3: Hacking Mobility

Author:
Nancy Odendaal
Publication Date:
16 Jan 2023
Pages:
33–48
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529218596.ch003
Restricted access
Rights and permissions Cite this chapter
Buy article/chapter (
GBP  £20.00
)

One of the most challenging spatial issues in African cities is the lack of adequate and integrated mobility systems. African urban dwellers predominantly rely on paratransit to traverse the city. This chapter explores several locally developed ride-hail applications in Uganda and Kenya, and the implications for future mobility.

  • Abraham, I. (2006) The contradictory spaces of postcolonial techno-science. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(3), 210–17.

  • Achuka, V. (2018) Who will blink first between taxi drives and technology companies. Standard Media, 15 July. Available at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001288091/taxi-industry-s-uber-battle-just-gathering-speed

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • African Union (2018) Drones on the Horizon: Transforming Africa’s Agriculture. Report of the High-Level African Union Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) on Drones on the Horizon. NEPAD.

  • Afrilabs and Briter-Bridges (2019) Building a conducive setting for innovators to thrive: a qualitative and quantitative study of a hundred hubs across Africa. Available at: https://afrilabs.com/

  • Ajibade, I. (2017) Can a future city enhance urban resilience and sustainability? A political ecology analysis of Eko Atlantic city, Nigeria. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 26, 85–92.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Allagui, I. and Kuebler, J. (2011) The Arab Spring and the role of ICTs editorial introduction. International Journal of Communication, 5, 1435–42.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Anderson, B. and McFarlane, C. (2011) Assemblage and geography. Area, 43(2), 124–7.

  • Anderson, W. (2002) Introduction: postcolonial technoscience. Social Studies of Science, 32(5–6), 643–58.

  • Anderson, W. (2020) Postcolonial specters of STS. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 11(2), 229–33.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Asenbaum, H. (2018) Cyborg activism: exploring the reconfigurations of democratic subjectivity in Anonymous. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1543–63.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Aurigi, A. and Odendaal, N. (2021) From ‘smart in the box’ to ‘smart in the city’: rethinking the socially sustainable smart city in context. Journal of Urban Technology, 28(1–2), 55–70.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Baptista, I. (2015) ‘We live on estimates’: everyday practices of prepaid electricity and the urban condition in Maputo, Mozambique. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 39(5), 1004–19.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Barns, S. (2019) Platform Urbanism: Negotiating Platform Ecosystems in Connected Cities. Cham: Springer.

  • Battersby, J. (2020) South Africa’s lockdown regulations and the reinforcement of anti-informality bias. Agriculture and Human Values, 37(3), 543–4.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Battersby, J. and Crush, J. (2014) Africa’s urban food deserts. Urban Forum, 25(2), 143–51.

  • Battersby, J. and Watson, V. (2018a) Addressing food security in African cities. Nature Sustainability, 1(4), 153–5.

  • Battersby, J. and Watson, V. (2018b) Introduction. In J. Battersby and V. Watson (eds) Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities. Abingdon: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Baumann, K. (2018) Infrastructures of the imagination: building new worlds in media, art, & design. PhD Dissertation, University of Southern California.

  • Behrens, R., McCormick, D. and Mfinanga, D. (2015) Paratransit in African Cities: Operations, Regulation and Reform. Abingdon: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Berney, R. (2011) Pedagogical urbanism: creating citizen space in Bogotá, Colombia. Planning Theory, 10(1), 16–34.

  • Bristow, T. (2012) We want the funk: what is Afrofuturism to the situation of digital arts in Africa? Technoetic Arts, 10(1), 25–32.

  • Burrell, J. (2012) Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafes of Urban Ghana. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Cardullo, P. (2020) Citizens in the ‘Smart City’: Participation, Co-production, Governance. Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Carrigan, M. and Fatsis, L. (2021) The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media. Bristol: Policy Press.

