2-4
Humanities Graduate Centre Seminar Room, Southwest Engineering Building University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa
The African Urban Mobilities: Past, Present and Future (AUM) is a research network that brings together researchers from a range of disciplinary perceptiveness to think about urban mobility on the African continent. The aim of the network is to generate historically and spatially sensitive knowledge on contemporary urban mobility dynamics in the African continent. Such knowledge should be of academic and policy value with the normative goal of contributing to sustainable urbanism. Some of the key questions the network asks include:
• How do we understand and compare the historical production of the diverse urban mobility practices, policies, social-cultural elements and other features on the African continent?
• In what ways does place matter in the historical production of mobility patterns?
• What are the ways (if any) that the diverse histories influence current mobility practices, policies, social-cultural elements and other features on the African continent?
• In what ways does the past shape contemporary attempts to embed urban sustainable mobilities and/or dislodge incumbent systems?
• What empirical, theoretical and conceptual tools can help bring new light onto the possibilities of breaking from unsustainable transport trajectories or embedding current sustainable ones?
The AUM is convened by:
• Dr Njogu Morgan: University College London Urban Laboratory & Affiliate, History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
• Dr Yusuf Madugu: History Department, Bayero University, Nigeria.
• Prof Ruth Oldenziel: Technology, Innovation & Society, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.
This is the third workshop of the AUM network. The inaugural workshop of the network took place 4-6 November 2020: in the context of the raging COVID-19 pandemic, online. There about twenty papers were presented and initial discussions held about network development. The second workshop took place 9-10 November 2021 – also online. There, papers that been selected for consideration in a special issue of the journal Urban Forum, were presented.
The third workshop further consolidates these conversations and networking processes. The overall focus of the workshop is to examine contemporary urban mobility questions in Africa from an historical and intra-African perspective. While there is a rich body of African urban studies that examine mobility practices on the continent, long-term perspectives are rare1. This emphasis in the scholarship toward contemporary investigations overlooks the ways in which present phenomenon might owe something to the past. It takes time to build up mobility systems in their constituent elements such as technologies, user practices, policies, regulations, infrastructures, and industries.2 Consequently, “the systems we have today do not reflect current ideals, but rather those of the past.”3 Going ‘back there’ therefore has many advantages such as shedding light into the production of present systems.
Geographically, such long term studies into mobility dynamics are mainly conducted outside of the African continent. As such we do not know enough about mobility histories on the African continent. Our goal is to shed historical insights into the production of present mobility systems. This is valuable for theory building into the making of mobility systems, but also useful offers potential clues for change. Additionally, in the wake of shared histories such as colonialism, we seek to tease out the role of spatial context in the various journeys that urban mobility phenomena have taken on the continent.
Time is also allocated for developing relationships and considering future directions in developing the network.
1 Gordon Pirie, “Africa Mobility History: Recent Texts on Past Passages,” in Mobility in History. The State of the Art in the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility, ed. Gijs Mom, Gordon Pirie, and Laurent Tissot (Neuchâtel: Editions Alphil, 2009), 129–35.
2 Frank W. Geels and René Kemp, “Dynamics in Socio-Technical Systems: Typology of Change Processes and Contrasting Case Studies,” Technology in Society 29, no. 4 (November 2007): 441–55, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. techsoc.2007.08.009.
3 Martin Emanuel, Frank Schipper, and Ruth Oldenziel, eds., A U-Turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850, 1st edition (New York: Berghahn Books, 2020), 3.
The workshop has been organized with a view to provide focused attention on a paper per session. Therefore, substantial time is allocated for each paper. In some of the sessions – specifically those dealing in the Cycling Cities: The African Experience, the format is inverted to ‘you write, I read:’ Discussants will read pre-completed chapters with authors first invited to reflect on the input.
• The workshop will be hybrid – allowing other participants to join the discussions from elsewhere. Links will be shared in due course.
• All sessions take place in South African Standard Time so ensure to double check your time if joining from another region.
Workshop discussions are organised in the following four themes:
Cycling Cities: The African Experience Conveners: Njogu Morgan, Yusuf Madugu and Ruth Oldenziel
Policymakers, researchers, and advocates increasingly consider commuting by bicycle an essential part of sustainable urban transport systems. Following a standard policy package to encourage bicycle commuting, officials often fail to consider local conditions that take time to develop. These conditions include factors like local mobility practices and related cultural attitudes. The reliance on standard policy arrangement has led to some setbacks. Attuned to local factors, the emerging historical scholarship on cycling has shed light on the long-term development of commuting by bicycle. Some of this scholarship has spilled over into policymaking thinking and practice. So far, however, this work has largely by-passed the African continent. Through 12 case studies situated over 100 years, this theme explores what analytical factors can best explain the development of commuting by bicycle in urban Africa. The outcome will be a book about the past, present, and future of urban cycling in Africa entitled Cycling Cities: The African Experience
• Participants - Nourhan Abdelghaffar, Christopher Harris Chirwa, David Drengk, Frank Edward, Issa Fofana, Gail Jennings, Carine Khalil, Ranya Ayman Lotfy, José Manuel Pagés Madrigal, Yusuf Umar Madugu, Classio João Mendiate, Njogu Morgan, Siddique Motala, Naomi M Mwaura, Ruth Oldenziel, Hassan Mohamed Ahmed Hussin Sayed, Salifou Ndam, Issa Togola, Marianne Vanderschuren
Gender And Mobility In Nairobi: A Journey From Colonialism To Post-Colonialism Conveners: Gladys Nyachieo, Janet Mangera, Justus Aungo
There is evidence that more and more scholars and researchers are looking into gender and mobility (Uteng, & Creswell 2012, Peters, Deike, 2001, Carvajal, and Alam,2018). Often in gender and mobility studies, focus is mostly on the inequalities that exist in the infrastructure and provision of transport services. For example, while women form a big percentage of public transport users, their needs as a user group are rarely factored in transport policy or transport planning (ITF, 2019; Cresswell and Uteng, 2008). There is limited focus on the historical perspective of this current situation of inequality in the provision of infrastructure as well as transport services for men and women in the African cities. Transport planning and policies in most urban areas demonstrate limited awareness that men and women utilize transport services and infrastructure differently due to cultural norms and their different roles in society most women are not able to access opportunities. Transport infrastructure and services are predominantly and erroneously conceived as gender-neutral, (Carvajal, and Alam, 2018).
In colonial times, men moved to cities and farms to work, leaving women in rural areas. This may have had an effect on the current state of affairs. According to Levy (1990) and Deike (2001), the traditional hierarchy defines the travel and transport needs of the “typical” male household head, which became the “natural” priority of urban transport planners and policymakers. Colonial laws and restrictions may have influenced mobility in African cities (Luongo, 2018). In Kenya, there was racial segregation which zoned access to urban spaces for whites and blacks during the colonial era. This study seeks to take a journey from colonial times in Kenya to post-colonial times to find out whether the colonial past and cultural norms and cultural division of labor in Kenya societies may have contributed to the current situation in gender and mobility in Kenya.
In post-colonial Kenya, what issues can we say were influences by the past that have shaped the way gender and mobility issues are perceived and handled in the present? The study will look at the effects of social/cultural norms on gender and transport as well as transport infrastructure planning and transport policy.Therefore, the study seeks to interrogate the current relationship between gender and mobility in urban spaces to link it to colonial times. The study seeks to answer the following three questions- (i) How did colonial laws, restrictions and city transport planning influence the structure and functioning of the society in the past? (ii) How is this connected to the invisibility of women’s transport and mobility needs in the cities and and related lack of gender aware policies?. (iii) How has female mobility in cities changed over time?
