STUDYING PUBLIC SPACE AND PUBLIC LIFE IN THE CASE OF MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE

Studying Public Space and Public Life in the Case of Maputo, Mozambique.

Showcasing the disconnection between cultural identity and colonially designed public spaces in Maputo Concepción del Rocío Aranda Iglesias concha_cai@hotmail.com Keywords: Africa, Mozambique, Maputo, Public space, Public life, Appropriation, Informal organisation, Cultural identity, Social safety, Liveability, Self-made settlements, Behavioural patterns, Laissez-faire policy, Abstract: Due to the complexity involved in the African contexts at several levels, the definition of public space is a difficult task that requires of year and years of reflection. This paper will propose a new approach to add to this open discussion as part of the Research Group ‘Public Space in Africa’ from the Honours Programme of TU Delft University. With the study of three public spaces in the capital city of Mozambique, Maputo, this essay explores the main characteristics of the use of parks in the extension of the formal city. Based on the historical remark on the city, a literature review, GIS process, input from local experts and stakeholders and the perceptions of the author during a fieldtrip to the location, this paper introduces the relevance of understanding public space in Maputo, due to its colonial attachment, approaching from the use that is being done of the urban fabric more than the designed urban fabric itself, which is disconnected with the current reality. The analysis and diagnosis of three main parks in the city leaded to the presentation of three main concepts to frame the characteristics of the public space in Maputo: strong cultural identity, predominance of informal economies and safety issues. Within these three qualities, there is an exploration of aspects to preserve and foster of the current design and distribution of public spaces in Maputo. The particular findings of the study case of Maputo are compared on the final conclusions with the rest of researchers and their particular cases on Lusaka, Zambia; Dakar, Senegal and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This will provide a complete overview of the reflection and discussion of this Research Group over two years of studying the principles of Public Space in African contexts.

1. An introduction – Group proposal Africa is urbanising fast. According to UN Habitat (2010) its rate of urbanisation soared from 15 % in 1960 to 40% in 2010, and is projected to reach 60% in 2050. As Freire, Lall & Leipziger (2014) highlighted, urban populations in Africa are expected to triple in the next 50 years. This would lead to a change in the profile of the region, and challenge policy makers to harness urbanisation for sustainable and inclusive growth. Within this widely-illuminated challenge, the research group on African public spaces has focussed on one aspect which is conditional for this: understanding public spaces in their local context in order to meet human development desires in specific African cities. In other words, the aim is an acculturated understanding of public space. As such, the main objective is to highlight the differences in the term ‘public space’ as understood by African people and present in four exemplary African case cities and the Euro-American scope wherein ’public space’ is associated with ditto notions, dominant fixed concepts, and often culturally-embedded morphological patterns.

In order to argue on this topic, we are going to analyse four African cities and compare the structure and perception of public space in each one of them. Understanding the differences in context and the wide range of external influences in the African continent, this research group aims to find a broader

definition of public space that fits in a bigger scale than the developed context. Benevolo already stated from 1967 regarding the urban planning in Africa, namely that it (urban planning in Africa) results from indigenous aesthetics and conceptions of form and function as well as the changes brought on by industrialisation, modernisation, and colonialism. By the same token, it can be stated that the influences in these contexts have a prominent role and, consequently, the results of the analysis are going to be different (Benevolo, 1967).

As far as both the societal and scientific relevance of this study are concerned, it should be mentioned that the research addresses issues such as the inability of national and local governments in developing countries to cope with high rates of urbanisation (Sliuzas, 2002) by adding up to the body of knowledge and broadening the understanding of urbanism in Africa. In addition, the research hopes to raise awareness on the necessity to study the African continent, as well as towards measuring liveability in African cities. More specifically, according to the relevant literature and other scholars, a difference between actual living standards and the perceived liveability has being observed. This difference becomes even more challenging when taking into consideration the fact that the Western perception of liveability differs from the African perception. Having that as a starting point, can we actually escape from our European context? Simultaneously, this explorative study aims at enriching the knowledge of public life in Africa, the methods applied to study public life and measure the impact and summing up to the predictions for the future of African cities, under the challenging conditions of rapid urbanisation.

The common denominator of the four case studies lies upon two shared research questions focusing on how public space in Africa has been primarily structured in a physical sense, influencing public life, and on how social behavioural patterns in Africa shape public life, influencing public space. With the answering of these questions, we shine the light on the general perception and image of public space, and with that the acculturated connotation of public space in Africa today. In order to argue this, a common methodology has been developed, ranging from the typo-morphological analysis of the city towards reviewing (and observing) the use, governance, and image of public spaces. With this, the same theoretical framework on the notion of public space, and on the study of public life is being set as a common underlay of the study. Nevertheless, still, each case elaborates the theoretical framework different based on the specific context. Thus, each one of the case studies has investigated the acculturation of public space in a specific manner, based on selected exemplars/segments of public spaces emergent in four case cities [Dar es Salaam, Dakar, Lusaka and Maputo].Yet, although each research paper itself follows a specific, context related narrative in order to reconstruct public space and public life in the selected city, sharing parts of the theoretical discourse as well as of the methodological approach has been the outline for some comparative conclusions in order not only to answer the research question but foremost to acculturate the understanding of public space to meet human desires in the fast growing African cities.

The research is conducted by Concha Aranda Iglesias, Cateau Albers, Evangelia (Vaggy) Georgali and Aikaterina Myserli (MSc Urbanism students) under the guidance and supervision of dr ir Maurice Harteveld for the completion of the Honours Programme Master of the Delft University of Technology (February 2017 – April 2018).

2. Introducing Case study Maputo: Cementing the colonial and informal This paper introduces the study of the public space in the capital city of Mozambique, Maputo. and explores the relation between the use of public spaces, as in it physical form developed as a design within European contexts and its application, hence use, thus exposing public life in this particular case city.