  • Chakrabarty, D., Majumdar, R. and Sartori, A. (2007) From the Colonial to the Postcolonial. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

  • Cheang, K.H. (2016) Exultant and cautionary imaginings at the interstices of architecture, technology and culture: an interview with Olalekan Jeyifous. Science Fiction Studies, 43(2), 419–23.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Cherlet, J. (2014) Epistemic and technological determinism in development aid. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 39(6), 773–94.

  • Civic Data Design Lab (2019) Urbanization and traffic in Nairobi. Available at: https://urbannext.net/urbanization-traffic-in-nairobi/

  • Cocola-Gant, A. and Gago, A. (2019) Airbnb, buy-to-let investment and tourism-driven displacement: a case study in Lisbon. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 53(7). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0308518X19869012

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Corwin, J. E. (2018) ‘Nothing is useless in nature’: Delhi’s repair economies and value-creation in an electronics ‘waste’ sector. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 50(1), 14–30.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Cross, J. and Murray, D. (2018) The afterlives of solar power: waste and repair off the grid in Kenya. Energy Research & Social Science, 44, 100–9.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Crush, J. and Frayne, G.B. (2011) Urban food insecurity and the new international food security agenda. Development Southern Africa, 28(4), 527–44.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Crush, J. and Riley, L. (2018) Rural bias and urban food security. In J. Battersby and V. Watson (eds) Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 42–55.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Crush, J., Frayne, B. and Pendleton, W. (2012) The crisis of food insecurity in African cities. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 7(2–3), 271–92.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • CSM Association (2020) The mobile economy sub-Saharan Africa 2020. GSMA Intelligence. Available at: https://data.gsmaintelligence.com/research/research/research-2020/the-mobile-economy-sub-saharan-africa-2020

  • Danneels, E. (2004) Disruptive technology reconsidered: a critique and research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 21(4), 246–58.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Daramy, A. (2021) SLURC engages stakeholders. Global Times News, 20 June. Available at: www.facebook.com/globaltimesonline/posts/slurc-engages-stakeholders-by-lansana-fofanahthe-sierra-leone-urban-research-cen/2362652843863365/

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Datta, A. (2015) New urban utopias of postcolonial India: ‘entrepreneurial urbanization’ in Dholera smart city, Gujarat. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 3–22.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Datta, A. (2018) The digital turn in postcolonial urbanism: smart citizenship in the making of India’s 100 smart cities. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 43(3), 405–19.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Deloitte & Touche (2015) Africa is ready to leapfrog the competition through smart cities technology. Available at: www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/za/Documents/risk/ZA_SMARTCITIESA4(VIEW)_020615.pdf

  • Dixon, T., Lannon, S. and Eames, M. (2018) Reflections on disruptive energy innovation in urban retrofitting: methodology, practice and policy. Energy Research & Social Science, 37, 255–9.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Doherty, J. (2017) Life (and limb) in the fast-lane: disposable people as infrastructure in Kampala’s boda boda industry. Critical African Studies, 9(2), 192–209.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Doherty, J. (2020) Motorcycle taxis, personhood, and the moral landscape of mobility. Geoforum. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.04.003

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Duminy, J., Odendaal, N. and Watson, V. (2014a) The education and research imperatives of urban planning professionals in Africa. In S. Parnell and E. Pieterse (eds) Africa’s Urban Revolution: Policy Pressures. London: Zed Books Ltd, p 184.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Duminy, J., Odendaal, N. and Watson, V. (2014b) Case study research in Africa: methodological dimensions. In J. Duminy, J. Andreasen, F. Lerise, N. Odendaal and V. Watson (eds) Planning and the Case Study Method in Africa. Cham: Springer, pp 21–47.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Durodola, A. (2018) What the launch of BebaBeba could mean for Kenya’s taxi industry. Ventures Africa, 20 September. Available at: http://venturesafrica.com/bebabeba-enters-kenyas-taxi-industry/

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Easterling, K. (2014) Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. London: Verso Books.