The study will employ a historical research approach because this approach will allow for the use of a variety of sources. The sources will be both primary and secondary as well as unpublished material in public records. The study will also utilize legal documents, corporate records, letters, diaries, journals, drawings, minutes of meetings, and pictures. This approach will assist in finding out how men and women moved in urban areas. Where they moved from and to, what times of the day, and with what and whom? What activities did they carry out in the in urban areas? Did men and women have different mobility patterns?
The study expects to advance an argument that the current inequalities in mobility for women can be traced back to colonial laws and restrictions as well as to cultural norms and gendered division of labour and mobility. The panel study concludes that the past has a bearing on the current state of inequality in transport infrastructure and service provision in the transport sector in Kenya.
Luongo, K. (2018). Review of Matatu: A History of Popular Transport in Nairobi, by K. Mutongi. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 51(1), 181–183. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/45176428
Carvajal, K. G and Alam, M.M. (2018) Transport is not gender-neutral. Transport for development https://blogs.worldbank.org/transport/transport-not-gender-neutral.
Uteng, T. P. & Creswell T. (2012) Gendered Mobilities; Transport and Gender. Ashgate Publishing Rouledge. Burlington, USA ISBN 978-07546-7105-3(alkpaper)
“Uteng, T. P. (2012).Gender and Mobility in the Developing World. Washington, DC: World Bank. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9111 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Urban mobility in Africa is characterized by traffic congestion, frequent accidents and injuries, delays, and socio-economic inequalities in access and choice. The underlying transport system is often chaotic, inefficient, and hardly responsive to user needs. Studies have attributed this to, among other factors, poor planning, rapid population growth, low or inefficient investment in public transport, poor infrastructure, and underdeveloped urban mobility culture. Studies have tackled issues related to planning investment, road construction, and population growth, albeit inadequately for some.1 However, the socio-cultural dynamics of urban mobility in Africa have received inadequate examination. The way different historical periods and events have intersected and clashed to generate contemporary public transport and mobility behaviours, practices, and relations requires scrutiny. The proposed Session aims to address this gap by examining and tracing the practices, behaviors and experience as historical developments of the urban spaces in Africa using selected case studies. In particular, the Session will focus on tracing historical connections between pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial behaviours and practices of commuting in Africa; divergent from the dominant technocratic approaches to urban transport modelled in the global north.2 The panel will also explore the how contemporary urban inequalities, transport poverty3,4 and nature of transport systems account for how urban commuters behave in Africa. This is because ‘underlying structural disadvantages often appear in very subtle and qualitative ways: locally and temporarily, taking effect in different forms that may obfuscate historical roots’5 such as colonialism. The Session will ultimately contribute to building an African framework for investigating and explaining the socio-cultural dynamics of the African urban mobility systems and experience.
The session aims to build a conceptual framework for explaining urban mobility culture grounded in the historical trajectories of selected urban communities in Africa. The Session proposes to realize this goal through selected panel presentations aligned to the following objectives:
1. Explore the historical development of urban mobility practices in the selected urban communities
2. Identify emerging commuter behaviors and practices in urban communities in Africa
3. Examine the history and intersection of class and urban transport inequalities in Africa
4. Propose a conceptual framework for imagining historically rooted futures of sustainable urban mobility behaviors and practices.
• Participants: Justus Bwonderi Aungo, Silvia Katu, Olusegun Stephen Titus and Dr. Deborah Temisan Lawal
1 Hart, J. 2016. GHANA on the GO: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation. Indiana University Press
2 Wood, A. Kębłowskib, W. and Tuvikenec, T. 2020. Decolonial approaches to urban transport geographies: Intro duction to the special issue. Journal of Transport Geography 88 (2020) 102811
3 Lucas K. (ed.) .2004. Running on Empty: Transport, Social Exclusion and Environmental Justice. The Policy Press, Bristol, UK.
4 Litman T. 2015. Transportation Affordability. Evaluation and Improvements Strategies. Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Victoria, Canada.
5 Kuttler, T. and Moraglio, M. (eds) 2021. Re-Thinking Mobility Poverty: Understanding Users Geographies, Backgrounds and Aptitudes. Routledge.
Imagining Urban Mobility Future From The Past: Temporal Contextualizing And Conceptualizing Urban Commuter Behaviours And Mobility Practices In African Cities Convener: Justus Bwonderi Aungo
Convener: Jennifer Anne Hart
Today governments, planners, and development experts across the continent are looking to “total systems” and universal models like bus rapid transit to solve the mobility challenges of rapidly growing cities. These models, which dominate planning theory and practice, are intended to advance sustainable and accessible models of public transit that increase access and improve traffic congestion for urban residents. Drawing on theories and principles of sustainable development and transport planning, systems like BRT create a vision of modern mobility infrastructure that is decontextualized in its universalization. These models assume, in other words, that all mobility cultures are the same and that urban mobility is defined by a set of core principles that transcend social, economic, and cultural difference.
Drawing on a growing body of scholarship on African automobility that has emerged over the last ten years, this panel explores what grassroots models of urban mobility might look like in cities across the African continent. As this scholarship has made increasingly clear, mobility in African cities is deeply rooted in local understandings of space and exchange that have informed the emergence of unique forms of sociality and urbanity. One-size-fits-all models that grow out of the theories and experiences of industrialized cities in Europe and America are unlikely to capture the dynamism of African urban mobility. Theories and models that ignore or fail to account for African experiences in their formation cast African urban mobility as an outlier. When “universal” models do not work, African urban residents and leaders are cast as “failures” – a rhetoric that reproduces colonial/imperial rhetoric and fails to grapple with the real challenges that shape urban mobility in Africa and elsewhere.
Inspired in part by widespread calls for “theory from the South”, this panel seeks to push the theory and practice of urban mobility. It challenges divides between scholarship and practice by bringing scholarship from fields like history, anthropology, sociology, and geography into conversation with technocratic fields of urban planning, engineering, development, design, and policy. We call for papers that use emerging mobility scholarship and ethnographic/historical research to propose new grassroots visions of urban development rooted in the unique mobility histories and cultures of particular African cities. Rather than being seen as outliers or exceptions, how might these indigenous forms of urban mobility help us rethink our assumptions about urban infrastructural planning and development in Africa and beyond? How can we apply historical and ethnographic research to envision more just urban futures? What might we gain by thinking from the streets of African cities rather than at them? How can we advance these conversations to help support communities in advancing local visions of development?
• Participants: Jennifer Anne Hart, Samson Faboye, Mathias Chukwudi Isiani, Samuel Ntewusu
Professor Lynn Morris, Deputy ViceChancellor: Research and Innovation – University of the Witwatersrand
Professor Noor Nieftagodien, Head, Wits History Workshop and NRF Chair on Local Histories, Present Realities, University of the Witwatersrand.
