Lagos, Koolhaas and Partisan Politics in Nigeria

Architect Rem Koolhaas and his team from Harvard regard Lagos as an extreme and pathological form of the city in Africa and as a paradigmatic case of a modern avant-garde city. In rehabilitating the informality at work in Lagos, they put forward a romanticized vision of a self-regulatory system working outside state regulation and political influence. In this article I consider that the crisis of urban infrastructure in Lagos is less the result of the weakness of the Nigerian state than of a historical opposition between the Federal government and Lagos State leaders, especially concerning the allocation of resources to the city. I also suggest that informality and state decline analysis are inadequate theoretical frameworks for detailing the way Lagos has been planned or governed since the end of the colonial period. Instead, this article, based on empirical research covering local government, motor parks and markets, considers that the city's resources have been used to build political networks between state officials and a number of ‘civil society’ leaders. This process and the reinforcement of taxation in the last 30 years are not so much a manifestation of informality and state decline as part and parcel of the historical state formation in Nigeria and in Lagos.L’architecte Rem Koolhass et son équipe de Harvard voient en Lagos une forme extrême et pathologique de grande ville africaine et un cas typique de ville à l’avant-garde de la modernité. En réhabilitant l’informalité qui opère à Lagos, ils proposent une vision enjolivée d’un système autorégulateur fonctionnant hors de l’influence politique et réglementaire de l’État. Cet article considère qu’à Lagos, la crise de l’infrastructure urbaine résulte moins de la faiblesse de l’État nigérian que de l’opposition traditionnelle entre le gouvernement fédéral et les dirigeants de l’État de Lagos, notamment en matière de dotation de ressources à la ville. De plus, l’informalité et l’analyse du déclin de l’État se révèlent des cadres théoriques inappropriés si l’on veut préciser la manière dont Lagos a été aménagée ou administrée depuis la fin de l’ère coloniale. En revanche, à partir d’une étude empirique englobant gouvernement local, parcs de stationnement et marchés, cet article montre que les ressources municipales ont servi à tisser des réseaux politiques entre responsables de l’État et plusieurs personnalités de la ‘société civile’. Cette démarche et l’accentuation des taxes au cours des trente dernières années ne sont pas tant la manifestation de l’informalité et du déclin de l’État qu’une composante de la formation de l’État au Nigéria et à Lagos

Between world history and state formation: new perspectives on Africa’s cities

The dramatic urban change taking place on the African continent has led to a renewed and controversial interest in Africa’s cities within several academic and expert circles. Attempts to align a growing but fragmented body of research on Africa’s urban past with more general trends in urban studies have been few but have nevertheless opened up new analytical possibilities. This article argues that to move beyond the traps of localism and unhelpful categorizations that have dominated aspects of urban history and the urban studies literature of the continent, historians should explore African urban dynamics in relation to world history and the history of the state in order to contribute to larger debates between social scientists and urban theorists. By considering how global socio-historical processes articulate with the everyday lives of urban dwellers and how city-state relationships are structured by ambivalence, this article will illustrate how historians can participate in those debates in ways that demonstrate that history matters, but not in a linear way. These illustrations will also suggest why it is necessary for historians to contest interpretations of Africa’s cities that construe them as ontologically different from other cities of the world

Xenophobic Violence and the Manufacture of Difference in Africa: Introduction to the Focus Section

Over the past decade, the exploration of xenophobia, particularly of the violence xenophobia may unleash and its related effects on citizenship outside of Western Europe, has been limited. If there is a large body of research on autochthony and xenophobic practices in a number of African countries, much less is known on the outcomes of xenophobic violence and how it reshapes the making of authority, the self-definition of groups making claims to ownership over resources and the boundaries of citizenship. Analyses of collective violence in Africa have devoted much attention to conflict over land ownership, civil wars or vigilantism while quantitative studies have placed much emphasis on putative difference between labelled groups in the production of “ethnic violence”. Inthis issue, we understand autochthony, nativism and indigeneity as local concepts used by actors in situations of xenophobia. Xenophobia is consequently understood as the systematic construction of strangers as a threat to the local or national community justifying their exclusion and sometimes their suppression. Drawing on extensive empirical research undertaken over the past four years across three countries (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa), this issue intends to offer renewed analysis on the understanding of xenophobic violence focusing on local and urban scales using historical and ethnographic methods. Focusing on micro-level qualitative research helps avoid reflecting a monolithic image of the “state”, “society” or “community” and underestimating internalstruggles among elites in the production of violence; it also helps contesting analyses which exclusively look at violence inflicted on behalf of a group claiming to share an exclusive identity; it eventually allows to reconsider how processes of violent exclusion are contested, disputed, ignored or fought against by a number of actors

