistic given the country's current constraints. The work of young men within the informal economy in Kigali is dis-incentivised and criminalised rather than supported and encouraged. They are chased away from the city's main streets, often towards prisons and Brehabilitation^ centres. Young people are not able to adequately contest this formation and vision of Kigali, nor can they publicly protest their treatment by the government. These outcomes are exacerbated by their reluctance to face the harsh consequences for doing so, resulting in the proliferation of self-censorship. This paper argues that Rwanda's urban policies are set out of the reach of its youthful population—who, in turn, are forced to Bchase^ after the city's vision of development.

Young men in precarious situations of persistent un(der)employment in post-civil war Freetown, S... more Young men in precarious situations of persistent un(der)employment in post-civil war Freetown, Sierra Leone are depicted in popular and policy debate as “stuck” economically or “dangerous” and prone to violence. In the present paper, by contrast, we draw on young men’s explanations of their work and livelihood struggles as “straining.” We explore the logic of straining, its innovations and demands, and its geography
across the city, especially where acts of straining interface with the
prohibition and criminalisation of informal trading. We argue that
straining innovates and endures because of (not despite) young men’s marginalisation and limited autonomy and power. In this context, young men build forms of provisional agency and enact dynamic forms of waithood, in their strategies to earn a living to try to support their families and to negotiate a transition from youth to manhood. Drawing on this research, we argue for a more complex understanding of young men at work in Freetown, in particular, and of the “youth bulge,” in general, in African cities.

Urban Infrastructurein Sub-Saharan Africa – Harnessing land values, housing and transport

Urban Geography, 2020

Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older po... more Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older populations dramatically shape cities and urbanization, yet remain largely overlooked within geography. This paper critically examines evolving socio-spatial manifestations of old age in American cities. Age is an openly-stated and deeply important social relation shaping urbanization and private capital regeneration. The “age-friendly cities and communities” movement aims to make areas more supportive, convenient, and comfortable for resident aging populations. In practice, however, they may primarily benefit private capital by generating new forms of investment and growth, and the neoliberal state by minimizing its obligations to older citizens. Age-friendly development can exacerbate deeply uneven conditions of American cities and vulnerabilities of marginalized older adults. The paper develops three overarching strategies to employ the strengths of geography to question the foundations of age-friendly governance and generate novel theoretical and applied possibilities for more just and inclusive urban transformation.

Urban Geography, 2020

Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older po... more Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older populations dramatically shape cities and urbanization, yet remain largely overlooked within geography...

Energy Research and Social Science, 2024

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is the primary livelihood for an estimated 40 million peop... more Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is the primary livelihood for an estimated 40 million people in 80 countries and supports an additional 130 to 270 million people in mining communities. With the emergence of critical minerals necessary for decarbonization efforts, ASM has emerged as a crucial form of production to help meet global demand. Despite its importance, ASM miners and communities are routinely ostracized and pathologized. Rather than the cause of social deprivation, this article argues that ASM reflects broader social, political, and historical inequalities. We contend with four main arguments against ASM before elaborating on three reasons that ASM ought to be responsibly supported. These reasons are ASM's ability to enable economic redistribution, meet increased global demand for critical minerals, and advance social justice. Inclusive regulation and governance rather than exclusion and plausible deniability constitute the pathway to addressing attendant social and environmental challenges associated with ASM practices. This paper identifies pathways to inclusive regulation of ASM and proposes avenues for future research and interventions. Ultimately, ASM must be understood as a central social justice issue of our time, especially in the context of global decarbonization efforts.

Cities, 2025

Lubumbashi is the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) southernmost province of Ha... more Lubumbashi is the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) southernmost province of Haut-Katanga, 1 and it lies at the crossroads of global decarbonization and neocolonialism. Drawing on our research in the Copperbelt region of the DRC, we present an analysis that serves to unsettle urban theory by placing Lubumbashi at the center of historical geopolitical events over the 20th and 21st centuries. The city's centrality to geopolitics remains today, as Lubumbashi is the headquarters for major mining companies extracting copper and cobaltminerals essential to decarbonization. We tie Lubumbashi's historical urban development to the region's immense natural resources and extractive potential. We show that the human rights abuses associated with contemporary cobalt mining, such as child labor, social displacement, and structural marginalization, are new forms of old colonial practices. We aim to encourage an expansive critical imagination in urban planning and geography that invites theorizing the history and global significance of understudied African cities,which are central to but often silent within analyses of global capitalism.