Yusuf Madugu, Njogu
Classio Joao Mendiate
Marianne Vanderschuren,
Eduardo
Emmanuel Kamuna
David Drengk
13h45
Zoom
Salifou Ndam
Issa Fofana and Issa Togola
link:
15h30-17h30
The
Expanding
Afrourbanisation
Mathias Chukwudi Isiani (Online)
Samuel Ntewusu (Online)
Samson Faboye
Zoom session registration link:
Justus
Silvia Katu
Nourhan Sherif,
Madrigal,
Mohamed,
Hussin, Khalil, Carine Khaled Farid, Ranya Ayman
Naomi Mwaura
Olusegun
and Deborah Temisan
Gladys
Justus
The most successful cycling city in the world is Amsterdam due to cycling making up 48% of all trips being made in the city (Sutton, 2017). This success comes from the planning of multiple cycling paths which are all established throughout the city (Van der Zee, 2015). These paths are accessible to everyone whilst creating a safe environment to cycle through the city (Van der Zee, 2015).
The city of Cape Town has the potential of also becoming cycling city with the proper implementation of polices and infrastructure. This is a valid solution due to the Western Cape being mainly modelled for motorized transport although according to the Travel survey (2020) 34% of the trips are being made by NMT-(Non-Motorized Transport). This is a major concern looking at the future of the city which needs to adapt to looking at a more NMT focused transport system. This goal of becoming a cycling city falls into the objectives of Cape Towns integrated transport plan (2013) which is to look at a sustainable relationship between land use, infrastructure and transport.
This thesis will look at the historical events of the city and understanding how the authorities and policy makers had impacted the cycling infrastructure in two suburbs in Cape Town namely Langa and Pinelands. This research will hopefully be the basis for further research into sustainable transportation in Cape Town.
Despite the growing importance of motorized transport on Malawian roads, the bicycle has remained an integral part of people’s everyday life. Interestingly, African histories of the bicycle are still very rare, and the bicycle barely appears in historical narratives. In Zomba, in south-eastern Malawi, however, about 57 % of bicycle users use the bicycle for income generation through transporting goods, farming activities, bicycle rental or as bicycle taxi. In Zomba in particular, the bicycle has been used for the transport of large amounts of wood from the Plateau down into the city centre; an important economic activity that has grown historically. Bicycles used for commercial purposes, especially transporting heavy loads are, nevertheless, extremely prone to wear and tear. Strikingly, in the rudimentary historiography of bicycles in Africa, questions of everyday maintenance and repair of brakes, bike frames or wheels remain largely unnoticed. This presentation addresses this gap in the scholarship and adds a narrative of people’s everyday efforts to maintain and repair bicycles in the Zomba area. I will look at the widespread presence and use of mobile and immobile sites of bicycle repair and show how repairers have become important actors at the intersection of bicycle technology and its everyday human use. In focusing on the specialized group of mechanics that has emerged in places like Zomba, the paper demonstrates how the everyday use of the bicycle has grown historically in Malawi. By showing that bicycle maintenance and repair have become crucial factors in everyday cycling life in Zomba, this presentation adds a repair narrative from a Global South perspective to ongoing discussions among historians of technology on issues of repair and maintenance and the everyday use of technology.
Mathias Chukwudi Isiani
Wars, conflicts, and violence are disastrous to human lives and its environment. After the war, counts on human depopulation, destruction of properties, and economic recession are inevitable as both sides of conflict divide show no interest on the infrastructure during the war. In most cases, the stronger side endeavour to destroy the enemy’s vital strategic communication lines. This is evident of the thirty months Nigeria-Biafra War that decimated the lives and properties of the Igbo people. Onitsha, one of the fastest growing cities in Nigeria was for a while a major theatre of war because of its strategic position to the Biafrans. Her road networks including bridges were destroyed and bombed by the retreating Biafran soldiers to impede the federal troops movement into the Biafran hinterland. The neglect of Onitsha urban communication line at the end of the war, has its implication on the rise of urban crimes, slums and ghettos, poor house planning and traffic congestion. A study of the colonial and post-civil war transportation routes in Onitsha urban city of Nigeria is the thrust of this research as post-civil war literature have been superficial on the post-civil war communication strategies in Onitsha. The study using purposive, ethnographic, experimental and content analytical research techniques through the qualitative historical methodology hopes to give a descriptive discussion on the neglect of the transportation lines in Onitsha after the civil war and how these perennial phenomena continuously displaced the urban settlers. The study adopts top-down and bottom-up urban and regional planning theory to further interrogate how government should approach urban cities after conflicts. Nevertheless, the study finds out that the federal government of Nigeria impoverished the Igbo society by neglecting the colonial urban plans of Onitsha urban city thus creating urban inequalities, inadequate fiscal growth and an elusive dream of a city that would hamper the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Mobility in cities has been always an indication to the human conditions. Its evolution and development have helped in branding several cities. Cairo as a mega city has various modes of transportation, and the more the city grows, the more the dependence on motorized vehicles. Tracking down different transportation modes starting from 1700 BC we can find that the horse chariot was introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos. It shows the first use of wheels supported with animals for transporting goods and people. From this period until the 17th century, the only mode of transportation in the city was non-motorized transport. Tramlines are documented in Egypt from 1863 in Alexandria, and 1894 in Cairo. While the first cycling experiences were assumed to be in the first decades of the 20th century. The first bicycles initially were not affordable to the public. So, it was mainly exclusive to the highest social classes. For almost 30 years this have been the ultimate mode of transportation in Egyptian cities including Cairo until the first car was introduced in Egypt in the 1890’s. The car belonged to prince Aziz Hassan, Khedive Ismail’s grandson. By 1905, there was a total of 110 motorized vehicles in Cairo and 56 in Alexandria.
Between these years, specifically in 1895, there was a society established for tramways in Cairo “The Société des Tramways Du Caire”. For almost 50 years, people used to commute by trams, railways, bikes, walking and some motorized vehicles. There was a shift in public transportation after introducing the public bus network in 1950’s, where people were encouraged more to use public transportation and motorized vehicles were rare. During the 1970’s, the direction of people and the government towards public transportation started to change, and the use of cars was encouraged more, as more than half of the tram lines were removed to accommodate the growing use of cars. Only Helwan and Heliopolis tram lines remained, until 2011 where the first was shut down and 2014 were the second shutdown marking the end of the tram era in Cairo. In 1989, a movement towards public transportation took
place by opening the first metro line. And since that time, the use of motorized vehicles and public transportation were rising until motorized vehicles took over the city with their different modernized forms. For example, in 2005 the tokok was introduced to Egypt as a mode of transportation used in lower class neighbourhoods with narrow streets. In 2014 a modernized form of shared cars was introduced to Egypt through “Uber”, and this was the start of ICT based mobility.
A number of scholars and historians have written about the history of road transport history of transport in Zambia between 1890 and years later and the history rail transport in Northern Rhodesia (present day Zambia)1, but so far there is no documentary evidence to reveal that anything has been written on the history of the bicycle in the country or even to indicate when the first bicycle appeared in Northern Rhodesia. Available information is almost anecdotal. The British South African Company provided its officials with bicycles and one such official, Frank Melland noted on his trip from Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) into Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in 1901, that he rode through scrubs and over rocks on winding domestic paths that were too bad even to the bicycle2
Another official, Theodore Williams expressed similar sentiments on cycling in colonial Zambia in 1913 stating3:
“Still, it is not quite such an obliteration of distance as is biking in England. Often there are simply too many trees across the track to make it worth-while hopping off and on every 20 yards4.”
Notwithstanding the experiences of Melland and Williams, it was a common trend during the early colonial era that in the absence of motor vehicles and scotch carts, bicycles were used by colonial officers whenever they visited villages or toured road construction projects. Furthermore, at that time possession of a bicycle by a villager, particularly one that returned from paid employment in Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), South Africa or copper mines, was a status symbol. Moreover, at the time very few Africans in fact owned bicycles. It was only with rapid economic development that provided cash income that more people slowly acquired bicycles, making bicycles a common mode of transport used when visiting families, friends as well as when transporting some goods.