  • Esfandari, D.A. (2015) Gojek in conflict: cultural perspective. Paper presented at the International Conference on Transformation in Communication (ICOTIC).

  • Farías, I. and Bender, T. (2012) Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Firmino, R., Cardoso, B. and Evangelista, R. (2019) Hyperconnectivity and (im)mobility: Uber and surveillance capitalism by the Global South. Surveillance & Society, 17(1/2): 205–12.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Fonjong, L. (2014) Rethinking the impact of structural adjustment programs on human rights violations in West Africa. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 13(1–2), 87–110.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Foth, M. (2006) Facilitating social networking in inner-city neighborhoods. Computer, 39(9), 44–50.

  • Foth, M. (2008) Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City. Hershey: IGI Global.

  • Friederici, N. (2018) Hope and hype in Africa’s digital economy: the rise of innovation hubs. In M. Graham (ed) Digital Economies at Global Margins. Boston, MA: MIT Press, pp 193–221.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Furlong, K. (2010) Small technologies, big change: rethinking infrastructure through STS and geography. Progress in Human Geography, 35(4), 460–82.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Furlong, K. (2014) STS beyond the ‘modern infrastructure ideal’: extending theory by engaging with infrastructure challenges in the South. Technology in Society, 38, 139–47.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Furlong, K. (2020) Geographies of infrastructure II: concrete, cloud and layered (in)visibilities. Progress in Human Geography, 45(1), 190–8.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gerbaudo, P. (2012) Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press.

  • Godard, X. (2008) Transport artisanal, esquisse de bilan pour la mobilité durable. Available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/228785986_Transport_artisanal_esquisse_de_bilan_pour_la_mobilite_durable

  • Goodfellow, T. and Titeca, K. (2012) Presidential intervention and the changing ‘politics of survival’ in Kampala’s informal economy. Cities, 29(4), 264–70.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Graham, M. (2008) Warped geographies of development: the Internet and theories of economic development. Geography Compass, 2(3), 771–89.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Graham, M. (2020) Regulate, replicate, and resist: the conjunctural geographies of platform urbanism. Urban Geography, 41(3), 453–7.

  • Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1996) Telecommunications and the City (vol 452). London: Routledge.

  • Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2001) Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. Abingdon: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Graham, S. and Thrift, N. (2007) Out of order: understanding repair and maintenance. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(3), 1–25.

  • Grebe, E. (2011) The treatment action campaign’s struggle for AIDS treatment in South Africa: coalition-building through networks. Journal of Southern African Studies, 37(4), 849–68.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Guma, P.K. (2019) Smart urbanism? ICTs for water and electricity supply in Nairobi. Urban Studies, 56(11), 2333–52.

  • Guma, P.K. (2020) Incompleteness of urban infrastructures in transition: scenarios from the mobile age in Nairobi. Social Studies of Science, 50(5), 728–50.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Guma, P.K. and Monstadt, J. (2020) Smart city making? The spread of ICT-driven plans and infrastructures in Nairobi. Urban Geography, 42(3), 360–81.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hagen, E. (2010) Putting Nairobi’s slums on the map. Development Outreach, 12(1), 41–3.

  • Hagen, E. (2017) Open Mapping from the Ground up: Learning from Map Kibera, Making All Voices Count Research Report. Brighton: IDS.

  • Haraway, D. (1991) A cyborg manifesto: science, technology and socialist feminism in the late twentieth century. In D. Haraway (ed) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Harding, S. (2009) Postcolonial and feminist philosophies of science and technology: convergences and dissonances. Postcolonial Studies, 12(4), 401–21.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Harding, S. (2016) Latin American decolonial social studies of scientific knowledge. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(6), 1063–87.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hayombe, P.O., Owino, F.O. and Awuor, F.O. (2018) Planning and governance of food systems in Kisumu City. In J. Battersby and V. Watson (eds) Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 116–27.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Haythornthwaite, C. (2005) Social networks and Internet connectivity effects. Information, Community & Society, 8(2), 125–47.

