UDI Volume 64 (December 2019) |
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ABSTRACT
Slum redevelopment is occurring at a rapid pace in many African cities. This paper examines the urban development of contemporary Luanda, the capital of Angola. Central to this examination is an analysis of the city’s slums according to Foucault’s concept of governmentality. The focus is on the chaotic urban development that has resulted from the civil war and on the effects of poverty and gentrification in many of Luanda’s slums. The policy of violence towards slum population adopted by the municipality appears to define a technology of domination, the subjection of the individual to the formation of the state. However, with the high earnings obtained from oil production, the country clearly has the resources needed to fund investments in electricity and utility systems. The continuing persistence of slums and a housing policy based on neglect signifies a form of governmentality, adopted as a means of government coercion and a way of dominating the poor population. The paper closes with a set of policy implications for action.
Slum redevelopment is occurring at a rapid pace in many African cities. This paper examines the urban development of contemporary Luanda, the capital of Angola. Central to this examination is an analysis of the city’s slums according to Foucault’s concept of governmentality. The focus is on the chaotic urban development that has resulted from the civil war and on the effects of poverty and gentrification in many of Luanda’s slums. The policy of violence towards slum population adopted by the municipality appears to define a technology of domination, the subjection of the individual to the formation of the state. However, with the high earnings obtained from oil production, the country clearly has the resources needed to fund investments in electricity and utility systems. The continuing persistence of slums and a housing policy based on neglect signifies a form of governmentality, adopted as a means of government coercion and a way of dominating the poor population. The paper closes with a set of policy implications for action.
REFERENCES
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DOI: 10.1191/030913200701540465.
Agunbiade, M., Rajabifard, A. & Bennett, R. (2013) Modes of housing in developing countries: The contemporary role of land, labour and capital in Lagos, Nigeria, Journal of Housing and Built Environment, 28, 363–379. DOI:10.1007/s10901-012-9303-8.
Amaral, I. (1983) Luanda e os seus musseques: Problemas de geografia urbana, Finisterra: Revista Portuguesa de Geografia, 18(36), 293–325 [in Portuguese].
Amnesty International (2007) Angola: Vidas em ruinas: expulsões forçadas continuam, Amnesty International, London [in Portuguese].
Arecchi, A. (1985) Dakar, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 2(3), 198–211.
Ascensão, E. (2018) Slum gentrification, [in:] L. Lees & M. Phillips, eds., Handbook of Gentrification Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 225–246.
Baptista, I. (2015) Prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique: Challenges for African urban planning, [in:] C. N. Silva, ed., Urban Planning in Lusophone African Countries, Ashgate, Burlington, 225–237.
Bettencourt, A. C. A. (2011) Qualificação e reabilitação de áreas urbanas críticas: Os musseques de Luanda. Master’s thesis at the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon. Available from http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/3654 [in Portuguese] [accessed: 06.05.2019].
Borsdorf, A., Hidalgo, R. & Sánchez, R. (2007) A new model of urban development in Latin America: The gated communities and fenced cities in the metropolitan areas of Santiago de Chile and Valparaíso, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 24(5), 365–378.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2007.04.002.
Cahill, C. (2010) Negotiating grit and glamour: Young women of colour and the gentrification of the lower east side, [in:] L. Lees, T. Slater & E. Wyly, eds., Gentrification, Routledge, New York, 299–314.
Cain, A. (2013) Luanda’s Post-war Land Markets: Reducing poverty by promoting inclusion, Urban Forum, 24(1), 11–31.
DOI: 10.1007/s12132-012-9173-x.
Crampton, J. & Elden, S. (2007) Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography, Ashgate, Aldershot.
Cumming, G. (2011) Spatial resilience in social-ecological systems, Springer, New York.
Dean, M. (2010) Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society, 2nd edition, Sage, London.
Foucault, M. (1982) The subject and the power, [in:] H. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow, eds., Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Harvester, Brighton, 208–226.