Given the paucity of historical information on bicycles in Chipata, a chapter on bicycles or aptly, Chipata the Cycling City, becomes particularly an inquisitive discourse because it opens up some new insights into the subject.
Chipata, formerly called Fort Jameson, by the colonial administration in the 1880s is the provincial center of the Eastern Province, one of the ten administrative regions of Zambia. It is located close to the country’s eastern border with Malawi, which makes Chipata a transit city. The city is surrounded by hills, covers a spatial area of 6 693 square kilometers and has an estimated projected population in 2022 of 590 4635
Endowed with fertile arable land in the hinterland agricultural farming, albeit largely subsistence is the main economic activity in Chipata. This economic activity is supported by a number of business, commercial and professional enterprises within the city.
As part of the implementation of the newly independent country’s development plan for rural industrialization, the government set up in Chipata in the late 1960s a state-owned factory for the manufacture of bicycles. It did not take long before the proximity to Luangwa Industries Limited, the bicycle assemble factor, meant availability of lots of bicycles for purchase by the local community and, with some imagination, potentiality for “taxi” business.
By 2004 the bicycle manufacturing factory had produced 10 000 bicycles, distinctively branded ‘Eagle’ and ‘Bullet.’ Interestingly, the large number of locally assembled bicycles fared well on the market despite growing competition from cheaper bicycles6 that were imported into Zambia. As fate would have it, after 1991 a new political party, which espoused liberalized market economy came to power and decided to privatize Luangwa Industries Limited. It did not take long for the new owners to realize in early 2000s that cost of producing or assembling bicycles was high and that there were on the market cheaper bicycles imported by competing merchants. The cheaper imported bicycles in the face of the high cost of locally produced bicycles eventually led Luangwa Industry Limited gradually to close down.
The increasing number of cheaper bicycles brought into Chipata meant that more local residents could own bicycles as entry level prices dropped from US$180 to a more affordable price of US$90 – particularly that the local currency, Kwacha, exchange rate against the US dollar was strong. This development and other factors resulted in growing numbers of bicycles in Chipata such that their sheer profusion on the street continues to fascinate many visitors today.
With the foregoing backdrop this chapter explores cycling in the City of Chipata under five factors, namely Urban form and cycling distances; Mobility alternatives to cycling; Cycling’s position in traffic policy; Social movements and their impact on cycling; and Cycling’s cultural status and its impact on cycling.
There is evidence that more and more scholars and researchers are looking into gender and mobility (Uteng, & Creswell 2012, Peters, Deike, 2001, Carvajal, and Alam, 2018)) as a major concern in the progress to sustainable development, particularly in Africa. Often in gender and mobility studies, focus is mostly on the inequalities that exist in the infrastructure and provision of transport services. For example, a number of studies have shown that while women form a big percentage of public transport users, their needs as a user group are rarely factored in transport policy or transport planning (ITF, 2019; Cresswell and Uteng, 2008). However, there is limited focus on the historical perspective of this current situation of inequality in the provision of infrastructure as well as transport services for men and women in the African cities. In fact, during colonial times, men moved to cities and farms to work, leaving women in rural areas. This may have a part to play in the current state of affairs coupled with other factors as explained by Levy (1990) and Deike (2001), that the traditional hierarchy defines the travel and transport needs of the “typical” male household head, which became the “natural” priority of urban transport planners and policymakers.
Selhausen and Weisdorf (2015) in seeking to examine the hypothesis that African gender inequality and female disempowerment are rooted in colonial times found that the arrival of Europeans in Uganda ignited a century-long transformation. They noted that men rapidly acquired literacy and quickly found their way into white-collar (high-status) employment in the wage economy built by the Europeans. However, for women it was different they took much longer to obtain literacy and enter white-collar and waged work. This may have influenced the course the transport patterns took because colonial laws and restrictions influenced mobility in African cities (Luongo, 2018) not only between white and black but also between men and women. For instance in Kenya there were racial segregation, which zoned access to urban spaces for whites and blacks during the colonial era (Coquéry, 2012)
This study seeks to take a journey from colonial times in Kenya to post-colonial times to find out whether the colonial past and cultural norms and cultural division of labor in Kenya societies may have contributed to the status of gender and mobility in Kenya today. This may assist in targeted interventions were necessary.
For decades, before, during and post-colonial periods, urban mobility in Africa has been characterized by traffic congestion, frequent accidents and injuries, delays, and socio-economic inequalities in access and choice. Studies have attributed this to, among other factors, poor planning, rapid population growth, low or inefficient investment in public transport, poor infrastructure, and underdeveloped urban mobility culture. This paper contends that at the core lies the history and cumulative legacies of power regimes that have controlled and mapped the trajectory of urban spaces and practices. Using a narrative research design, the paper presents findings of country case studies in Africa that image urban mobility of the future from the past considering the occurrences of the present and the influences on the future. The paper findings that urban mobility in Africa is intricately tied to colonialism as a continuum of experiences ranging from pre-colonial to post-colonial power structures and practices. Besides, urban mobility is reflected on dominant commuter behavior which have been shaped by context as power, place and time. Furthermore, the underlying transport system is often chaotic, inefficient, and ironically, agile in its response and adaptation to user needs. The paper concludes that in most African cities, commuter behavior is influenced by patriarchy, poverty, gender inequality in the transport system, economic differences, class zoning, fare fluctuation, nondependable and transaction system. We recommend that African government policymakers, and urban planners should decolonize the urban mobility sector for a more people-centered and changeaware sustainable urban mobility systems.
Traffic laws and regulations encompass transport safety, development, management, and infrastructure. The urban population in Kenya is predominantly dependent on public transport, ironically most of it privately owned and managed. The government plays a regulatory role through various policies, laws, and directives implemented by different departments and Ministries. Different departments have been created by the government and given the mandate to monitor various functions in the transport and mobility sector and contribute towards the development and implementation of many of the policies. This paper seeks to examine and describe the historical development of traffic laws in Kenya by showing how the various legal instruments (Acts) interact and create the regulatory framework within which commuters and transport providers operate. Understanding the legal framework is critical in putting urban commuter behavior in both temporal and spatial contexts and showing how the present is a product of the past – the colonial and post-colonial past.
Nomadism is associated with the lack of significant infrastructural investment and is thus tagged as unprogressively for the age of 21st Century human settlement sophistication. Reflections from Constant’s (1964) “new-Babylonian nomad theory” envisions a fluid environment in which strata of power are dissolved. To the built environment professional, inculcating non-sedentary concepts from the new-Babylonian nomad theory might be a much-needed innovation to the resolving extant maligned Nomadism of Afropastoralists. In this article, I explore how built environment professionals can infuse concepts of infrastructure mobility into urban planning. This would invoke thoughts for mobile Afrourbanity in the planning for African cities of the future.