According to the city profile proposed by Paul Jenkins in 2000, originated as a Portuguese colony, the country of Mozambique fought for its independence in 1975; The civil war this event caused established the current Mozambican hierarchy of power. As usual, the biggest cities use to suffer the strongest damages during the war. In the case of Maputo, there were not extraordinary material damage; however, the population experienced an explosive growth due to massive migration to the city. This, without a proper urban plan, lead to the creation of several informal ‘self-made’ settlements in the city Image 1. Scheme formal-informal city of that do not count on proper live conditions. The last report of UNMaputo. Source: illustration by author with GIS data.

Habitat about “The state of African cities” 2014 showcased that 80% of the population in Mozambique lives in such settlements. According to the deeper analysis of the World Bank, in the city of Maputo, 70% of the population is living in precarious conditions.

Pestana Barros et al., 2013, on their description of the urban dynamics in Maputo, highlighted the dualism between these informal settlements and the urban core of the city as one of the main defining characteristics of the urban morphology of Maputo. The urban core was originated in the colonial times and is known as the so called ‘cement city’. This trace joins the informal settlements named as ‘barrios’ to divide Maputo in a strong social and economic dualism. During the colonial times, these two spaces defined the living areas for Africans and non-Africans. As states by Pestana Barros in 2013, this dualism is something that presents blurrier borders nowadays but still creates a division: “Therefore, the dualistic structure results from this city’s organisation, as already detected by Jenkins 2000, and it continues to persist, thus justifying the present research” In the same way, the divided nature of Maputo displays extraordinary inequalities among its population with economic levels of live that could be compared with any European contexts confronted with poor liveability, not reaching minimal standards of life, and within that condition, it do not allow proper surveillance, nor social control.

The city of Maputo maintains nowadays a strong colonial identity and it is in process of adapting the urban tissue to the African culture and social behaviour. However, there is a disconnection between the designed urban fabric and public space and the actual use of it. The cultural identities of the Mozambican population are not aligned with the frame proposed by the colonial designed public spaces.

This paper will study the use of public spaces in Africa from the reflection on how the cultural practices and characteristics of the population are impressed in the public built environment and if the design and planning of it is adapted to what the population is requesting in their way of appropriation. It will try to provide a set of characteristics to start a definition of it. In order to do so, this paper will reflect upon the study of three representative public spaces, specifically parks, in the formal city of Maputo: ‘Praça 24 de Junho’, ‘Parque dos Continadores’ and ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’. With the definition, analysis and diagnosis of these three public spaces and their surroundings, this research will set a list of terms to define what does public space mean in the context of Maputo. A definition that is linked to the culture and social behaviour of the inhabitants of the city and the diversity and inequalities among them.

The main methodology is based on perceptions during a field trip to the location, literature review, GIS data, input from experts and stakeholders in location and extensive discussions with the researchers of the group ‘Public space in Africa’ from TU Delft.

This paper will introduce a glimpse on the history of the city to understand the complex context of its urban fabric, its strong colonial impact and the essential role of historical events and cultural identity in the definition of the public space of the city. The main section of the paper is based on the three public spaces selected as cases of study. The section explains the process of selection and describe each one of the spaces in relation to its main use, the flows of appropriation that take place on its extension and personal experiences on their visit. The reflection over each one of the cases lead to questions and qualities of the Mozambican public spaces. All of these different questions are synthetized in the start of a definition of public space in Mozambique which is divided in three main aspects: strong cultural identity, predominance of informal economies and safety issues.

Finally, as a conclusion, this study case is compared with the reflection of the rest of the Research Group and completed with a common discussion and juxtaposition of experiences.

Thus, this paper argues towards the research question: In the broad range of understanding African urban public spaces, what can we learn from Maputo? This space of study will be specified in the following sub-questions: • What are the typo morphological characteristics of the public spaces with a strong sense of community and liveability?

• What is the human behaviour (public life) and the sociological patterns (public sphere) in Maputo and how is it spatially facilitated?

• What are the leading ideas about the public space as a place for exchange of public life and physical public space based on an African perspective?

•

How the spatial structure of Maputo has been evolved and which are the main typologies of public space that have emerged throughout the years? What is the public life that they embody?

3. Historical remark – Evolution of public spaces Maputo is the capital city of Mozambique. Located in the South of the country, it frames the access of the Indian Ocean by the creation of the Maputo Bay, former Delagoa Bay. The city belongs to the southern province of the country, Maputo province, with a population of 1.638.631 people (INE).

According to the latest census, Maputo city has a population of 1.101.170 inhabitants in an area of 300 km2, hence a population density of 3.670,6 inhabitants/km2 (Estatística, 2017).

The history of the city helps to understand the current trends in public spaces and most of the culturally attached characteristics of the use of Mozambican public space. As reflected by The SouthAfrican researcher Karina Landman in 2006, each particular public space has a meaning associated with its historical events and daily uses, as well as civic culture. In the case of Maputo city, it is essential to get a glimpse on the development of the formal and informal city to understand the complexity of dynamisms that take place within the city extension everyday. (Landman 2006) There was a rapid urbanisation trend between 1870 and 1975 however, the majority of the inhabitants were immigrants during the civil war between 1975 and 2002. Because of a lack of proper land management, specially during the civil war, the immigrants started to occupy the areas in the Northern part of the city and in between the industrial zones. The government adapted a “laissez-faire” policy, which lead to the current structure of the city where the majority of urban tissue is not properly planned on access to basic services. From that moment, there were several plans to improve the conditions of the informal areas of the city, which lead to the creation of semi-informal zones where there is a basic planning of infrastructure system but the built environment is not properly adapted to the plan, nor developed as such. One may find a fundament of a purely infrastructural approach related to inequality, however, the problematic of the city should be approached from different scales and fields.