Foucault, M. (1988) The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom, [in:] J. Bernauer & D. Rasmussen, eds., The Final Foucault, MIT Press, Boston, 1–20.
Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality, [in:] G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 87–104.
Gadanho, P., ed., (2014) Uneven Growth: Tactical urbanisms for expanding megacities, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Gastrow, C. (2017) Cement citizens: Housing, demolition and political belonging in Luanda, Angola, Citizenship Studies, 21(2), 224–239.
DOI: 10.1080/13621025.2017.1279795.
Instituto Nacional de Estatística (2012) Relatório Estatistico dos districtos da cidade de Maputo, Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Maputo [in Portuguese].
Jenkins, P. (1999a) Maputo city: The historical roots of under-development and the consequences in urban form, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University, School of Planning and Housing, Research Paper, 71.
Jenkins, P. (1999b) Mozambique: Housing and land markets in Maputo, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University, School of Planning and Housing, Research Paper, 72.
Jenkins, P. (2000a) City Profile: Maputo, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 17(3), 207–218.
DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(00)00002-0.
Jenkins, P. (2000b) Urban management, urban poverty and urban governance: Planning and land management in Maputo, Environment and Urbanization, 12(1), 137–152. DOI: 10.1177/095624780001200110.
Jenkins, P. & Wilkinson, P. (2002) Assessing the growing impact of the global economy on urban development in Southern African cities, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 19(1), 33–47. DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(01)00044-0.
Jenkins, P., Robson, P. & Cain, A. (2002) City profile: Luanda, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 19(2), 139–150.
DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(02)00010-0.
Jorgenson, A., Rice, J. & Clark, B. (2012) Assessing the temporal and regional differences in the relationships between infant and child mortality and urban slum prevalence in less developed countries, 1990–2005, Urban Studies, 49(16), 3495–3512. DOI: 10.1177/0042098012440124.
Kent, A. & Ikgopoleng, H. (2011) Gaborone, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 28(5), 478–494.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2010.11.004.
Kirby, A. & Ward, M. D. (1991) Modernity and the process of state formation: An examination of 20th century Africa, International Interactions, 17(1), 113–126. DOI: 10.1080/03050629108434772.
Klaufus, C. (2000) Dwelling as representation: Values of architecture in an Ecuadorian squatter settlement, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 15(4), 341–365. DOI: 10.1023/A:1010106609012.
Lees, L. (2011) Gentrification and social mixing: Towards an inclusive urban renaissance?, Urban Studies, 45(12), 2449–2470.
DOI: 10.1177/0042098008097099.
Lees, L. (2019) Planetary gentrification and urban (re)development, Urban Development Issues, 61, 5–13. DOI: 10.2478/udi-2019-0001.
Lemke, T. (2002) Foucault, governmentality and critique, Rethinking Marxism, 14(3), 49–64. DOI: 10.1080/089356902101242288.
Lopes, C. M. M. G. F. (2000) Luanda cidade informal: Estudo de caso sobre o bairro Rocha Pinto, paper presented at VI Congresso Luso-Afro-Brasileiro de Ciências Sociais, at Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto. Available from http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/7023.pdf [accessed 03.04.2019] [in Portuguese].
Magidimisha, H. H. & Chipungu, L. (2011) Unconventional housing provision: Reflections on health aspects – a case study of Zimbabwe, Journal of Housing and Built Environment, 26, 469–485. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-011-9234-9.
Mallo, D. & Danjuma, W. (2016) Bridging the gaps in infrastructure for urban housing in Nigeria: New thinking, new strategies, [in:] V. Fletcher, ed., Urban and Rural Developments: Perspectives, Strategies and Challenges, Nova Science, New York, 67–87.
Massey, R. T. (2013) Competing rationalities and informal settlement upgrading in Cape Town, South Africa: a recipe for failure, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 28(4), 605–613. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-013-9346-5.
Matti, S. (2010) Resources and rent seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Third World Quarterly, 31(3), 401–413.
DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2010.488471.
Mayhew, S., ed., (2015) A Dictionary of Geography, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
McFarlane, C. (2012) The entrepreneurial slum: Civil society, mobility and the co-production of urban development, Urban Studies, 49(13),
2795–2816. DOI: 10.1177/0042098012452460.
Minnery, J., Argo, T., Winarso, H., Hau, D. & Veneracion, C. C. (2013) Slum upgrading and urban governance: Case studies in three South East Asian cities, Habitat International, 39, 162–169. DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2012.12.002.
Myers, G. (2011) African Cities: Alternative visions of urban theory and practice, Zed Books, London.
Neuwirth, R. (2005) Shadow cities: A billion squatters, a new urban world, Routledge, London.
Njoh, A. & Akiwumi, F. (2011) The impact of colonization on access to improved water and sanitation facilities in African Cities, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 28, 452–460. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2011.04.005.
Oppenheimer, J. & Raposo, I. (2007) Subúrbios de Luanda e Maputo, Colibri, Lisbon [in Portuguese].
Pieterse, E. (2013) City Futures: Confronting the crisis of urban development, Zed Books, London.
Pieterse, E. (2014) Adaptive urbanism: Sensing the interstices of African cities, Harvard Design Review, 37, 80–85.
Rodrigues, C. U. (2016) Strategies of urban inclusion in the imagined modern Luanda, [in:] C. N. Silva, ed., Governing Urban Africa, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 191–211.
Shortt, N. K. & Hammett, D. (2013) Housing and health in an informal settlement upgrade in Cape Town, South Africa, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 28(4), 615–627. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-013-9347-4.
Taubenböck, H. & Kraff, N. J. (2014) The physical face of slums: A structural comparison of slums in Mumbai, India, based on remotely sensed data, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 29(1), 15–38. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-013-9333-x.
Tiepolo, M. (1996) Brazzaville, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 13(2), 117–124. DOI: 10.1016/02642751(95)00123-9.
Vaz, L. F. & Berenstein, J. P. (2004) Morphological diversity in the squatter settlements of Rio de Janeiro, [in:] S. Stanilov & B.C. Scheer,
eds., Suburban Form: An International Perspective, Routledge, New York, 61–72.
Vida Imobiliária (2012) O desenvolvimento do mercado imobiliário, Volume 2, Vida Imobiliária, Porto [in Portuguese].
Visser, G. (2002) Viewpoint: Gentrification and South African cities, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 19(6), 419–423. DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(02)00072-0.
Werlin, H. (1999) The slum upgrading myth, Urban Studies, 36(9), 1523–1534. DOI: 10.1080/0042098992908.
Adger, W. (2000) Social and ecological resilience. Are they related? Progress in Human Geography, 24(3), 347–364.
DOI: 10.1191/030913200701540465.
Agunbiade, M., Rajabifard, A. & Bennett, R. (2013) Modes of housing in developing countries: The contemporary role of land, labour and capital in Lagos, Nigeria, Journal of Housing and Built Environment, 28, 363–379. DOI:10.1007/s10901-012-9303-8.
Amaral, I. (1983) Luanda e os seus musseques: Problemas de geografia urbana, Finisterra: Revista Portuguesa de Geografia, 18(36), 293–325 [in Portuguese].
Amnesty International (2007) Angola: Vidas em ruinas: expulsões forçadas continuam, Amnesty International, London [in Portuguese].
Arecchi, A. (1985) Dakar, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 2(3), 198–211.
Ascensão, E. (2018) Slum gentrification, [in:] L. Lees & M. Phillips, eds., Handbook of Gentrification Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 225–246.
Baptista, I. (2015) Prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique: Challenges for African urban planning, [in:] C. N. Silva, ed., Urban Planning in Lusophone African Countries, Ashgate, Burlington, 225–237.