Bamako, the Malian capital, is experiencing a sprawl due to demographic growth. This demographic and spatial growth is accompanied by a multiplication of the modes of transport. The population uses more and more motorcycles to the detriment of bicycles. The bicycle is used in this context both as a means of transportation and as a source of income. Based on a review of documentary research, field survey, and field observation, we analysis the factors that may explain the problems that cyclists face in traffic in Bamako. The analysis focuses on people who use bicycles to transport goods. It plays an important role in the local economy in the pass. The central question of this paper is how to integrate the bicycle as a means of transporting goods with other modes of transport on the same traffic routes in Bamako? The work focuses on two points, namely, the growth of the city’s population in relation to other modes of transport and the movement of these cyclists between economic and residential areas. The second point addresses issues of distance, circulation and travel time. In their daily journeys, cyclists face difficulties resulting from a transport policy that is out of step with the reality of traffic in Bamako, particularly through the lack of bicycle paths and congestion. It should also be noted that the behavior of traffic users contributes negatively to the use of bicycles because of insults, parking on the roads and in commercial spaces. These cyclists meet part of the transport demand by carrying goods such as vegetables, bags of rice, corn, millet, sugar... Preliminary results indicate that cyclists feel that cycling is risky on the roads in the city. Faced with these difficulties, some cyclists transport their goods between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. while others avoid the “Pont des Martyrs” road.
Douala is considered the main cycling city in Cameroon, a country located in Central Africa with the capital city of Yaoundé - even though the modal share is about 1% and travel is dominated by motorbike taxis. This position has been permanently influenced by three factors. Firstly, there is its geographical location as a coastal area, which allowed it to host the first colonial expedition of 1884, which introduced the first bicycles to the territory and installed the first bicycle assembly factories in the city. Secondly, there is the shape of the relatively flat urban physical landscape which favours cycling. Thirdly, there is the fact that the city has an early urban strategy to promote cycling as a means of travel. However, cycling has had three key moments in daily mobility, namely: a golden age between 1884 and 1990 (marked by the use of the bicycle as the main means of locomotion in the colonial period and after independence in 1960 when motorised devices were unaffordable and scarce), a decline between 1991 and 2012 due to the Structural Adjustment Programme imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions in 1991 (which led to the closure of several public and parastatal enterprises, the reduction of salaries, etc.), and a period of renaissance between 1991 and 2012. ), and a period of rebirth as of 2017 thanks to an effort by the municipality to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. Based on these realities, this proposal aims to analyse the circumstances that have favoured or slowed down the diffusion of the bicycle as a mode of transport and the prospects for the bicycle in a context where transport systems are lagging far behind. From a methodological point of view, the data collected comes from documentary research, an ethnographic survey and a questionnaire that took place between December 2021 and February 2022.
By Olusegun Stephen Titus, Oluwabunmi Bernard, Quadri Olusegun & Deborah Tomisan LawalScholarship on the arts of cycling and walking has dominated the global north divide with little or no attention to issues of cycling and walking in African city spaces. The objectives of the study are
Sounding and visualising the arts of cycling and walking mobilities in lagos city nigeria 1950-2021
to analyse how musicians, visual artists and Yoruba literary experts have engaged issues of cycling and walking from the historical past till date in urban Lagos language experts responded to mobility The justification for selecting Lagos is that it is now the fourth largest city in the world with high level of mobility problems. The visuals, language and sounds and songs resonate issues of cycling and walking not just as a form of transportation. Mobility but for human body fitness and health issues This proposal employs ethnographic, interviews, musical, textual and audio-visuals daily use Yoruba language and archival visuals image collections. The study is based on mobility and spatiality theories.
The city of Maputo is located in the southern province of Maputo. It is part of the Metropolitan Area of Maputo (AMM) which comprises other cities such as Matola, the municipal city of Boane, and the District City of Marracuene. Maputo City is the capital of the Republic of Mozambique. It has an area of 346Km2 and a population of approximately 1 127565 inhabitants (INE, 2019). This city is the commercial, administrative and financial centre of the AMM, but also of the whole country. Furthermore, Maputo City has a population density of 3 259 inhabitants/Km2 (INE, 2021) and is growing rapidly, as its population has almost doubled since 1997. This growth of the city implies an increase in travel distance which is not accompanied by the provision of transport infrastructure. This has a huge influence on the choice of transport mode, particularly cycling.
Maputo is a monocentric city (Tembe et al., 2019), and in 1880, when Maputo was elevated to city status, real urban development took place, mainly along the Espírito Santo Bay (now Maputo Bay), Figure 2a. This development was based on the spatial segregation of social and racial groups considered distinct. During the colonial period, in the heart of the city, there were, on the one hand, European neighbourhoods, and African suburbs, which were divided into assimilated and indigenous categories. The European neighbourhood was characterised by better roads and urban facilities and these deteriorated as the distance from this area increased. At the time, the bicycle was not the main mode of travel as it was mainly used by the few white settlers and some assimilated blacks. The bicycle was used for commuting and mostly for sporting purposes. However, the car, bus and train were the main mode of travel for white settlers, while most blacks often relied on walking (Figure 1a-b).
After independence from Portugal in 1975, the spatial growth of Maputo City is marked by two distinct periods. The first period is during the civil war (1981-1994). At that time, Maputo city was the safest place, therefore the city observed a massive inflow of people from neighbouring districts and most of them settled in the periphery of Maputo. This resulted in a rapid increase in population density, which influenced the degradation of the urban environment, and urban mobility conditions, as the capacity of transport authorities to provide quality transport services exceeded demand (Figure 1c and Figure 2c). The quality of service of most public transport, such as buses and trains, has worsened and thus become less operational. Walking and cycling have increased dramatically as they have become the most prominent mode of transport.
The second period is after the civil war (from 1995). The city has experienced rapid development, marked by the expansion of the city towards the periphery. However, this development is contributing to the promotion of spatial and social segregation in the city, but is also making the city disconnected. Most road infrastructure, good quality public transit routes, formal jobs and basic services have remained concentrated in the inner city, leaving the outer areas unserved. This has prompted an increase in car ownership, which has led to an increase in the volume of traffic on the roads, making cycling almost impractical. Currently, the percentage of cycling in Maputo city is about 1,2% (JICA, 2014). It is often used by high-income people for sporting purposes and in rural Maputo city, it is used for commuting due to the low traffic observed (Figure 1-d,e and Figure 2d).
Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is the largest city in the country. Like many other cities in SubSaharan Africa, it is experiencing a rapid rate of growth. The rise of Accra as an urban centre in part dates to 1877, when the colonial headquarters was relocated here from Cape Coast. With the colonial machinery in Accra came a large number of migrants and merchants, and in the process the political and economic power became focused here. One prominent feature that developed afterwards was the expansion of the inner core of the city and the development of separate residential and economic enclaves, such as, markets, shops, schools, security outposts, harbour, airport among others. Transport became a key vector that linked these separate economic and residential neighbourhoods. This presentation is about the establishment of the Tudu transport hub or bus stop in Accra and how the bus stop contributed to the generation of mobility histories in Accra’s urban space. Through the lorry park/bus stop, I discuss histories of space, routes, people and goods in Accra. I will argue in the presentation that the Tudu bus stop is a core element in Accra’s urban life. It is not only an iconic ‘place’, it is also an urban space which embodies the histories of everyday mobile people.
The Tudu Lorry Park/Bus Stop And The Production Of Mobility Histories In Accra’s Urban Space
Nourhan has worked as teaching assistant during three years (2019-2022) in the German University in Cairo, with courses focused on the social aspects regarding the internal mobilities in the microcities in Cairo. Her master thesis is referred social aspects of the relocated social groups by the government under the umbrella of the different actions to eliminate slums in the city of Cairo. Mobility is one of these aspects to take into consideration, to avoid the neighbours’ uprooting.