During the times of the Portuguese colony the city of Maputo was then still named Lourenço Marques, after its discoverer in 1540. Since its Portuguese occupation in 1799 its land was exploded economically, especially because of its strategic position for trading by maritime routes. Following wealth and prosperity, the settlement of Lourenço Marques received the status of a ‘town’ in 1876. As a consequence, the railway was constructed to enhance commercial connections with South Africa, in 1895. During these times of local colonial exchange, there were several slavery trade agreements, specially with the closest country of South Africa, in exchange for a percentage of the rail and port exports through Maputo port. Thus, this period launched the era of inequalities between African and Portuguese colonialists. In the inner city only the non-Africans were allowed to live; therefore, it leaded to the creation of a poverty belt in the periphery of the city where the African population working in the city were established. This dualism set the guides to the current city inequalities. (Jenkins 2000, Pestana Barros 2014) In 1975, when the city of Lourenço Marques was declared independent from the Portuguese government; the Maputo civil war started, from 1975 to 2002 in between the political parties of Freelimo and Renamo. The Freelimo party assumed the control of the government of the renamed Maputo. During war time, specially in the latest part of 1980, the war affected the city directly with attacks to the periphery, forcing the inhabitants to move to safer areas; cutting off energy and rail-road transport and undermining the city economy. During this period, there was a refugee crisis when most of the current population settled in the periphery of the city extension in a low density informal ‘selfmade’ urban tissue. In 1976, there was a nationalisation programme pursued by Freelimo Party which supposed the nationalisation of banks and key industries, all the land in the city extension and abandoned or rented colonial properties, apart from education and health systems. As consequence of this nationalisation, the members of Freelimo obtained access to colonial facilities and were empowered by their new role in the society and this enhanced the inequalities in the city between the supporters of this party and the rest of the population; increasing the poverty belt that was created during the colonial times:

“The process of national reconciliation that began in 1992 was characterised in Maputo by the many people fleeing from the civil war being housed in traditional African houses that they themselves built on the outskirts of Maputo. These war refugees organised themselves into neighbourhoods founded along ethnic lines, and Maputo’s suburbs clearly reflect this pattern.

The lack of employment, the lack of education and a municipal housing policy that was reliant on the private market resulted in the development of the city’s poverty belt. Thirdly, slums came into being, with a complete disregard for the property rights of the houses built in Maputo’s poverty belt, where there were deficient sanitation conditions and where the gentrification process was actively supported by the municipality.” (Pestana Barros 2014)

Image 2. Timeline of the main events in Maputo in parallel to the urban development of the city. Source: diagram by author.

Literature review of Jenkins, 2000; Boyd, 2014 and Pestana Barros, 2014. Illustrated in bigger scale in Anex A.

This situation has been prolonged until current times; According to Boyd et al. 2014, the focus on infrastructure is basic, not focussed on (inter)national or urban exchange, built environment is not planned but self-made, and society is divided roughly in two: most of the population, with low incomes and little changes to be mobile, living in the informal city and peripheral belt, and the ruling parties and economic well-of (incl. Foreigners or expats) residing in the city core, There is not a medium class and the inequalities are represented in all the daily life levels; from job opportunities directed to those who are prepared to a health and education systems that are oriented towards the empowered class. Both kind of social groups meet in the city centre though, because there is exchange and communication, hence trade opportunities, markets, industry and office work. This leads to a flow of people from the outskirts of Maputo to the city centre on a daily basis, the majority of inhabitants work in the economical and activities core of the city and located in the cement city extension; However, because of the high rental prizes in the established inner-city, they are forced to live in on distance, in the peripheries, informal cities, or even for example in the neighbour city of Matola, a residential area that works as a dormitory of Maputo city.

4. Study cases – the park phenomenon in the city of Maputo In the research to public space, it seems relevant particularly to investigate the places of gathering. In different ‘parks’ in the city-core of Maputo, one may see a variety of groups gathering – displaying both inequalities as well as public life, gathering, hence social relations and exchange between certain 1 groups in society – though fragmented. From the GIS analysis preformed prior to the fieldwork, several green spaces could be identified within the extension of the formal city of Maputo. Those spaces described the agglomeration of public spaces in the small extension of the cement city. In contrast with the traffic oriented squares, which are crucial in the infrastructural network, the ‘parks’

1

The GIS analysis was extracted from the Open Street Maps data of Maputo and produced with the programme QGIS by the author. It contains the main programmes in the study areas and the identification, scale and proportion of the public spaces in a city scale.

were designed at specific spots to provide leisure space for the Portuguese colonial population; Still today, they are to a certain degree social hubs for the meeting and relaxation of the population.

This research will focus in the approach presented by Bailo, M. in 2015 on its book “Public catalyst” where the public spaces are understood as part of a ‘Transitory urbanism’ which is defined as: “Transitory Urbanism appealed against the lack of attention to the world of open in the design of public spaces. We highlighted the non-physical characteristics linked to public space, including activity, trade, and the transforming capacity of the people’s actions. It proposed a much more informal attitude towards development of projects; a trust in the constructive value of all that is transitory, of the formless action” This research aims on illustrating the impact over the public space that a strong population identity can represent, as such being the case of the African inhabitants of Maputo and their strong cultural roots.

With the selection of parks, this essay will highlight the different uses or activities that can be found on those spaces and reflect upon whether the design of the public space is adapted to its use or not.

These public spaces could be only partially defined as ’park’ by definition, as in its vernacular a park is: “a large area of land with grass and trees, usually surrounded by fences or walls, and specially arranged so that people can walk in it for pleasure or children can play in it” or “an area of land that is used for a particular purpose” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2018) In Maputo, these space are indeed large areas of land with grass and trees, sometimes surrounded by fences or walls, and people use it for spare time, yet also for trade, commerce, or even established markets for example, often less intentional for one particular purpose.

Understanding the relevance of the numerous presence of green spaces, the hypothesis of stablishing them as representative of the public space in Maputo was proposed. During the fieldtrip, the first research approach was oriented towards them and with the visit to some of the major avenues and squares the hypothesis was substantiated and the parks were supposed in this research as model public spaces. Their characteristics were summary from the most relevant and visited parks, starting point of the process of selection of the most representative ones for the study cases.