Bettencourt, A. C. A. (2011) Qualificação e reabilitação de áreas urbanas críticas: Os musseques de Luanda. Master’s thesis at the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon. Available from http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/3654 [in Portuguese] [accessed: 06.05.2019].
Borsdorf, A., Hidalgo, R. & Sánchez, R. (2007) A new model of urban development in Latin America: The gated communities and fenced cities in the metropolitan areas of Santiago de Chile and Valparaíso, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 24(5), 365–378.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2007.04.002.
Cahill, C. (2010) Negotiating grit and glamour: Young women of colour and the gentrification of the lower east side, [in:] L. Lees, T. Slater & E. Wyly, eds., Gentrification, Routledge, New York, 299–314.
Cain, A. (2013) Luanda’s Post-war Land Markets: Reducing poverty by promoting inclusion, Urban Forum, 24(1), 11–31.
DOI: 10.1007/s12132-012-9173-x.
Crampton, J. & Elden, S. (2007) Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography, Ashgate, Aldershot.
Cumming, G. (2011) Spatial resilience in social-ecological systems, Springer, New York.
Dean, M. (2010) Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society, 2nd edition, Sage, London.
Foucault, M. (1982) The subject and the power, [in:] H. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow, eds., Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Harvester, Brighton, 208–226.
Foucault, M. (1988) The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom, [in:] J. Bernauer & D. Rasmussen, eds., The Final Foucault, MIT Press, Boston, 1–20.
Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality, [in:] G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 87–104.
Gadanho, P., ed., (2014) Uneven Growth: Tactical urbanisms for expanding megacities, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Gastrow, C. (2017) Cement citizens: Housing, demolition and political belonging in Luanda, Angola, Citizenship Studies, 21(2), 224–239.
DOI: 10.1080/13621025.2017.1279795.
Instituto Nacional de Estatística (2012) Relatório Estatistico dos districtos da cidade de Maputo, Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Maputo [in Portuguese].
Jenkins, P. (1999a) Maputo city: The historical roots of under-development and the consequences in urban form, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University, School of Planning and Housing, Research Paper, 71.
Jenkins, P. (1999b) Mozambique: Housing and land markets in Maputo, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University, School of Planning and Housing, Research Paper, 72.
Jenkins, P. (2000a) City Profile: Maputo, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 17(3), 207–218.
DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(00)00002-0.
Jenkins, P. (2000b) Urban management, urban poverty and urban governance: Planning and land management in Maputo, Environment and Urbanization, 12(1), 137–152. DOI: 10.1177/095624780001200110.
Jenkins, P. & Wilkinson, P. (2002) Assessing the growing impact of the global economy on urban development in Southern African cities, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 19(1), 33–47. DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(01)00044-0.
Jenkins, P., Robson, P. & Cain, A. (2002) City profile: Luanda, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 19(2), 139–150.
DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(02)00010-0.
Jorgenson, A., Rice, J. & Clark, B. (2012) Assessing the temporal and regional differences in the relationships between infant and child mortality and urban slum prevalence in less developed countries, 1990–2005, Urban Studies, 49(16), 3495–3512. DOI: 10.1177/0042098012440124.
Kent, A. & Ikgopoleng, H. (2011) Gaborone, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 28(5), 478–494.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2010.11.004.
Kirby, A. & Ward, M. D. (1991) Modernity and the process of state formation: An examination of 20th century Africa, International Interactions, 17(1), 113–126. DOI: 10.1080/03050629108434772.
Klaufus, C. (2000) Dwelling as representation: Values of architecture in an Ecuadorian squatter settlement, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 15(4), 341–365. DOI: 10.1023/A:1010106609012.
Lees, L. (2011) Gentrification and social mixing: Towards an inclusive urban renaissance?, Urban Studies, 45(12), 2449–2470.
DOI: 10.1177/0042098008097099.
Lees, L. (2019) Planetary gentrification and urban (re)development, Urban Development Issues, 61, 5–13. DOI: 10.2478/udi-2019-0001.