  • Heeks, R. (2001) Understanding E-Governance for Development. Manchester: Institute for Development Policy and Management.

  • Howard, P.N. and Hussain, M.M. (2011) The upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia: the role of digital media. Journal of Democracy, 22(3), 35–48.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Howe, J. (2003) ‘Filling the middle’: Uganda’s appropriate transport services. Transport Reviews, 23(2), 161–76.

  • Ibrahim, B. and Bize, A. (2018) Waiting together: the motorcycle taxi stand as Nairobi infrastructure. Africa Today, 65(2), 73–92.

  • Jaglin, S. (2008) Differentiating networked services in Cape Town: echoes of splintering urbanism? Geoforum, 39(6), 1897–906.

  • Jiménez, A. and Zheng, Y. (2021) Unpacking the multiple spaces of innovation hubs. The Information Society, 37(3), 163–76.

  • Joubert, L., Battersby, J. and Watson, V. (2018) Tomatoes and taxi ranks: running our cities to fill the food gaps. African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kahende, K. (2020) Little launches ambulance services. Little blog, 30 May. Available at: www.little.bz/blog/little-launches-emergency-ambulance-services/

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kaika, M. (2017) ‘Don’t call me resilient again!’: the new urban agenda as immunology … or … what happens when communities refuse to be vaccinated with ‘smart cities’ and indicators. Environment and Urbanization, 29(1), 89–102.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kellogg, S. (2016) Digitizing dissent: cyborg politics and fluid networks in contemporary Cuban activism. Teknokultura, 13(1), 19–53.

  • Kitchin, R. and McArdle, G. (2016) What makes big data, big data? Exploring the ontological characteristics of 26 datasets. Big Data & Society. Available at: https://doi.org/2053951716631130

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kitchin, R., Lauriault, T.P. and McArdle, G. (2015) Knowing and governing cities through urban indicators, city benchmarking and real-time dashboards. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 2(1), 6–28.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Konadu-Agyemang, K. (2000) The best of times and the worst of times: structural adjustment programs and uneven development in Africa: the case of Ghana. The Professional Geographer, 52(3), 469–83.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Krishnan, A., Banga, K. and Mendez-Parra, M. (2020) Disruptive technologies in agricultural value chains. Insights from East Africa . Working paper 576.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lawhon, M., Ernstson, H. and Silver, J. (2014) Provincializing urban political ecology: towards a situated UPE through African urbanism. Antipode, 46(2), 497–516.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lawhon, M., Nilsson, D., Silver, J., Ernstson, H. and Lwasa, S. (2018) Thinking through heterogeneous infrastructure configurations. Urban Studies, 55(4), 720–32.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lewis, C. (2005) Negotiating the net: the Internet in South Africa (1990–2003). Information Technologies and International Development, 2(3), 1–28.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Ling, R. and Horst, H.A. (2011) Mobile communication in the Global South. New Media & Society, 13(3), 363–74.

  • Lockhart, A.,While, A., Marvin, S. et al (2021) Making space for drones: the contested reregulation of airspace in Tanzania and Rwanda. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46(4), 850–65.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Madon, S. (2004) Evaluating the developmental impact of e-governance initiatives: an exploratory framework. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 20(1), 1–13.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Madon, S., Reinhard, N., Roode, D. and Walsham, G. (2010) Digital inclusion projects in developing countries: processes of institutionalization. Information Technology for Development, 15(2), 95–107.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Marvin, S. and Luque-Ayala, A. (2017) Urban operating systems: diagramming the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(1), 84–103.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Marvin, S., Luque-Ayala, A. and McFarlane, C. (2015) Smart Urbanism: Utopian Vision or False Dawn? Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Mattern, S. (2018) Maintenance and care. Places Journal, 20 November. Available at: https://placesjournal.org/article/maintenance-and-care/?cn-reloaded=1

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • McCann, E., Roy, A. and Ward, K. (2013) Assembling/worlding cities. Urban Geography, 34(5), 581–9.