Image 3. Distribution of parks in the formal city of Maputo. Source: illustration by author with GIS data.

4.1. Process of selection of public spaces There is a big daily movement in the city extension. Whereas the colonial area was planned with a public space urban tissue, the peripheral informal ‘bairros’, ‘self-made’ cities, do not count on a design public network. Because of the distance from the jobs location, the inhabitants are forced to spend the working days within the cement city extension, without opportunity of coming back home for lunch or rest. One of the main findings during the observations in the fieldtrip is the specific use of the cement city public spaces for routine activities, not only by those who inhabit the area but also those who ‘migrant’ during the day to work in the city. This is fully described in the blog “magiaenelcamino” (http://magiaenelcamino.com.ar/postales-de-maputo.html) where the daily activities are illustrated through pictures of people playing games in the streets or eating lunch on a plastic box. The study cases are being selected within the ‘cement city’ extension to argue towards the design of public space with colonial roots in this concrete African context and understand the factors that can indeed be applied due to their current success and those to be fostered in future proposals.

The selection has been done with a strong reliability on perception by the author during the fieldtrip to the location. After an extensive route through the different public spaces of the formal city, these three represent the main terms to start a definition of public space: ‘Praça 25 de Junho’, ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’ and ‘Parque dos Continadores’. The three spaces shared some initial qualities to allow the comparison between them and obtain proper conclusions from it: they are included in the previous definition of park; part of the colonial tissue, their locations are relevant and built the identity of the neighbourhood by raising its value; they are used in a daily basis, their main use is related with economical activities and they allow open accessibility for everybody. However, they present different characteristics to differentiate them that introduce the diversity in public spaces and, together, give a global description of the public space park in Maputo.

The chosen public spaces represent different scales of parks in the city, the small one is named square ‘Praça’ although it can be included in the definition of park due to its green land and trees and, despite the fact that it is not surrounded by fences or walls, there is a traffic road that creates a barrier surrounding it and delimitating the space. The middle scale is the ‘Jardim’ Portuguese word that refers to gardens. This garden is a middle open space of a residential neighbourhood and its delimited by bushes that prevent the accessibility and form the entrances to the space. Finally, the bigger one is the park itself, ‘Parque’ which is attached to the proper definition of park presented in the last section.

At the same time, the management of the three examples is different. ‘Praça 25 de Junho’ is a completely open public space with no stuck programme whereas the ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’ has a restaurant in the centre of its extension which supposes a core that organizes the activities towards it and divide the space. ‘Parque dos Continadores’ holds on its inside a craft market which supposes the principal activity and the public space is rented to the market sellers; this park is closed during the night and, although the entrance is free during the day, it is forbidden during the night to preserve the safety inside due to its big scale.

Jardim dos Cronistas

Praça 25 Junho

Parque dos Continadores

Image 4. Map of location of the selected public spaces. Source: illustration by author with GIS data.

4.2. Methodology of description The comparison between the different spaces will be focus on the public life and its relation of the morphological aspects of these parks in Maputo. In order to compare the chosen public spaces, there is a common description methodology organised. Each one of the spaces will be introduced according to four different aspects that together follow the approach of ‘Transitory Urbanism’ described in the prior section: their main use and context, the flows of appropriation within their extension, the personal experience of the author on the visit and the conclusion of each one of them.

These public spaces keep a strong connection with their context and the understanding of their exact location atmosphere are essential to interpret their value. Usually, the context is related to their main use and there is a big influence of the surrounding on the identity of the particular public space.

Related with the services or activities that take place in each one of these public spaces, there are different appropriation flows. This lead to an invisible layer of negotiation between the inhabitants of the spaces for the use of the public space in a certain moment. According to the different appropriation flows, the public space is divided and the different groups of people present within its extension take place and use the space.

The descriptions of the public spaces are complemented with personal experience in their visit and the different interactions with their inhabitants. Because of the lack of literature describing public spaces in Maputo, the perception of the author will be use as part of the methodology. Within the visit to the city, these three spaces were studied in different times of the day and during week day and weekend to understand the different uses of the space and obtain a complete image of each one of them.

Finally, there are some observations of each one of the public spaces and how each one of them contribute to build up a common description of the public space in the city of Maputo and a reflection upon the western design and the actual use of them.

4.3. Study cases. a) Praça 25 de Junho Space in the middle of the economical core of the city of Maputo, in the ending point of the Samora Michel Avenue. This park presents a point of conflict of three different areas: the Baixa, which was the initial extension of the initial Lourenço Marques colony; the economical area extension, defined by tall buildings and innovative solutions; and the marine, maritime port of the city, area unconnected with the residential zones and the daily life of the city. At the same time, on its eastern side, it contains one of the most representative monuments of the city: the fortress of Maputo, historical landmark for the city.

Image 5. Scheme of context of the square. Source: illustration by author Google earth image and based on fieldtrip.

The biggest influence is directed towards the administrative and economy oriented enterprises like banks or ministries that are located surrounding the square. The ‘Praça’ represents the space used by the working people within the formal city extension, most of them do not live in the area but move there to work and use this public space to find a cheap and warm street food that eat in the shadow of its trees. It is this informal economy within the public space delimitation what creates the strongest flows of appropriation. The act of buying to a certain seller gives the ‘right’ to appropriate a certain area of the space close to this seller. Therefore, the space is divided towards the different sellers and costumers as if each one of the sellers has a formal restaurant with a terrace to allocate its people. This represents an invisible distribution that belongs to the cultural identity of the city and is respected by everyone.

