The right to the city in the Global South. African appropriations and adaptations

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 analyses the complexities surrounding the incorporation, in the post-colonial contexts, of certain elements of the debates, 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 re-explores the contribution of so-called southern cities, specifically those in sub-Saharan Africa, to the debates on the right to the city and the place they occupy in it. The aim is to shed light on the way in which contemporary discussions 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.