Armelle CHOPLIN, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Higor CARVHALO, University of Geneva, Switzerland
African cities are generally forgotten or seen as not being concerned by the processes of gentrification and financialization. This paper aims to counterbalance this analysis and to bring African cities into the financial geography debate. Drawing on fieldworks conducted in different urban contexts - Luanda in Angola and Accra, Lomé, Cotonou, Lagos in the Gulf of Guinea - our objective is to discuss the relevance of the concepts of gentrification and financialization for analysing urban transformation in Subsaharan Africa.
We argue that African cities are now part of international capital circuits, as massive foreign investments (from China, Brazil and other emerging countries, for instance) are transforming urban landscapes. At the same time, the African globalising cities are also undergoing transformations that remind gentrification dynamics. Yet this term is rarely used. Why? And what concept should be used to describe the upgrading of some neighbourhoods ?
Analysing the role of real estate developers, foreign direct investments, financial capital, urban policies (housing programs, mega projects, land laws) and the elites and the diaspora, but also everyday citizen practices, this paper aims to shed light on new modes of urban production that are shaping contemporary African cities.
Mots clés : Gentrification |financialization|capital|Africa|Investments
A104795AC