Introduction of Xenophobia and Citizenship: the Everyday Politics of Exclusion and Inclusion in Africa

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Résiliences et ruptures en Afrique

Champ d’action diplomatique ou militaire des puissances occidentales (Grande-Bretagne, France, États-Unis), le continent africain se trouve aujourd’hui au cœur de certains impératifs mondiaux (intégration de la sécurité au développement, lutte contre la pauvreté). De nouveaux acteurs internationaux se sont affirmés ces quinze dernières années : les deux puissances régionales au sud du Sahara (l’Afrique du Sud et le Nigeria) et les deux principales organisations continentales (l’Union Africaine et le Nouveau partenariat pour le développement de l’Afrique, NEPAD) ont acquis une légitimité internationale les autorisant à intervenir plus directement qu’auparavant dans les affaires africaines. Il n’en demeure pas moins que la résilience d’un autoritarisme hérité des périodes coloniales et postcoloniales persiste dans bien des pays, même si un esprit de résistance démocratique s’est diffusé depuis les années 1990. Les États d’Afrique fonctionnent, même s’ils sont très fragiles dans la plupart des cas. Les défis à affronter restent considérables, tandis que leurs marges de manœuvre demeurent aujourd’hui, sauf exception, très réduites.Africa has recently attracted a new wave of diplomatic and military action from major western countries (France, United Kingdom, and the United States). At the same time the continent is at the centre of new international imperatives such as poverty reduction and a more comprehensive integration of security needs into the development agenda. New international players have however emerged in the last fifteen years. The two sub-Saharan regional powers (South Africa and Nigeria) and the two principal continental organisations (the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD) have recently acquired a new international legitimacy which authorises them to intervene more directly into African affairs. Nevertheless the authoritarianism inherited from the colonial and postcolonial times remains strong in many countries even though a spirit of democratic resistance appears to have become widespread since the 1990s. The majority of African States function, even though they are very fragile. The challenges they face are significant whilst their room for manoeuvre is, generally, extremely limited

Xenophobic Violence and the Manufacture of Difference in Africa

Over the past decade, the exploration of xenophobia, particularly of the violence xenophobia may unleash and its related effects on citizenship outside of Western Europe, has been limited. If there is a large body of research on autochthony and xenophobic practices in a number of African countries, much less is known on the outcomes of xenophobic violence and how it reshapes the making of authority, the self-definition of groups making claims to ownership over resources and the boundaries of citizenship. Analyses of collective violence in Africa have devoted much attention to conflict over land ownership, civil wars or vigilantism while quantitative studies have placed much emphasis on putative difference between labelled groups in the production of “ethnic violence”. In this issue, we understand autochthony, nativism and indigeneity as local concepts used by actors in situations of xenophobia. Xenophobia is consequently understood as the systematic construction of strangers as a threat to the local or national community justifying their exclusion and sometimes their suppression. Drawing on extensive empirical research undertaken over the past four years across three countries (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa), this issue intends to offer renewed analysis on the understanding of xenophobic violence focusing on local and urban scales using historical and ethnographic methods. Focusing on micro-level qualitative research helps avoid reflecting a monolithic image of the “state”, “society” or “community” and underestimating internal struggles among elites in the production of violence; it also helps contesting analyses which exclusively look at violence inflicted on behalf of a group claiming to share an exclusive identity; it eventually allows to reconsider how processes of violent exclusion are contested, disputed, ignored or fought against by a number of actors

SSur Marie-André du Sacré-CSur, Les conditions du travail de la femme dans les pays de colonisation, 1935

Le témoignage de Sœur Marie-André du Sacré-Cœur s'inscrit parfaitement dans la dénonciation du travail forcé féminin développée par les missionnaires catholiques de Haute-Volta dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Les missions se présentent volontiers comme les seuls lieux de protection de la population africaine contre l'exploitation abusive du travail forcé. Parfois, elles recourent à l'opinion publique métropolitaine, en dénonçant, dans la presse catholique, la mauvaise gestion ad..

Débat autour du livre de Kate Meagher, Identity Economics and Social Networks in Nigeria

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