  • McFarlane, C. and Söderström, O. (2017) On alternative smart cities: from a technology-intensive to a knowledge-intensive smart urbanism. City, 21(3–4): 312–28.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Mitchell, H. and Odendaal, N. (2015) From the fringes: South Africa’s smart township citizens. In M. Foth, M. Brynskov and T. Ojala (eds) Citizen’s Right to the Digital City. Cham: Springer, pp 137–159.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Mitchell, W.J. (1996) City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Moodley, S. (2005) The promise of e-development? A critical assessment of the state ICT for poverty reduction discourse in South Africa. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 4(1), 1–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Mutiso, W. and Behrens, R. (2011) ‘Boda boda’ bicycle taxis and their role in urban transport systems: case studies of Kisumu and Nakura, Kenya. Available at: http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/17308

  • Myers, G. (2015) A world-class city-region? Envisioning the Nairobi of 2030. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(3), 328–46.

  • Odendaal, N. (2011) Splintering urbanism or split agendas? Examining the spatial distribution of technology access in relation to ICT policy in Durban, South Africa. Urban Studies, 48(11), 2375–97.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2014) Space matters: the relational power of mobile technologies. Urbe: Revista Brasileira de Gestão Urbana, 6(1), 31–45.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2018) Smart innovation at the margins: learning from Cape Town and Kibera. In A. Karvonen, F. Cugurullo and F. Caprotti (eds) Inside Smart Cities. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 243–57.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2019) Appropriating ‘big data’: exploring the emancipatory potential of the data strategies of civil society organizations in Cape Town, South Africa. In P. Cardullo, C. Di Feliciantonio and R. Kitchin (eds) The Right to the Smart City. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2020) Everyday urbanisms and the importance of place: exploring the elements of the emancipatory smart city. Urban Studies, 58(3), 639–54.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2021a) Constructing an ‘infrastructure of care’: understanding the institutional remnants and socio-technical practices that constitute South Africa’s Covid-19 response. Urban Geography, 42(3), 391–8.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2021b) Platform urbanism and hybrid places in African cities. In A. Aurigi and N. Odendaal (eds) Shaping Smart for Better Cities. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp 203–19.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. (2022) Splintering by proxy: a reflection on the spatial impacts and distributed agency of platform urbanism. Journal of Urban Technology, 29(1), 21–7.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Odendaal, N. and McCann, A. (2016) Spatial planning in the Global South: reflections on the Cape Town spatial development framework. International Development Planning Review, 38(4), 405.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Okarofor, N. (2010) The go-slow. In J.J. Adams (ed) The Way of the Wizard. Athens: Prime Press.

  • Parnell, S. and Pieterse, D.E. (2014) Africa’s Urban Revolution. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

  • Pieterse, E. (2014) Epistemological practices of southern urbanism. Paper to be presented at the ACC Academic Seminar, 21 February.

  • Philip, K.,Irani, L. and Dourish, P. (2012) Postcolonial computing: a tactical survey. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 37(1), 3–29.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pink, S. (2009) Situating sensory ethnography: from academia to intervention. In S. Pink (ed) Doing Sensory Ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp 7–23.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pink, S. (2016) Digital ethnography. In S. Kubitschko and A. Kaun (eds) Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 161–5.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pink, S. and Morgan, J. (2013) Short-term ethnography: intense routes to knowing. Symbolic Interaction, 36(3), 351–61.

