Hybrid Urbanisms - Hybrid Forms of Urban Development in Secondary Cities in the Global South der Stadtentwicklung in Secondary Cities des globalen Südens based on their infrastructural delivery configurations

• Applicants: Professorin Nina Gribat, Ph.D.; Dr. Christian Rosen
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458375534

This research project will compare the special relationship between formal and informal processes and structures of urban development of secondary cities in the global South. The central starting point of this proposal is the permanent coexistence of both components of urban development in the form of hybrid urbanisms. Up to now, relatively little is known about the specifics of local urban development practices in secondary cities in the global South, as macroeconomic indicators have been the main focus of attention. In practical terms, it is proposed to analyze formal planning approaches and everyday practices of the inhabitants with regard to water and mobility infrastructure in a neighborhood characterized by poverty and informality and a neighborhood characterized by prosperity and formality in Sunyani (Ghana) and Arequipa (Peru). The interdependencies of formality and informality in urban development are to be made visible by means of their case-specific initial conditions (‘delivery configurations’ (Olivier de Sardan 2010)). The effects on urban inequality will be examined. Water and mobility were selected as fundamental resources for the development of cities and for the quality of life of their inhabitants. The study of ‘delivery configurations’ allows us to identify more or less institutionalized actors, their material and social resources as well as the forms of cooperation, and to relate these different dimensions to each other. This research design aims to produce comprehensive, comparable ethnographic case studies of the material construction and the underlying social processes, but also of the everyday use of specific infrastructures and their conditions. To examine this ‘dwelling’ and ‘building’ perspective (Ingold 2000) different sets of qualitative methods will be applied.The interdisciplinary cooperation of planning sciences and sociology will enable a multi-scalar comparison of the diversity of hybrid arrangements and their initial conditions. Similarities and differences between poorer and more prosperous neighborhoods in the same city can be investigated as well as between neighborhoods in Ghana and Peru. The focus on hybridity can sharpen the view for local particularities and at the same time it offers the possibility to analyse the background of similar developments in different neighborhoods and state contexts in a comparative way. The international comparison will make an innovative contribution to advancing the theory of secondary cities in the global South by analyzing small-scale local realities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Ghana, Peru
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Daniel K. B. Inkoom; Léon Álvaro Del Carpio