Everyday Urbanism and Complexities of Infrastructure Geographies in Contemporary African Cities: The Case of Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, South Africa

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Most contemporary African cities are facing unsustainable urban growth that is increasing exponentially, yet with little industrialization, and confronted with infrastructure inadequacies, and spatial inequality that remain abound. Stjwetla-an informal settlement in Alexandra township in Johannesburg is one of the legacies of poor urban planning approaches that have created and perpetuated informality. Informality as currently positioned in the discourse of urban planning, is framed as extreme orderless, that must be corrected and eliminated in the spatiality of urban Africa.

The aim of this manuscript workshop is to understand the reconfiguration and complexities of infrastructure geographies in contemporary African cities and obtain critical insights on how such complexities, constraints and possibilities of these infrastructure geographies impact on urban residents particularly those in informality, and how these urban residents respond to such infrastructure complexities to sustain life and livelihood.

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Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies, Princeton African Humanities Colloquium, Africa World Initiative

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