Cities, 2024

Informal settlements in African cities are faced with a combination of severe economic, infrastru... more Informal settlements in African cities are faced with a combination of severe economic, infrastructural, and health-related challenges, which we hypothesize are linked to historical urban planning processes. During the early 20th century, British colonial spatial policies in Anglophone Africa used disease management as a spatial planning tool to promote urban marginality and reinforce spatial and racial segregation. This paper interrogates the relationships between historical urban spatial policies and contemporary infectious disease risk in African cities. We expand on the recently developed term 'pandemic urbanization' to ask how: a) unequal colonial urban planning policies in Freetown, Accra, and Nairobi exposed their residents to illness and infectious disease, and assess if b) infectious disease outcomes have historically been used to 'justify' residential segregation, particularly on racialized lines. Using a critical literature review, our analysis shows that urban planning's capacity to manage health crises in African cities remains inadequate, particularly in informal settlements. This paper provides important insights into how such neglect has created 'pandemic urbanization' across the continent's major cities and argues that urban planning works in tandem with public health crises-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-to spatially produce urban marginality. We argue for a refocusing of urban planning on the central livelihood and survival issues confronting African cities to address pandemic urbanization and move beyond colonial imprints in contemporary planning practice and theory.

Habitat International, 2024

Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare, faces severe infrastructural challenges. The city is presented w... more Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare, faces severe infrastructural challenges. The city is presented with major constraints in its ability to adequately provide services for its growing population while losing essential streams of revenue required for infrastructural maintenance and development. This occurs in the context of the decentralization from the Zimbabwean national government to its cities. Cities like Harare are tasked with mandates to govern but are not provided the adequate financial means nor support to sustain their population or aging infrastructure. In this paper, we study this issue by conducting a broad literature review on decentralization and unfunded urban mandates, before narrowing our focus to decentralization and urban governance in sub-Saharan Africa. We then interrogate Harare as a case study, drawing on two rounds of interviews in 2015 and 2022 to identify key aspects of Harare's infrastructure crisis, which we tie to its unfunded mandates. We conducted 51 semi-structured expert interviews, and 4 extensive focus groups with a total of 32 people in order to revisit key themes that were prevalent during the first round of interviews. This was complemented by a review and analysis of national and city budgets and other relevant reports to demonstrate trends on revenue generation, capital expenditure and dynamics around intergovernmental fiscal transfers (IGFTs). We offer novel insights into Harare's infrastructure crisis, while also raising several urban financing and decentralization themes that are applicable from a global perspective.

Journal of Planning Literature, 2024

Africa is predicted to be the fastest urbanizing continent over the next century, with its primar... more Africa is predicted to be the fastest urbanizing continent over the next century, with its primary and secondary cities expected to experience rapid growth. On the continent, over 70 percent of daily trips are made by walking. Yet, pedestrian-friendly city spaces remain underexplored in research on Africa as city planning regimes continue a long-established trend of prioritizing vehicular mobility. In response to this knowledge gap, and with the recent increased scholarly focus on spatial justice in African cities, we argue that it is essential to prioritize pedestrian accessibility within them. In this paper, we highlight vulnerable urban populations who are impacted by exclusive urban planning design and policies by focusing on children, women working in informal economies, and older adults. We conduct a critical literature review of the history and patterns of urban (spatial) planning on the continent, as well as mobility and transport infrastructure in African cities. We then outline a forward-looking section that assesses effective urban planning proposals relating to mobility and African urban development, as we consider how urban interventions can be applied to address the needs of vulnerable urban populations. Finally, we link the theoretical and applied components of the paper to scholarly discussions of spatial justice and articulate the progressive possibilities of African urban futures as central to future city development. We conclude with research directions on pedestrian accessibility and spatial justice in African urban planning agenda.