This square presents a clear example of a kinetic city, term that is usually applied to Asian or Indian cities and it is defined by Rahul Mehrotra, Indian architect and Hardvard lecturer as: “I had been writing a lot about Indian cities and I begin to use the word the ‘Kinetic City’. What I tried to argue there was we shouldn’t talk about the formal and the informal city, but cities India are kinetic which means they morph into one other – the temporal, the permanent – “(Mehrotra, 2016) This term perfectly defines the specific circumstance that take place in this park, where the informal city population, economy and activities are located in the formal city. After visiting it in both types of days, it is perceived the differentiation between the weekly lunch breaks and the weekend leisure time expended in the area, albeit in both kind of days, the distribution is related to the informal sellers, this activity presents a stronger characteristic during lunchtime, most crowded moment of the day. As a foreigner, this public space does not present a welcoming space. It is use by local people with low resources that can not afford to spend money in one of the multiple restaurants of the economical area and people related to the area of the Baixa, known by its nocturne activities and one of the places that are not recommended for tourists to access alone. However, the use of it is one of the most authentic of the city because of the routine activities that take place on it. It is used as a ‘dinning room’, extension of the house of those who has the house far enough to not go to have lunch there.

Image 6. Illustrations of ‘Praça 25 de Junho’ during week lunchtime and weekend. Source: author.

Finally, as it is illustrated in the pictures, this park is a clear example of how a public space that is not fully adapted for the amount of people that use it, can be turned into a social hub and the disconnection of its colonial design with the actual use of its extension. There are several empty benches both in shadowed and sunny areas and the different groups of people are sitting in the shadows of the trees or in the floor. This demonstrates that the cultural identity of the place is stronger than the designed colonial ‘rules’ and opens a discussion about the design methods for African public spaces: if the use of the space is different, should not the design of the public space rely on that and get adapted to the reality to the context? b) Jardim dos Cronistas Located in the Sommerschield neighbourhood, one of the richest areas of the city of Maputo; this park is a meeting point for the closest neighbours. Example of the accommodated area, it is used by mostly families that lives in a well-off situation and go for a walk with their kids and the nannies during the day. Between the streets of Dar-es-Salaam and Daniel Napatima, this park is known for allocating the ‘Campo di Fiori’ restaurant with a nice terrace to eat or take a drink. In the surrounding residential

areas, some embassies are camouflaged in between high standing chalets, some of them with swimming pool, the most valued house facility in the city.

The public space is rented to the restaurant, which creates a specific use of it and attract a certain type of population. At the same time, because of its location in the centre of the park, it manages the flows of people in the extension of the park. It is not a place to walk through because it is easier to take the surrounding streets than the inner path, it is a place to stay.

Without being related with any of the uses next to it, this park can be seen as an extension of the house in the sense that it is the courtyard to use as a social hub between the neighbours.

This way of giving a specific use to a public space to lead a gentrification of its use has been a planning tool since long time ago. A clear example of it can be found in the article “The End of Public Space? People’s Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy” in which Don Mitchell explained in 1995 how the “People’s Park” next to the “University of California” was full of different fixed programmes to avoid the development of unsafe practices. In the article, there were statements that could be applied to the case of the “Jardim dos Cronistas”: “the park is underutilized. Only a small group of people use the park and they are nor representative of the community” “The vision of representatives of the University (not to mention planners in many cities) was quite different. Theirs was one of open space for recreation and entertainment, subject to usage by an appropriate public that is allowed in. Public space thus constituted a controlled and orderly retreat where a properly behaved public might experience the spectacle of the city.”

Walking through it, it is easy to forget the poverty situation of the city and get immersed into a European atmosphere. This public space has been selected as an example of how to apply western way of urban designing to a completely different context; in this case and because of its location close to the rich areas of Maputo, the design worked and it is being used.

However, it arises the question related with the location of this same design scheme in one of the informal settlements, would the result be the same? c) Parque dos Continadores

Image 7. Illustrations of ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’ during week day and weekend. Source: author.

Although it is far from the city centre, this is probably the most touristic public space of the city of Maputo due to its permanent craft market within the park extension, together with a plants market and a small restaurant. This public space is fully adapted to the transit through it, providing the city with a formal market place to buy the traditional Mozambican crafts like ‘Capulana tissue’ or wooden furniture. This park is an example of the mixture between both social classes, the one that goes there to buy and the one that works there and sell the products. Remembering that in the city there is not middle class, this park provides an encounter between the people that visit it because of their relation with the sellers and the tourists and consumers. It provides a safe environment for those who want to buy traditional items without considering the safety problems of the city. Although the prices are stablished and there is an honest competence between the different stands, this park is always full of people practicing the Mozambican art of bargaining. However, at the same time, because of the safe environment that it entails, during the weekend and free hours of the day, the park is occupied by families related with the sellers that enjoy the sun and play with their children on the grass surface. As the space has a permanent activity, there are less spontaneous activities related to the life of the city.

There is an actual wall delimiting the park, which disconnects it from the rest of the city and the several activities that are happening in the surrounding big avenues: Mao Tse Tung Avenue, Armando Tivane Avenue, Martires de Machava Avenue and Mukumbura street.

The flows of people are fully oriented to the craft market linking the visit to the public space with the consumption of products in either the craft market, the plants market or the restaurant. There is a “property” perception by the sellers in the craft market that provide safety to the park but, at the same time, minimize the feeling of public space. Because they spend their daily routine in there, they developed a property perception of it –as it can be developed for an office or any working space- which influences the visitors to either participate in the programme stablished in the public space or choose another park to stay.

This park can be understood as original representation of public space and can be traced back to the Greek agora and its function as: "the place of citizenship, an open space where public affairs and legal disputes were conducted . . . it was also a marketplace, a place of pleasurable jostling, where citizens' bodies, words, actions, and produce were all literally on mutual display, and where judgements, decisions, and bargains were made" (Hartley 1992:29-30) This park presents a concrete function that stablishes its identity as social hub and community oriented space. Also because of the lack of proper maintenance in the areas not related with the market, the perception during the visits of the park is that it is completely oriented to the consumption, without a direction towards being used by the neighbours as courtyards, as it was the case of the ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’. At the same time, because of the continuous transit of people through the paths of the park, it would not be a proper place to stablish a lunch routine, as it is the case of ‘Praça 25 de Junho’ that presents a quiet and not transit oriented public space.

