Auri Formal-Informal Interface Workshop Fostering A Comparative Research Agenda In African Cities

By Nathalie Jean Baptiste 3 to 5 October 2018

With support from the African Urban Research Initiative, the Institute of Human Settlements Studies (IHSS) at Ardhi University hosted the first Auri Formal-Informal Interface Workshop which took place in Dar es Salaam on the 3rd-5th of October 2018. This international event included the participation of the Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER), the Centre of Urban Research and Planning (CURP) from Lusaka, and the Laboratoire Citoyennetés from Ouagadougou.

The main objectives of the Formal-Informal Interface Workshop were twofold: First, to share and discuss different research methodologies to capture urban production and transformation at the intersect of formal and informal processes. The focus there is on the interactions and flows that connect ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ rather than treating these constructs as two distinct entities. Second, the workshop served as a first step to begin setting a road map for comparative research methods and methodologies that can help understand, explain and illustrate the nature and dynamics of informality beyond the formal-informal dichotomy, across African cities and regions.

Preceding the Workshop in Dar es Salaam was AURI’s call for comparative urban research in African cities in 2017, and a first exchange of research findings on formal-informal interface at the 2018 Policy Conference in Cape Town. Following that, in March 2018 researchers from CLUSTER, CURP, IHSS and The Labo Citoyennetés decided to organize series of workshops on research methods and tools in each of their respective cities Cairo, Lusaka, Dar es Salaam and Ouagadougou to support of the African research agenda on formal-informal interface.

The 2nd AURI Formal-Informal Interface workshop will take place in Lusaka from 6th - 10th May 2019