The right to the city in the Global South. Perspectives from Africa

Abstract

This paper addresses the mobilization in the global South of the notion of the right to the city, reflecting the debates on the “southern turn”. It analyzes the complexities surrounding the incorporation of certain elements of the debate in the post-colonial context, posed on the one hand by the neo-Marxist authors of the North who have reactivated the notion since the early 2000s, and on the other hand in developmental approaches. It thus returns to the contribution of so-called southern cities, and particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, to the debate on the right to the city and the place that these cities occupy in it. The aim is to shed light on the way in which contemporary discussion on the right to the city has been elaborated in order to question the limits of the North/South analytical nexus, whether the latter aims to denounce the theoretical domination of the North over the South or whether it reinforces the specificity of the South and the need for theorization by the South.The right to the city, urban, Sub-Saharan Africa, critical geography, informal