4.4. The start of a definition of African public space As a nutshell, this research introduces a historical review of the city of Maputo with the illustration of three study cases of parks in the city that are described based on observations during fieldwork confronted with necessary theoretical references to support the findings.

Both sections support the elaborate understanding of public space in Maputo as: acculturated, it presents a strong cultural identity on its public spaces which has been hybridized with colonial practices. Predominance of informal economies in public spaces as places of exchange, particularly commerce and trade, including temporal or established markets, they are places of negotiation where there is a prior established appropriation or power spheres. Finally, this research highlights the safety issues, understanding the public spaces as unsafe stimulates a fight within the open public space to be gated, segmented or segregated.

Image 8. Illustrations of ‘Parque dos Continadores’’ during week day and weekend.

Source: author.

a) Strong cultural identity – To write over written text “people's everyday engagement with popular culture, must be a central component of understanding emergent public spaces and citizenship practices in Africa's present and future” (Dolby, 2006) The public space in Maputo can be defined as acculturated, it presents a strong cultural identity that sometimes suffer from a strong camouflage under European practices. There is a strong hybridization between the African customs and the foreigner ones and the maintenance of the African identity is under threat by the lack of public spaces design adapted to it.

The presented parks, although being included within the European definition of park, can not be considered a park anymore. There are several green spaces in the city of Maputo that are known by

their unsafety, turning them into public spaces that are rarely used as social meeting points. In the same way, because of the weather conditions in the city, the presence of trees and green spaces is extensive to most of the city extension; this can be perceived in the case of ‘Praça 25 de Junho’ an urban square that is used as a park because of its location and its link with the contextual programmes.

At the same time, it is proved that a complete European design of the public spaces is not adjusted to the conception and use of public spaces of the most culturally attached population. It is successful in the case of ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’ because of the European profile of the neighbours and visitors; however, in the case of ‘Praça 25 de Junho’, there is a strong disconnection between the specific use of the public space and its design. Understanding the users of this public space as representative of the 70% of the population that live in the peripheries of the city, there is a necessity of changing the design approach to adapt it to the strong cultural identity of the place. Understanding that the public spaces have a collective nature, it is essential to preserve the cultural identity to enhance the equilibrium of the place: “every person does use, own and know public spaces. It brings people into a multiplicit approach to understand public qualities. As such it updates our value framework on inclusiveness, democracy, agentiality, hence the city. Designing public spaces reflects equilibriums, which consequently are temporal because publics continue to evolve.” (Harteveld 2017: 405) Indian-born English scholar Homi K. Bhabha, already in 1985, argued towards the colonial appropriation of space which supposed a mutation –“Colonial authority requires modes of discrimination (cultural, racial, administrative .. .) that disallow a stable unitary assumption of collectivity. The "part" (which must be the colonialist foreign body) must be representative of the "whole" (conquered country), but the right of representation is based on its radical difference” - of the urban fabric of a place into a complete European perspective. It is also defined by the same author as mimicry: “the black man stops being an actional person for only the white man can represent his selfsteem”.

He proposed a shift from mutation to hybridisation – “where the trace of what is disavowed is not repressed but repeated as something different”- He defended that, in this way, there was scope for an approach that “turns the discursive conditions of dominance into the grounds of intervention”. In his work, it is essential to highlight not only the perspective of finding a common space for both colonists and colonized, but the assumption that the colonial tissue is there and the only direction possible is working towards the adaptation of it to the cultural background of the context.

This is something that have been further develop by Rudolf J. van Rensburg and Mary-Anne Da Costa in 2008, introducing an urban space that “celebrates the rituals of everyday” and propose a rethinking of the African public space as constructed by colonial urban fabric and which nature resides on western ideologies and authoritarian measures. However, instead of applying European planning theories, they defend the modification of them for a proper adaptation to the context, this is defined as a ‘responsive urban expression’: “The challenge lies in accepting that African resources are different and therefore require different solutions. An appropriate South African urban expression begins with honouring the significance of the diverse perceptions and viewpoints of its society. The need for a nonprescriptive space exists, where differences may be negotiated and integration between multiple levels of identity, understandings and practices exist” Therefore, to define the public space in the city of Maputo it is essential to define not only the built environment per se, but describe the different activities and events that take place on it and the approach of the inhabitants to the urban fabric. Because of the instable and precarious situation of a big part of the city, the informal settlements, the line that separates public and private activities is blurrier in African contexts. Activities that could be understood as private, such as taking a nap after lunch, are usually perceived in the public space. Because of the disconnection between the designed space and the use of it, the description of the public space could attend to the description of which responds should the public space give to the African population regarding their way of inhabit the space that is not private.

b) Predominance of informal economies – Negotiation relations “One of the shortcomings of globalization theorizing is its general ignorance of the conditions of Africa, and often its irrelevance for explaining its realities” (Dolby, 2006) The public spaces in Maputo are places of exchange, mostly trade and commerce. These activities turn the public spaces into places of negotiation where there are several spheres of appropriation or power to be understood. The activities are represented in the formal markets or as informal selling points and both of them have a strong representation in the public sphere, although the informality is more characteristic of the open public space.

Most of the economy in Mozambique is informal, exactly a high rate of 90% (International Labour Organization, 2016). The informal economy is one of the predominant agents of the public space in Maputo. There are informal sellers everywhere, in streets, squares, parks or even within formal markets there are informal markets.

These informal market points are hubs of activity and concentrate the negotiation relations within the public spaces. The different sellers make an invisible division of the public space which configures the distribution of the area among the different costumers. These costumers, usually do not make use of the facilities of the public space but look for the closest spaces to the informal market point, highlighting in this way their relation with this particular vendor.