Dr. Jethron Ayumbah Akallah is a Lecturer in the department of History and Archaeology at Maseno University in Western Kenya. He holds a PhD in History of Technology from Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. His research focuses on urban infrastructures in the Global South specifically but not limited to water and sanitation technology in Nairobi. Jethron pays special attention to innovations within informal areas and how infrastructures in Africa defy conventional ideals popularized in the North and propagated by global financial institutions and agencies. Jethron is also a member of the Society of History of Technology (SHOT) Program Committee and holder of the SHOT International Scholars Award (2019/2020). Currently Jethron is a Co-Principal Investigator in a research project on Nairobi’s Expressway as a form of mega-infrastructure planning and how such projects function as representations of the techno-politics of the state and global capital flows.
Dr. Justus Aungo Bwonderi holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University in Hungary and teaches at the University of Nairobi as an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Social Work in Mombasa. Dr. Bwonderi is currently holding the Covid 19 Africa Rapid Fund research grant researching Public Mobility and Commuter Behaviours in Urban Kenya. His research interest is in the social ecology and dynamics of urban mobility systems behavior and practices.
Junaid Barnes is a 4th year student completing his degree in civil engineering at the University of Cape Town. He hopes that he can contribute to making a difference in society with his degree. His current thesis builds on that by looking into the historical investigation of cycling in cape town and hopes that this would create a more sustainable future.
I am a book publisher, researcher and media consultant. I am a trained and experienced journalist who worked for Zambia Information Services and Zambia Daily Mail newspaper before changing career to book publishing where I worked for more than two decades, having done book production, editing, publishing, marketing as well as book distribution. I held the position of chief executive officer for more than 20 years and thereafter moved into media and management consultancy. I am also specialised in qualitative and quantitative research, opinion polling, data processing and analysis as well as report writing. I have undertaken several consultancy assignments for both Zambia-based and international organisations.
David Drengk is an Africanist focusing on African history and History of Technology who currently works as a doctoral research fellow at the History Department at the Technical University Darmstadt in Germany. He is part of the interdisciplinary research group “A Global History of Technology, 1850–2000” (Global-HOT), funded by the ERC. His current PhD project is tentatively entitled “People, Technology, and Nature: Changes and Continuities in the technological landscape of the humid
evergreen rainforest in lower Ivory Coast, c. 1890-1930”. David has graduated from the Humboldt University in Berlin and Leiden University/the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASC) and holds a diploma in area studies Asia/Africa, agricultural sciences (BA) and African studies (MA research) and will work as a post-doc researcher and lecturer at the Technical University in Dresden from Ocotber 2022 onwards.
Frank Edward is a lecturer in history at the Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Prior to becoming a lecturer, Frank was an assistant lecturer in history at University of Dar es Salaam between September 2013 and December 2014, and between October 2018 and June 2022. Frank undertook his PhD studies in history of technology under the theme Circulation and Appropriation of Urban Technologies: Drainage and Traffic Infrastructures in Dar es Salaam, 1913-1999 and he was advised by Professor Dr. Mikael Hård at Darmstadt University of Technology. He has presented papers in several international conferences on drainage and transport issues, particularly at STS Graz, SHOT, ICOHTEC and INTRA scholarly conferences. He has also contributed in several publications on similar issues in Tanzania Zamani, Transport History and History of Science and Technology journals. His research interest revolves around issues of drainage and transport technologies especially in urban areas of Africa using a historical perspective.
Samson Faboye is pursing a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Johannesburg. His research investigates and portends the future relevance of traditional governance systems within the context of South African Urbanity.
Issa FOFANA is a teacher-researcher at the University of Social Sciences and Management of Bamako (USSGB). He is a researcher affiliated with Point Sud (Muscler le savoir local). He holds a PhD in Geography: Urban Spaces and Societies and a Higher Diploma in Social Work, option: Social Development. Currently, he is a project manager of the Point Sud program (organization and implementation of activities related to scientific meetings in the Social Sciences and Humanities) which is created by the Goethe University of Frankfurt, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Point Sud. He is the author of several scientific works in the field of communication, security and mobility among which: Book: The role of the cell phone in the functioning of the cereal market in Mali: The case of Bamako and the area polarized by the Office du Niger (March 2022); Articles: The Integration of Agricultural Markets through Networking in Mali: The Case of Information and Communication Technologies (2021); Women, Displacement, and Insecurity in Mopti and Segou (2021); Daily Mobility Constraints in the Niono Circle of Mali in Times of Crisis (2021); Contributing to a Sustainable Peace in Sikasso: A regional response (2021); Rumor surveillance in support of minimally invasive tissue sampling for diagnosing the cause of child death in low-income countries: A qualitative study (2021), Mobile telephony and cereal trade in Mali: More than a narrative of achievement (2020); Urbanization and new modes of urban transport in West Africa - the case of Bamako (2020); Spatial dynamics to test mobile telephony in Bamako (2019).
Antonette Gouws is the administrator of the SARChI Programme in ‘Local Histories and Present Realities’ and the History Workshop. She is responsible for the administration, budgets and finances, events and student scholarship and project programmes in this research unit. She is an avid reader of crime mysteries and loves knitting.
Jennifer Hart is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Wayne State University, where she teaches courses in African History, World History, Digital History, History Communication, and
historical methodologies. Every other summer, Jennifer leads a study abroad program to Ghana, West Africa, where students engage in research with community members in the capital city, Accra. She also serves on the advisory boards for the Master’s in Public History program, the Global Studies program, and she coordinates the Digital History/History Communication initiative in the History Department, advises students in the Digital History track for the MAPH, and coordinates the interdisciplinary Digital Humanities minor. She is currently the co-chair of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Steering Committee through the Office of the Provost, and she is the North American President for the International Society for the Scholarship on Teaching and Learning in History. Hart is affiliate faculty in the Department of Anthropology at Wayne State University.
Jennifer Hart has been doing research in Accra (Ghana) and London for the last fifteen years. Her work challenges modernist conceptions of spatial and economic development, studying the ways in which Africans imagined alternative futures for themselves and their countries, using and adapting technologies in new and meaningful ways and articulating new values of expertise and skills.
Jennifer has published articles in the International Journal of African Historical Studies, International Review of Social History, and African Economic History, Technology and Culture, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, and her recent book, Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation (Indiana University Press, 2016), which was a 2017 finalist for the prestigious Herskovits Prize from the African Studies Association. In Ghana on the Go, Hart traces how different groups of Ghanaians shaped a distinct culture of automobility that reflected both the influence of foreign technological cultures and the socioeconomic priorities of African residents throughout the 20th century. She argues that early African appropriation of motor transportation technology and its subsequent expansion as an important economic sector, both as a niche for African entrepreneurs and as a primary mode of public transportation for both passengers and goods, allowed Africans in the Gold Coast/Ghana to have greater role in defining what autonomy meant and how it was exercised in the 20th century.
A registered architect and urban designer with the Zambia Institute of Architects and with ten years’ work experience. He is founder and creative director of Kamuna Design Studio, an award-winning design firm focused on providing innovative, sustainable design solutions that meet todays’ global challenges. Holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the Copperbelt University, Zambia and a master’s degree in Urban Design from Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom. He is keenly interested in how design can improve peoples’ quality of life and therefore, his work focuses on providing solutions to maximize the opportunity to create positive impact. He is also serving as the Honorary Treasurer for the Zambia Institute of Architects.