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2024

As a term, the 'structure of informality' aims to elucidate how informality is produced, and why ... more As a term, the 'structure of informality' aims to elucidate how informality is produced, and why it persists. I argue that informality is engendered through the informal/formal dialectic, which constitutes a multiscalar process that creates global inequalities across time and space. We can better understand informality by studying colonial socio-spatial inequalities created through urbanization. Taking seriously the arguments put forward by Cobbinah and Olajide, I argue that the structure of informality must also be applied to understand contemporary neocolonial practices in relation to sustainable development. These practices include the use and misuse of informality in relation to three topics: (1) as a mode of generating and sustaining socio-spatial and economic inequalities; (2) the nascent and undertheorized relationship between informality and climate change; and (3) the importance of understanding and theorizing global informality at the heart of sustainable development to influence policy and practice. These topics have grown in salience because of the global push towards decarbonization, and despite informality being a dominant mode of economic, spatial, and political life in most of the world. Informality lies at the heart of sustainable development, thus making it essential to re-energize debates on its structures, forms, and driving forces.

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2023

The study of urban informality has exploded since Keith Hart theorized the term the 'informal sec... more The study of urban informality has exploded since Keith Hart theorized the term the 'informal sector.' This explosion has coincided with a growing interest among urban scholars who train their eyes toward the 'Global South.' Informality is used as shorthand for any number of urban experiences and realities ranging from the economy to governance, housing, the state, agency, political resistance, the urban form, and poverty. Much scholarship carefully illustrates different versions and modes of 'informality,' while equating the term's first use with the provenance of the practice itself. Despite the global heterogeneity of informality, its instantiation can be traced further back than the 1960s and 1970s. Nearly half a century since the advent of the term the 'informal sector,' we are still left with a deceptively simple question. If the creation and practice of informality predate African independence, where does it come from? This paper argues that the Zambian Copperbelt's early 20th-century history of urbanization and migration produced the informal/formal dialectic, establishing the grounds for inequalities that proliferate in the present. The structure of 'informality' finds its roots in colonial spatial strategies central to the formation of global capitalism. Through this dialectic, urbanization became a key mode of colonialism.

The proliferation of informal settlements and growing risks of climate change across African citi... more The proliferation of informal settlements and growing risks of climate change across African cities pose core questions to urban planning theory and practice. Where do informal settlements fit into future climate adaptation plans? What constitutes a 'just' climate transformation for African urbanization? And how does a 'just' climate transformation address the concerns of Africans in informal settlements? We conduct a literature review to highlight the importance of local, community-based knowledge production and action in addressing African urbanization and climate change. We show how informality and climate change impact each other across diverse African cities and conduct a detailed case study based on Accra, Ghana. We argue that national and global approaches to planning for urbanization and climate change are required to strengthen local community-based knowledge production and action.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for scholars to rethink how cities and urban spaces cre... more The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for scholars to rethink how cities and urban spaces create and reproduce disproportionate social outcomes. The social, economic, and public health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa have been shaped by the country's legacy of "pandemic urbanization." Pandemic urbanization refers to the use of urban space as a mechanism to create social, economic, and racialized divides in the name of pandemic control. Illness and infectious disease are used as instruments for segregation, and as justification for segregation through spatial policies. Through a systematic review and synthesis of peerreviewed literature, this paper argues that the early urbanization of preapartheid South Africa, which is intimately tied to the control of bubonic plague, tuberculosis, and Spanish influenza outbreaks in the early 20th century, is central to the country's current inequalities, including those brought into stark relief by COVID-19. It shows that methods of labor and infectious disease control worked in tandem to structure South African spatial division. In doing so, this paper synthesizes important literature to tie the production of South African urban space to the active creation of categories of "race." South Africa's historical geography informs global discussions on racial capitalism, as the country's past illustrates a process well beyond its borders. Given the centrality of urbanization and space within this history, a theorization highlighting spatial justice should be at the heart of pandemic and post-pandemic responses.

Urban Studies, 2022

Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces climate change's ha... more Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces climate change's harshest consequences. Ramifications of climate change pose daunting multi-scalar urban challenges, specifically because urbanisation across most African countries is embedded in, linked to and defined by various notions of informality. However, there is limited theoretical attention to the confluence of African urbanisation, informality and climate change. This article addresses this issue by laying out three fundamental matters of this relationship. First, it analyses urban informality in the context of three domains: the informal economy, informal settlements and the state. Second, it highlights the significance of climate change to theoretical and empirical studies of informality. We propose that climate change poses challenges to the practice of informality and its contemporary theorisation, prompting new questions about how African informality is understood and framed. Finally, it discusses new perspectives on planning for climate change and urban informality that do not frame 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches as necessarily mutually exclusive. Climate change fundamentally challenges life within informal economies and settlements, and its synthesis within debates on African urbanisation is urgently required. Notably, and in turn, the global discourse on climate change also requires specific attention to the theories and practices of informality.