If accepting this situation, the public space could be designed in a way that there are clear areas to install the different informal points and, therefore, facilitate the negotiation between the different vendors. Despite this design, the situation would likely be that even within these divisions there would be several sellers negotiating for a subdivision due to the amount of informal points in every corner of the city. This is illustrated in the pictures of ‘Praça 25 de Junho’ where the different informal points are identified, or in the images of ‘Parque dos Continadores’ where, even with the existence of a formal market, there are several vendors without a formal stand selling bags that are hanging on the trees.

Understanding the informal economy activities as a fact and one of the biggest influences for flow creation in the public space of Maputo, it can lead to the improvement of designing spaces adapted to the reality of the context.

c) Safety issues – Management and privatization ‘loss of publicness’ The public space in Maputo can generally be understood as unsafe. This characteristic opens a fight in the public space to create new forms of segmentation or segregations. The gated or ‘less public’ public space turns into a safer place, although the main characteristics of an open and public space are being changed.

In each one of the cases, there is a different case of loss of publicness related with the use of the space. Maybe the clearer one takes place in the ‘Jardim dos Cronistas’ with the construction of the restaurant and the privatization of the space for a concrete exploitation. This same situation can be perceived in the ‘Parque dos Continadores’ with the craft market concession and the decision of allowing a certain use in the extension. At the same time, as explained in each one of the cases, this privatization leaded to a extension of ‘ownership’ perception from the sellers which involved the whole public space. Therefore, the use of this privatized space turns into the one and only use of the space and the visitors are forced to be consumers. This situation is softened by the scale and location between residential areas in the case of the Jardim; because of it perception as ‘housing courtyard’ the neighbours create a connection with the public space which supposes and influence over the privatized use.

In a different manner, there could be also a kind of ‘privatisation’ taking place in the ‘Praça 25 de Junho’. In a different context, it has been defined as “the appropriation of space for the expression of social identity, often ethnic, in multicultural cities” (Chakravarty, 2008). The strong cultural identity of the inhabitants, imposes a way of understanding the public space that creates a new layer of appropriation and behavioural rules. However, the specific case of this public space goes beyond the

merely ethnic identity, even if the use of the space does not correspond with the specific area where it is taking place –it is something characteristic of the peripheries – it represents the majority of the population in the city.

Therefore, maybe adapting the public space to a dynamic use by both ways of understanding, the western public space definition and the African orientation, it can create a bridge towards the multicultural use of the space. And by multicultural I refer to the population from both of the two social classes of the city: the population of the informal settlements and the accommodated Mozambican population and foreigners, usually working with international organizations. A design that crosses the dualism of the understanding of public spaces and proposes a common space.

Although the different studies on privatisation like on gated communities in South Africa to prevent unsafe spaces already reflect upon the several mistakes of this approach as “upgrading public spaces in a manner that was not inclusive” Because of the specific safety conditions of the city, the loss of publicness, at least in these three cases, are related with the increase of safety. Not being a violent environment, the specification of an use in the public space confer the responsibility over the space vigilance to those who need an stable environment in the park to attract people to their working space.

Therefore, the loss of publicness is linked to the opening of the space to higher classes of the society by their safety conditions. However, it is essential to keep the public origin of the space which is accessible to everybody.

5. Group conclusions: “There is not a generic public space in Africa, it is contextualised” As mentioned in the beginning this section aims to shed light upon the concluding remarks drawn from the comparison of the four case studies (Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Lusaka and Dakar) so as to identify common and divergent points, regarding the public space and the public life that they embody. In brief, throughout the four essays several narratives about the African public spaces have been unfolded and elements more or less “hidden” from our western perception have been brought to surface. These narratives varied significantly: with some of them seeking to unveil the ways in which different nationalities inhabit space, the ways people parasite in existing structures, or how they transform open lands into enclaves of mobility and interaction or others attempting to identify how locals are related to one form of public space, familiar for the westerns: the park as well as to their common elements, e.g. the bench. In particular, this section forms the following structure: limitations entailed in the approaches are being presented, the main differences are being highlighted and following that the main concluding remark, shared among the researches of the group, is being addressed.

5.1. Limitations and different approaches Before diving into the essence of this comparison, it is essential to highlight that even though, as stated in the common introduction, the four cases studies shared the same departing points, methodology and up to some extent the same theoretical background, the opportunity - or lack of it- to conduct fieldwork, significantly affected the adopted approaches and subsequently the conclusions. In particular, there has been no in-situ observation for two of the four studies (Dakar and Lusaka), which may have limited the understanding of public life as related to several aspects, with safety and the feeling of insecurity being a crucial point. For the visited cases of Maputo and Dar es Salaam, the concept of safety has been particularly highlighted whereas in the on-distance studies of Dakar and Lusaka all spaces were addressed de facto as safe, without further elaboration.

Following that difference, and in order to further support their claims and observations, the researchers that did not conduct location experience rely more on a deeper understanding of urban theories and projects in parallel to static images and analyses in order to build their cases. This theoretical immersion has been conducted not only with the intention of acculturating European approaches to the particular cases, but also exploring scholars related to Africa urbanity and the specific case studies, and finally coming up with adapting methods. On the other hand, the researchers that were able to travel brought to surface useful insights of what is really happening in several segments of the city, what is the spatial organisation of the city and what are the everyday patterns and life unfolded in different places. This approach entailed not only significant literature overview and preparation before visiting, but also systematic and sharp observation with the main tool being the photography, in order to first identify and then understand the segments to be studied. What

is more, binded with the theoretical work the fieldwork could reinforce our departing point which has been the abolishment of a single narrative regarding African cities and even within the fabric of an African city, and thus the need to identify what makes its case unique and significant from an urbanistic point of view focused on public space and public life. Finally, although the process of defining public spaces in a foreign location has been a strong debate between the members of the group, there is agreement to be made regarding the basic lack of accessible and reliable data and acculturated theories in the african context. There is a desire of unlocking local research, and an increased visibility of local researchers on the internet – thus at a worldwide scale that allows the deeper study and comparative cross-cultural approaches of these complex realities 5.2. The parks, the segregated zones, the in-between lands and the caravan route This results in comparable differences. Within our case cities, we selected characteristically representative segments of public space, exemplifying different kinds of acculturated public spaces.