Mathias Chukwudi Isiani is a PhD student and Benjamin Franklin Fellowship Awardee at the Department of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Chukwudi earned his baccalaureate degree in History and International Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a Master of Arts degree in Economic History at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka where he graduated with distinction and was the Best Graduating student in the Department.
He is from Enugu, Nigeria, and prior to his journey at Penn, Chukwudi worked as a Lecturer in the Department of History and International Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and has published a number of articles and book chapters in both local and international journals. He is a member of the Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN) and the Lagos Studies Association (LSA). Chukwudi combines sociology, demography, cultural studies, oral history, urban planning, and geography to capture how colonialism and racial conflicts reshaped human space, environment, laborers, and urbanism in South-East Nigeria.
Ms. Sylvia Katu is a legal practitioner and researcher. Ms. Katu’s research interests include the legal dimensions of urban transport practices, traffic management, and commuter safety. She is researching Historical Developments in Urban Traffic Laws and Regulations in Kenya.
Carine is a MSc Candidate at the Technical University of Munich and a Graduate Student Research Assistant in the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering. She is a full scholarship holder from the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung der Freiheit in the program ‘Talented Young Foreign Students from non-EU Countries in Germany’ (Begabtenförderung). Selected for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) training program ‘Female Innovators in Urban Mobility’ by UnternehmerTUM, she received a fully funded scholarship from the Margarete Ammon-Stiftung to promote equality for women at work and in society. She completed her BSc in Civil Engineering at the TUM in 2021. Her graduation research project focused on gender equality gap caused by genderbased violence in the mobility systems (Case Study: Cairo, Egypt) and it was graded 1.0/1.0 by the Chair of Transportation Systems. During her BSc studies, she was a Student Research Assistant in the Chair of Traffic Engineering and Control.
I am Dr. Deborah Temisan Lawal. I lecture at the Department of Music, Federal College of Education, Abeokuta, Ogun state, Nigeria. My research focus includes multidisciplinary studies and the trajectory of sound, space and place, urban narratives, ecomusicology, climate change, sustainable development goals, environmental humanities, popular music, history of music and gender issues. I have been privileged to win the 2022 IFRA- Nigeria workshop sponsorship on Urban Narratives. My personal goal is to network with people who are research inclined and passionate about contributing their skills and expertise to ameliorate the ambivalent living conditions in African cities and beyond. I am also a strong believer in the power of positive thinking.
José is full professor of Architecture with special focus on Urban and Mobility topics. His international pedagogic experience and management of different programs of Architecture is mainly located in five different countries, during the last 28 years. Professor Pagés Madrigal has focused his own research on mobility problems in African and Middle East region and conflict territories (Kosovo and Cyprus).
Ranya is an architect and urban designer. She started my career as a teaching assistant in GUC in 2019 for two and half years. Her research interest and work experience involves the art of visualization and illustration along with spatial and cultural studies. I am currently working as an Architect in ‘Zuhair Fayez Partnership’. ZFP is one of the leading and most established Architectural, Engineering, Project Management, Construction Management and Engineering Information System Consultancy Firms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Her work includes design from the start of the concept, schematic design. It gives her the opportunity to have worked on different projects with various complexity and scales, from the architecture to the urban scales.
Yusuf Madugu is Senior Lecturer with the Department of History, Bayero University Kano, where he also did his bachelor and master’s degree in social economic history before doing his PhD at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria (ABU). His interest in multidisciplinary scholarship and scholarly discourse drove him to develop networks within and outside his University. He is the coeditor with Njogu Morgan of the research-publication project Cycling Cities: The African Experience and the “African Urban Mobility” research network.
His research focusses on the socio-economic aspects of sustainable urban mobility practices in a historical perspective focusing on trade and transport. His publications include “Continuity and Change in City Bus Service and Urban Mobility in Kano Metropolis 1967-2015,” in African Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences 1, no. 2 (2019): 138-149; “Filling the Mobility Gaps: Shared Taxi Industry in Kano, Nigeria,” Journal of Transport History 39, no. 1 (June 2018): 41-54; “A History and Impact of Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, 1925-2012,” in Kano Studies, in Kano Studies, A Journal of Savannah & Sudanic Research 3, no 1 (April 2018): 145-162; “The Impact of Railway on the Expansion of Production and Export of Groundnuts in Kano 1903-1930,” Journal of Nigeria Transport History vol, 1, no 1 (2018): 24-37; “Biographies of Selected Transport Entrepreneurs in Kano,” ASUU Journal of Humanities 4, no 1&2, (June & December 2017): 157-178; “Transportation and Economic Transformation of Kano Metropolis 1967-2012,” Bayero Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 3, no. 8 (December 2014): 169-198.
Dr. Janet Mangera is a social development professional with over 15 years demonstrated history in non-profit organization management. She holds a Doctor of Social Sciences (Applied and Social Sciences) Degree from Royal Roads University, British Columbia, Canada focused on water resource management and a Masters in sociology from University of Nairobi. She is sociology lecturer in Multimedia University of Kenya. She holds skills and experience in teaching, administration, development programming, institutional strengthening, Gender analysis and training. Among her publications include a book titled : Rainwater harvesting in semi-arid Kenya: practices and prospects (Doctoral thesis), a journal article on Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting: Past and Present, A Relook at the FGM Eradication Quest in Kenya and another on Non-Governmental Organizations in Kenya, An overview of Civic Movements since 1991(both in Hungarian Journal of African Studies), The Role of Women Towards a Gender-Responsive Transport Industry in Kenya – in Women’s Contribution to Higher Education and Social Transformation, pg181-199. ORCiD ID: https://orcid. org/0000-0003-1128-3686
I am a Ph.D. in transport engineering (With distinction) from the Centre for transport studies (TRANSyT), School of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Madrid (Spain) in the year of 2020. I hold a master of science in urban planning and management from ITC- University of Twente, year 2011. My research interest is on travel behavior and mode choice modeling.
Njogu Morgan is Lecturer in Global Urbanism at University College London. He was previously a postdoctoral research fellow at the Wits History Workshop at University of the Witwatersrand where he retains strong links. His overall research interest pertains to theoretical, conceptual and empirical aspects of sustainability transitions from a spatio-temporal perspective. In doing so, he assumes an interdisciplinary approach in studying urban mobility practices. Recent research projects study contemporary and historical transitions in transport practices in exploration of formation of pathdependency and potentials for ‘path-breaking.’
Some recent publications include Cycling Cities: The Johannesburg Experience (2019), edited by Ruth Oldenziel; “Driving, Cycling and Identity in Johannesburg.” In Anxious Johannesburg: The Inner Lives of a Global South City, (2020) edited by Nicky Falkof and Cobus Van Staden; “The Cultural Politics of Infrastructure: The Case of Louis Botha Avenue in Johannesburg, South Africa.” In The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure, edited by Till Koglin and Peter Cox; and “The Stickiness of Cycling: Residential Relocation and Changes in Utility Cycling in Johannesburg.” Journal of Transport Geography 85 (May 2020). Upcoming publications include Morgan, Njogu and Madugu Yusuf (eds). 2024 (forthcoming). Cycling Cities: the African Experience. Foundation for the History of Technology: Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Morgan, Njogu. (Accepted subject to revisions). “Cycle tracks, road safety and apartheid control in Springs, South Africa (1950s-1970s).” Technology and Culture, Morgan Njogu and Bradley
Rink. Guest editors, 2022 (forthcoming). Special issue “The Past in Present African Urban Mobility Systems” Urban Forum. Njogu obtained his postgraduate qualifications from the University of the Witwatersrand and undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in Chicago.