  • Pink, S., Ardèvol, E. and Lanzeni, D. (2020) Digital materiality. In S. Pink, E. Ardèvol and D. Lanzeni (eds) Digital Materialities. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 1–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Plantin, J.-C., Lagoze, C., Edwards, P.N. and Sandvig, C. (2016) Infrastructure studies meet platform studies in the age of Google and Facebook. New Media & Society, 20(1), 293–310.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pollio, A. (2019) Forefronts of the sharing economy: Uber in Cape Town. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 43(4), 760–75.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pollio, A. (2020) Making the Silicon Cape of Africa: tales, theories and the narration of startup urbanism. Urban Studies, 57(13), 2715–32.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Potts, D. (2009) The slowing of sub-Saharan Africa’s urbanization: evidence and implications for urban livelihoods. Environment and Urbanization, 21(1), 253–9.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Rajão, R. and Duque, R.B. (2014) Between purity and hybridity: technoscientific and ethnic myths of Brazil. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 39(6), 844–74.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Rigon, A., Macarthy, J., Koroma, B., Walker, J. and Frediani, A.A. (2017) Partnering with higher education institutions for social and environmental justice in the Global South: lessons from the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre. DPU News, 62, 2–5.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Robins, S. (2014a) The 2011 toilet wars in South Africa: justice and transition between the exceptional and the everyday after apartheid. Development and Change, 45(3), 479–501.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Robins, S. (2014b) Slow activism in fast times: reflections on the politics of media spectacles after apartheid. Journal of Southern African Studies, 40(1), 91–110.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Rodgers, S. and Moore, S. (2020) Platform phenomenologies: social media as experiential infrastructures of urban public life. In M. Hodson, J. Kasmire, A. McMeekin, J. Stehlin and K. Ward (eds) Urban Platforms and the Future City. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 209–22.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Roever, S. and Skinner, C. (2016) Street vendors and cities. Environment and Urbanization, 28(2), 359–74.

  • Rosenberg, L. and Brent, A. (2020) Infrastructure disruption in ‘Silicon Savannah’: exploring the idea of the creative class and their relation to quality of place in Nairobi, Kenya. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 44(5), 809–20.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Roy, A., Zalzala, A.M. and Kumar, A. (2016) Disruption of things: a model to facilitate adoption of IoT-based innovations by the urban poor. Procedia Engineering, 159, 199–209.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sadowski, J. (2020a) Cyberspace and cityscapes: on the emergence of platform urbanism. Urban Geography, 41(3), 448–52.

  • Sadowski, J. (2020b) The internet of landlords: digital platforms and new mechanisms of rentier capitalism. Antipode, 52(2), 562–80.

  • Salaudeen, S. (2020) ‘A rushed decision’: angry commuters disapprove of controversial Lagos Okada ban. CNN, 14 February. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/14/africa/lagos-okada-keke-ban/index.html

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Schech, S. (2002) Wired for change: the links between ICTs and development discourses. Journal of International Development: The Journal of the Development Studies Association, 14(1), 13–23.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Shin, D.-H. (2009) Ubiquitous city: urban technologies, urban infrastructure and urban informatics. Journal of Information Science, 35(5), 515–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sibanda, L. and von Blottnitz, H. (2018) Food value chains in Kisumu, Kitwe, and Epworth: environmental and social hotspots. In J. Batterby and V. Watson (eds) Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 169–81.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Simone, A. (2004) People as infrastructure: intersecting fragments in Johannesburg. Public Culture, 16(3), 407–29.

  • Simone, A. (2010) Infrastructure, real economies, and social transformation: assembling the components for regional urban development in Africa. In E. Pieterse (ed) Urbanization Imperatives for Africa: Transcending Policy Inertia. Cape Town: African Centre for Cities, pp 24–36.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Simone, A. (2011) The ineligible majority: urbanizing the postcolony in Africa and Southeast Asia. Geoforum, 42(3), 266–70.

  • Simone, A. and Pieterse, E. (2017) New Urban Worlds: Inhabiting Dissonant Times. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

  • Smit, W. (2016) Urban governance and urban food systems in Africa: examining the linkages. Cities, 58, 80–6.

