New Published Articles 2018
Émilie Guitard (2018). «Between Municipal Management and Sorcery Uses of Waste», Cahiers d’études africaines [En ligne], 231-232 | URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/23453
Abstract
Many city-dwellers from Garoua and Maroua, northern part of Cameroon, identify bodily excretions and discarded intimate items as tools for an instrumental sorcery, based on a continuity seen as irreducible with the body and what is rejected from it. Facing with these sorcery uses of waste, the public authorities’ position inherits from older conceptions of great accumulations of waste, seen as gathering ambivalent and versatile “forces” that can be harnessed by powerful individuals for purposes of domination and increase in wealth. Far from questioning these conceptions, the initiatives taken in 2008 by the authorities to manage garbage collection and street cleaning in both cities, with the help of a private company, induces rather a renewal of this sorcery of refuse.
Michelle T Kuenzi, Gina M S Lambright (2018). Decentralization, Executive Selection, and Citizen Views on the Quality of Local Governance in African Countries, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, , pjy031, https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjy031
Abstract
Do institutions influence the quality of local governance in Africa? We examine determinants of citizens’ perceptions of the quality of local government using Afrobarometer survey data for twenty-six sub-Saharan African countries and country-level variables. We find that the method of selecting chief executives is a significant factor in citizen evaluations of local governance. Citizens tend to view local governments as less responsive when the chief executive is directly elected. They also perceive the performance and probity of local government more negatively when the chief executive is appointed by the national government. Greater expenditure control is a double-edged sword. Citizens in areas with greater local control over public expenditures perceive local officials to be more responsive, yet also more corrupt. Citizens in areas with greater administrative decentralization tend to view corruption as less widespread. These results suggest that the direct election of local executives is not a panacea and the capacity of local governments should be considered before decentralization is deepened.
Buyana, K., Byarugaba, D., Sseviiri, H. et al. (2018). Experimentation in an African Neighborhood: Reflections for Transitions to Sustainable Energy in Cities. Urban Forum (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-018-9358-z
Abstract
Studies on transitions to sustainable energy in cities point to different types of experimentation including niche experiments, bounded socio-technical experiments, transition experiments and grassroots experiments. This paper argues that experimentation in African cities cannot be definitively framed into such types because each case harbors a unique perspective with implications for how it is understood conceptually. This is based on a transdisciplinary inquiry into waste to energy pilots in an informal neighborhood of Kampala city, which demonstrated how a network of community actors overcome not only energy but also health and poverty-related challenges, through recycling waste materials for production of energy briquettes. Their experimentation is majorly driven by the following: (i) the desire to overcome confinement to services regulated by government and (ii) promoting alternative sources of cooking energy that stem from locally available technologies. Overall, the case study points to how transitions to sustainable energy in cities can start in experimentation at neighborhood scale, using alternative cooking energy solutions as the anchorage.
Oussama A. Hadadi & Shin Lee (2018) The climate change mitigation potential of Algiers URT through mode shift from the car to rail – assessing CO2 emissions reductions on the basis of savings in fuel consumption, International Planning Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13563475.2018.1535960
Abstract
This paper attempts to assess the potential of a transport policy to mitigate climate change by assessing the impacts of urban rail transit (URT) investments on travel mode choice and carbon dioxide emission reductions in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria. The objectives are: (1) to assess the extent of travel mode change from private automobiles to rail for commuting trips as an effect of the URT operation; (2) to identify complementary measures which might be adopted to enhance the effect of the URT; and (3) to quantify the CO2 emission reductions on the basis of the fuel saved per person as a result of the travel mode change that occurred, following the IPCC guideline methodologies. A questionnaire survey of the URT users was conducted to observe the behavioural changes. Positive effects of rail projects in terms of attracting car users to the new travel modes have been evidenced, resulting in a significant extent of carbon emission reductions, which signifies a contribution to sustainable urban mobility and climate change mitigation. The findings also show reinforcing effects of both fuel price increases and parking restrictions on mitigating transport-related carbon emissions.
Michelle T Kuenzi, Gina M S Lambright (2018). Decentralization, Executive Selection, and Citizen Views on the Quality of Local Governance in African Countries, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, , pjy031, https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjy031
Abstract
Do institutions influence the quality of local governance in Africa? We examine determinants of citizens’ perceptions of the quality of local government using Afrobarometer survey data for twenty-six sub-Saharan African countries and country-level variables. We find that the method of selecting chief executives is a significant factor in citizen evaluations of local governance. Citizens tend to view local governments as less responsive when the chief executive is directly elected. They also perceive the performance and probity of local government more negatively when the chief executive is appointed by the national government. Greater expenditure control is a double-edged sword. Citizens in areas with greater local control over public expenditures perceive local officials to be more responsive, yet also more corrupt. Citizens in areas with greater administrative decentralization tend to view corruption as less widespread. These results suggest that the direct election of local executives is not a panacea and the capacity of local governments should be considered before decentralization is deepened.
Re-Imagining African Cities. The Arts and Urban Politics (Guest editors: Fiona Siegenthaler and Till Förster)
Till Förster & Fiona Siegenthaler (2018) Introduction: Re-Imagining Cities in Africa, Social Dynamics, 44:3, 395-404, DOI: 10.1080/02533952.2018.1512938
Abstract
The introduction presents the key concepts and core arguments of this special issue Re-Imagining African Cities: The Arts and Urban Politics that results from a workshop hosted by the Visual Culture Research Group at the Department of Anthropology, University of Basel, in 2016. Summarising and presenting the essays, it offers insights into how urban imagination and the physical cities interrelate in urban aesthetic practices. How do artists articulate their experiences and observations of the city? What position and relevance do the material city, the city image and the urban imagination have in the practice of these visual and performing artists? How does their work relate to the urban as a social space on the one hand and as an imagined entity on the other? The African and diasporic cities of Kinshasa, Paris, Cape Town, Lagos, Bamenda, Freetown, Johannesburg and Kampala are both the sites and research subjects of the authors and of the artists they present. The focus on visual and performative arts provides the vehicle and the critical means of observing, articulating and representing these entanglements of the material cities, their images and their societal as well as artistic imagination.