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic exposes countries and people in sub-Saharan Africa to severe risks because ... more The COVID-19 pandemic exposes countries and people in sub-Saharan Africa to severe risks because of structural global inequalities. There is a simultaneous risk of the use of public health action to enact oppressive governance policies, which is happening in response to COVID-19 in many countries. In this commentary, we use the example of 20th-century pandemic control in pre-apartheid South Africa to illustrate how public health crises can engender oppressive social, economic, and spatial transformations.

Partha Chatterjee's work on postcolonial politics articulates the limits of participation and gov... more Partha Chatterjee's work on postcolonial politics articulates the limits of participation and gov-ernance in contexts of stark inequality. Chatterjee's argument can be stretched within the South African context of protest and political contestation as it demonstrates that civil and political societies are fluid, political categories. From student to shack dweller movements, political society in South Africa disrupts top-down, dichotomous notions of 'administration' or 'governance'.

As Rwanda pursues its goals of becoming a middle-income country by 2020, it enacts increasingly i... more As Rwanda pursues its goals of becoming a middle-income country by 2020, it enacts increasingly intolerant policies towards informal traders—seeking to promote a clean, efficient, contemporary image of itself to the world. In its preoccupation with constructing itself as a modern urban centre, Kigali has become a city that does not cater to the majority of its people. This paper investigates the livelihood practices of young men in Kigali and argues that the city's prescriptive, exclusivist policies are detrimental to the people that are most unable to meet its rigid norms. Arguing for a more dynamic understanding of Kigali as a post-conflict city, I contend that, since Rwanda's Bopen moment^ after its genocide in 1994, the city's ambitious development goals have been rendered in a way that is both harmful and unrealistic given the country's current constraints. The work of young men within the informal economy in Kigali is dis-incentivised and criminalised rather than supported and encouraged. They are chased away from the city's main streets, often towards prisons and Brehabilitation^ centres. Young people are not able to adequately contest this formation and vision of Kigali, nor can they publicly protest their treatment by the government. These outcomes are exacerbated by their reluctance to face the harsh consequences for doing so, resulting in the proliferation of self-censorship. This paper argues that Rwanda's urban policies are set out of the reach of its youthful population—who, in turn, are forced to Bchase^ after the city's vision of development.

Young men in precarious situations of persistent un(der)employment in post-civil war Freetown, S... more Young men in precarious situations of persistent un(der)employment in post-civil war Freetown, Sierra Leone are depicted in popular and policy debate as “stuck” economically or “dangerous” and prone to violence. In the present paper, by contrast, we draw on young men’s explanations of their work and livelihood struggles as “straining.” We explore the logic of straining, its innovations and demands, and its geography
across the city, especially where acts of straining interface with the
prohibition and criminalisation of informal trading. We argue that
straining innovates and endures because of (not despite) young men’s marginalisation and limited autonomy and power. In this context, young men build forms of provisional agency and enact dynamic forms of waithood, in their strategies to earn a living to try to support their families and to negotiate a transition from youth to manhood. Drawing on this research, we argue for a more complex understanding of young men at work in Freetown, in particular, and of the “youth bulge,” in general, in African cities.

Urban Infrastructurein Sub-Saharan Africa – Harnessing land values, housing and transport

Urban Geography, 2020

Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older po... more Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older populations dramatically shape cities and urbanization, yet remain largely overlooked within geography. This paper critically examines evolving socio-spatial manifestations of old age in American cities. Age is an openly-stated and deeply important social relation shaping urbanization and private capital regeneration. The “age-friendly cities and communities” movement aims to make areas more supportive, convenient, and comfortable for resident aging populations. In practice, however, they may primarily benefit private capital by generating new forms of investment and growth, and the neoliberal state by minimizing its obligations to older citizens. Age-friendly development can exacerbate deeply uneven conditions of American cities and vulnerabilities of marginalized older adults. The paper develops three overarching strategies to employ the strengths of geography to question the foundations of age-friendly governance and generate novel theoretical and applied possibilities for more just and inclusive urban transformation.

Urban Geography, 2020

Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older po... more Aging is one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. Older populations dramatically shape cities and urbanization, yet remain largely overlooked within geography...