The mere identification of the most relevant public spaces and the selection of them reflects the basic identity of public spaces in the city. By examining the transformation of an ancient local caravan route to the current main avenue of the capital, the case of Dakar revealed that although pre-colonial patterns were buried under the colonial masque, use and behavioural patterns remained and evolved through time. has As a result, market spaces along the avenue have maintained their importance and role until today whereas a series of non- fixed, ever-changing public spaces emerged, inhabiting the existing colonial structures in a “parasitic” way. Apart from some infrastructural access routes, the case of Dar es Salaam has not such a common physical public feature. The city is spatially segregated, originated in colonial times and kept by subsequent powers. - which is -Each zone showcases different forms of urban fabrics, with different densities, defining the amount and shape of its public spaces. As all zones have different spatial structures, strongly separated from each other, also public life - use and behaviour – is largely detached, and different. In the case of Lusaka avenues and road form a hierarchical grid and placing colonial urban fabrics, African small holdings and older native settlements. The resulting patchwork displays an excellent exemplar of a specific kind of public space: there are particularly in-between lands, ‘voids’, or “terrain vagues” which add to an acculturated understanding of public space. Those spaces form enclaves of everyday activities that celebrate and reclaim spaces for interaction, mobility and trading. In a different sense, the case of Maputo is originated in colonial times again. The city consists out of a central grid, of which its avenues reach out to surrounding post-colonial grids and informal ‘self-made’ peripheral fabrics. As such the inner city is more open, and public spaces in the core have different user groups. These gathering places are green areas delineated by roads, bushes and/or walls that could be implied in the definition of ‘parks’.

Though, typologically familiar, these parks display the disconnections between colonial design and different actual uses and behaviour patterns. In sum, Dakar with a precolonial origin is spatially segregated based on the use and behaviour patterns along the caravan route. Dar es Salaam, with a colonial origin, appears spatially segregated in each particular fragment and their use. Lusaka with its precolonial origin, is spatially segregated, and yet integrated in the use and behaviour patterns in the in-between areas. Maputo, with its colonial origin, is spatially integrated (open grid), whereas segregation appears in the use and behaviour patterns in different places in the core of the city.

Therefore, given the cases (colonial, pre colonial or postcolonial originated) one could conclude that public space is never both spatially and socially integrated. Public spaces serve particular groups, in particular places and public qualities are grounded in negotiation, appropriation, dynamic movement and conflict.

Moving to the common conclusions, a common conclusion that can be drawn from each case study is the premise that there is not a generic image of African public space, but multiple images of space, highly contextualised for every African city and their local culture. Although morphology of public spaces in Africa is deriving mostly from colonial structures and segregationist strategies, powers and disintegration, hence separation of social groups, have been divers. The resulting lay-out and different types of public space have been acculturated by the local populations and synthesise until today ambiguous and multi-faceted in their environments. The intention has been to support a need to move from the western “modules of urbanism to a more hybrid approach for African cities”, local – rooted, context specific and “based on the diversities that define the culture and the city” (Bassey et al., 2017). Going beyond our European or Western perception, and accepting various images, we could conclude that African public spaces are shaped by experience and not primarily by spatial or physical confines, even though they are taken into account (e.g. people prefer to stand where there are trees, because of shade). Elaborating more on that, in most of the cases where such relations

have been examined, it can be concluded that when it comes to the use of public space western fixed elements of public space are not a condition for the inhabitants to appropriate a place in a social and public manner (e.g. people would be more eager to seat on the ground, than use the bench).

However, at this point we should highlight that each city accommodates a great variety of nationalities, lifestyles and cultural backgrounds, from European expats to slum dwellers or significant tourist influx in some of the cases. What is more, racial segregation from the colonial times in most of the case is being transformed into class division and socio - economic segregation that defines the way people appropriate and could appropriate space. In that sense, one more remark to be emphasised is that given that in the four cities inequalities within the society and the broad social spectrum is reflected in the use of public spaces and the ways of appropriation. Moreover, and on that basis, another significant factor identified as important regarding the public space and the disposition for appropriation is the informal economy. On that basis, public space becomes field of negotiation and conflict, exemplified by the continental present informal economies defining spheres of appropriation.

Finally, the programme surrounding an open or enclosed public space and the infrastructures in close proximity form essential characteristics that influence in most of the cases the way the public space is being used, the timeframes and the rituals. Therefore, the location and assets perform an important quality on the public life, more than the conditions of the public spaces. These conclusions are preliminary, as future research is needed.

5.3. An additional layer to the understanding of African urbanity Concluding and in following an attempt to compare the incomparable, this research may add to the existing body of knowledge on African urban design and it reaches its aim to provide a basis for critical reflection on contemporary, on-going urbanisation processes on the African continent, away from over imposition of our Europe-American cultural contexts, but using it as a departing point in several cases.

Theories or lesson learnt from the western context cannot be abolished by definition, but need in each case systematic study, acknowledgment of limitations in transferability and acculturation. Moreover, the selective summaries of comparative remarks among the four case studies reveals potentialities for new guidelines on future interventions, towards acculturated action in urban planning processes, invigorate the creation of new environments in Africa and hopefully contributes to a more thorough understanding of the different perspectives on public space in Africa. There is a need for understanding the African cities and public spaces within them, as well as working towards a flexible trajectory of solutions, acknowledging “western urban” and “African urban” co-existence, and avoiding simplifications or the romantisation of the poor and the informal.

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7. Anex A. Illustration 2 - Timeline of the main events in Maputo in parallel to the urban development of the city. Source: diagram by author. Literature review of Jenkins, 2000; Boyd, 2014 and Pestana Barros, 2014.