  • Söderström, O. and Mermet, A.-C. (2020) When Airbnb sits in the control room: platform urbanism as actually existing smart urbanism in Reykjavík. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2020.00015

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Söderström, O., Blake, E. and Odendaal, N. (2021) More-than-local, more-than-mobile: the smart city effect in South Africa. Geoforum, 122, 103–17.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • South African Urban Food and Farming Trust (2020) Food Dialogues Report 2020. Available at: https://capetown.fooddialogues.info/

  • Stehlin, J., Hodson, M. and McMeekin, A. (2020) Platform mobilities and the production of urban space: toward a typology of platformization trajectories. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 52(7), 1250–68.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Steyn, N.P., McHiza, Z., Hill, J. et al (2014) Nutritional contribution of street foods to the diet of people in developing countries: a systematic review. Public Health Nutrition, 17(6), 1363–74.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Summerton, J (1994) Introductory essay: the systems approach to technological change. In J. Summerton (ed.) Changing Large Technical Systems. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp 1–21.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Toivonen, T. and Friederici, N. (2015) Time to define what a ‘hub’ really is. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Available at: https://doi.org/10.48558/N1BD-8S82

  • Toriro, P. (2018) Urban food production in Harare, Zimbabwe. In J. Batterby and V. Watson (eds) Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities. Abingdon: Routledge, pp 154–66.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Tostensen, A., Tvedten, I. and Vaa, M. (2001) The urban crisis, governance and associational life. In T. Tostensen, I. Tvedten and M. Vaa (eds) Associational Life in African Cities: Popular Responses to the Urban Crisis. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, pp 7–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Townsend, A.M. (2013) Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

  • Turok, I. and Watson, V. (2001) Divergent development in South African cities: strategic challenges facing Cape Town. Urban Forum, 12(2), 119–38.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • UNDESA (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs) (2019) World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision. New York, NY: United Nations.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2017) Income Inequality Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, Determinants and Consequences. New York, NY: United Nations.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Van Doorn, N. (2019) A new institution on the block: on platform urbanism and Airbnb citizenship. New Media & Society, 22(10), 1808–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Van Ryneveld, M., Whyle, E. and Brady, L. (2022) What is COVID-19 teaching us about community health systems? A reflection from a rapid community-led mutual aid response in Cape town, South Africa. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 11(1), 5–8.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Vergès, F. (2017) Digital Africa. Journal of the African Literature Association, 11(1), 45–9.

  • Wainaina, E. (2016) What next for small players in Kenya’s taxi hailing business? Techweez, 13 July. Available at: https://techweez.com/2016/07/13/kenyas-taxi-hailing-business-small-players-future/

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Warf, B. (1995) Telecommunications and the changing geographies of knowledge transmission in the late 20th century. Urban Studies, 32(2), 361–78.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Watson, V. (2013) African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares? Environment and Urbanization, 26(1), 215–31.

  • Watson, V. (2015) The allure of ‘smart city’ rhetoric: India and Africa. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 36–9.

  • Wellman, B., Haase, A.Q., Witte, J. and Hampton, K. (2001) Does the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement social capital? Social networks, participation, and community commitment. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 436–55.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Wiig, A. and Masucci, M. (2020) Digital infrastructures, services, and spaces. In M. Hodson, J. Kasmire, A. McMeekin, J.G. Stehlin and K. Ward (eds) Urban Platforms and the Future City: Transformations in Infrastructure, Governance, Knowledge and Everyday Life. Abingdon: Routledge, p 70.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Willis, K.S. and Aurigi, A. (2017) Digital and Smart Cities. Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Wilson, J., Garay-Tamajon, L. and Morales-Perez, S. (2022) Politicising platform-mediated tourism rentals in the digital sphere: Airbnb in Madrid and Barcelona. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(5), 1080–101.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Womack, Y.L. (2013) Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-fi and Fantasy Culture. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 413 290 33
Full Text Views 10 10 0
PDF Downloads 4 4 0

Altmetrics