Lemke, T. (2002) Foucault, governmentality and critique, Rethinking Marxism, 14(3), 49–64. DOI: 10.1080/089356902101242288.
Lopes, C. M. M. G. F. (2000) Luanda cidade informal: Estudo de caso sobre o bairro Rocha Pinto, paper presented at VI Congresso Luso-Afro-Brasileiro de Ciências Sociais, at Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto. Available from http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/7023.pdf [accessed 03.04.2019] [in Portuguese].
Magidimisha, H. H. & Chipungu, L. (2011) Unconventional housing provision: Reflections on health aspects – a case study of Zimbabwe, Journal of Housing and Built Environment, 26, 469–485. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-011-9234-9.
Mallo, D. & Danjuma, W. (2016) Bridging the gaps in infrastructure for urban housing in Nigeria: New thinking, new strategies, [in:] V. Fletcher, ed., Urban and Rural Developments: Perspectives, Strategies and Challenges, Nova Science, New York, 67–87.
Massey, R. T. (2013) Competing rationalities and informal settlement upgrading in Cape Town, South Africa: a recipe for failure, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 28(4), 605–613. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-013-9346-5.
Matti, S. (2010) Resources and rent seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Third World Quarterly, 31(3), 401–413.
DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2010.488471.
Mayhew, S., ed., (2015) A Dictionary of Geography, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
McFarlane, C. (2012) The entrepreneurial slum: Civil society, mobility and the co-production of urban development, Urban Studies, 49(13),
2795–2816. DOI: 10.1177/0042098012452460.
Minnery, J., Argo, T., Winarso, H., Hau, D. & Veneracion, C. C. (2013) Slum upgrading and urban governance: Case studies in three South East Asian cities, Habitat International, 39, 162–169. DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2012.12.002.
Myers, G. (2011) African Cities: Alternative visions of urban theory and practice, Zed Books, London.
Neuwirth, R. (2005) Shadow cities: A billion squatters, a new urban world, Routledge, London.
Njoh, A. & Akiwumi, F. (2011) The impact of colonization on access to improved water and sanitation facilities in African Cities, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 28, 452–460. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2011.04.005.
Oppenheimer, J. & Raposo, I. (2007) Subúrbios de Luanda e Maputo, Colibri, Lisbon [in Portuguese].
Pieterse, E. (2013) City Futures: Confronting the crisis of urban development, Zed Books, London.
Pieterse, E. (2014) Adaptive urbanism: Sensing the interstices of African cities, Harvard Design Review, 37, 80–85.
Rodrigues, C. U. (2016) Strategies of urban inclusion in the imagined modern Luanda, [in:] C. N. Silva, ed., Governing Urban Africa, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 191–211.
Shortt, N. K. & Hammett, D. (2013) Housing and health in an informal settlement upgrade in Cape Town, South Africa, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 28(4), 615–627. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-013-9347-4.
Taubenböck, H. & Kraff, N. J. (2014) The physical face of slums: A structural comparison of slums in Mumbai, India, based on remotely sensed data, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 29(1), 15–38. DOI: 10.1007/s10901-013-9333-x.
Tiepolo, M. (1996) Brazzaville, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 13(2), 117–124. DOI: 10.1016/02642751(95)00123-9.
Vaz, L. F. & Berenstein, J. P. (2004) Morphological diversity in the squatter settlements of Rio de Janeiro, [in:] S. Stanilov & B.C. Scheer,
eds., Suburban Form: An International Perspective, Routledge, New York, 61–72.
Vida Imobiliária (2012) O desenvolvimento do mercado imobiliário, Volume 2, Vida Imobiliária, Porto [in Portuguese].
Visser, G. (2002) Viewpoint: Gentrification and South African cities, Cities – The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 19(6), 419–423. DOI: 10.1016/S0264-2751(02)00072-0.
Werlin, H. (1999) The slum upgrading myth, Urban Studies, 36(9), 1523–1534. DOI: 10.1080/0042098992908.