Prof. Lynn Morris is an A-rated, internationally recognised scientist with demonstrable experience in research management and leadership. She completed her undergraduate studies at Wits University and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. She is internationally recognised for her work in understanding the antibody response to HIV and is responsible for conducting validated end-point assays for HIV vaccine clinical trials.
She was previously the interim Executive Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and has led the NICD through two major health crises, the listeria outbreak of 2017/8 and the current COVID-19 pandemic. She served in leadership roles on various national and international bodies including the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town, the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation, and the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise based in New York.
Prof. Morris held joint appointments as a Research Professor in the School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits, and Head of the HIV Virology Lab in the Centre for HIV & STIs at the National Health Laboratory Service. She is also an Honorary Senior Scientist at the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA).
Prof. Morris is a hands-on academic and researcher who has supervised numerous postgraduate and postdoctoral students.
She has published 270 journal articles, 11 book chapters and has registered five patents and 11 scientific opinions. She has consistently been included in the Web of Science list of the most highly cited researchers in the world for her work in the area of HIV and Aids.
She is also a member of Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), the Royal Society of South Africa (FRSSA) and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).
Globally critically acclaimed, Prof. Morris won the Wits Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award in 2014, the South African Medical Research Council’s Gold Medal in 2015, the prestigious Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award in 2017, and the World Academy of Sciences Prize in Medical Sciences in 2018.
Siddique Motala is an academic development senior lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is a trained land surveyor and holds a PhD in Education. His research interests are posthumanism, the scholarship of teaching & learning, spatiotemporal mapping, storytelling and innovative practices in engineering education. His current work is focused on augmented reality and telling the stories of District Six, the historic site of apartheid forced removals in Cape Town.
Ms. Naomi Mwaura possesses 8 years of demonstrable professional experience, aggregated through working with both state and non-state actors, at both domestic and regional levels on the African continent. Naomi is the Founder of Flone Initiative, an organization that uses behavioural science to develop transport solutions. She has worked in various transport consultancies including research projects and development of policy papers. She was among the lead organizers of #MyDressMyChoice campaign that saw thousands of women protest gender-based violence in the Kenyan public transport.
A co-author of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy “Street for Walking and Cycling: Designing for comfort, safety and accessibility in African cities” guidebook in partnership with UNHabitat. She has been involved in the transport projects in Egypt, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania. She has been a speaker at TED Global Stage, Sustainable Transport Award, Transforming Transportation, MOBLIZE Conference, Silicon Harlem Next Gen Tech Virtual Summit, Deutsche Welle TV, BBC, Aljazeera, TUMI TV, KTN News, ITF Forum, the Moth and Women and Transport Africa Conference and various webinars. Naomi’s has published transport articles with Urbanet, Daily Nation, Standard newspaper and New Cities, Business Daily, Forbes Africa, What’s Good Network and the Kenyan Abiria Magazine.
Salifou Ndam
Salifou Ndam, Ph.D. in Urban sociology, is a scientific collaborator at Communauté d’Études pour l’Aménagement du Territoire (CEAT) Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (Switzerland) and a researcher at the University Observatory of Cycling and Active Mobility (OUVEMA).
Prof Noor Nieftagodien is the South African Research Chair in Local Histories, Present Realities and is the Head of the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he also lectures in the Department of History. He is the co-author, with Phil Bonner, of books on the history of Alexandra, Ekurhuleni and Kathorus, and has published books on the history of Orlando West and the Soweto uprising, as well as co-edited books on the history of the ANC and student movements. Nieftagodien has published journal articles and book chapters on aspects of popular insurgent struggles, public history, youth politics and local history. Current research projects include the relationship between local popular movements and the local state in the Vaal, histories of Dobsonville and Non-racial sport. These intellectual interests have also involved collaborations with scholars from Nairobi, Cairo, Basel, L’Orientale and Duke universities, which have resulted in comparative studies on a range of themes.
As the head of the History Workshop, Nieftagodien has led research teams across the country in collaboration with communities, civil society and local governments. These partnerships have sometimes resulted in the production of documentaries (such as the six-part series on Alexandra with UHURU) and exhibitions on Alexandra, Orlando West, Non-Racial Sport, FOSATU and currently on the work of the photographer, William Matlala (curated by Sally Gaule). In the same capacity, he has also played a role in organizing several conferences, including on the Soweto Uprising, the centenary of the ANC, Labour Histories, the Marikana massacre, Youth Politics in Africa and Underground Struggles in Africa. He has also used his position as an historian to publish articles and chapters reflecting on contemporary politics, especially on aspects of radical movements. Nieftagodien serves on the boards of the South African History Archives (SAHA), the Centre for the Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES), the Socio-Economic Rights Institute, the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) and the Alternative Information and Development Centre, as well as the journal, African Studies, and the social justice magazine, Amandla. The rest of the time he continues a life of activism, which started in the 1980s.
Samuel Ntewusu is currently the Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. He has worked with the University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana as a Research Assistant and later as a faculty member teaching African History from earliest times to the present. He has promoted African studies at the graduate and undergraduate level by researching and teaching courses related to Historiography and Methodology, Africa’s Colonial and post-independence history, The Slave Trade and Africa, PanAfricanism, Chieftaincy and Development.
Gladys Nyachieo (PhD) is a senior lecturer of sociology at Multimedia University of Kenya. She holds a Doctorate in Sociology with specialization in Transport Sociology from Kenyatta university. She has published a book titled Road safety in Kenya: Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices of Drivers of Passenger Service Vehicles (MA Thesis), and a Journal papers titled Creating Employment through Transport and Levels of Rider Training and Its Influence on Road Safety among Motorcycle (Boda Boda) Riders. She has also published book chapters in edited books titled; a Water by Palgrave Macmillan; Gendered perspectives in mobility and safety in public transport by Taylor & Francis; The role of women towards a gender-responsive transport industry in Kenya by Springer. She has presented a number of papers in both national and international conferences. Some of the papers include; “Exploring ‘Public’ Road Passenger Transport in Kenya at Lancaster University. Dr Nyachieo is a member of the Kenya Transport and Research Network (KTRN). Her interests are in social, economic, political and cultural factors that influence road safety, mobility and travel behavior. She also interested in walking as a mode of transport.
Ruth Oldenziel (PhD Yale ’92) is professor of history and innovation at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands. She is editor in chief of Technology and Culture and directs a Research-Book-Web-Teaching project Cycling Cities: The Global Experience. Her publications include books and articles in the area of American, gender, mobility, and technology studies: Cycling Cities (2016-present), Cycling and Recycling with Helmuth Trischler (2015); Hacking Europe ed. with Gerard Alberts (2014) Consumers, Users, Rebels (2013) with Mikael Hard; Cold War Kitchen ed. with Karin Zachmann (2009); Gender and Technology ed. with Nina Lerman and Arwen Mohun (2003); Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges (Routledge 2000); Making Technology Masculine (1999). Her most recent book project she directed and edited with Martin Emanuel and Frank Schipper is entitled: U-Turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850 (Berghahn February 2020).
Eduardo PelembeEduardo dos Santos Pene Pelembe is an Independent consultant focusing on environmental governance in Mozambique. They hold a Master (MA) in Social Sciences (major in heritage) Degree from Magallanes University, Magallanes region, Chile and Bachelor honors in tourism management from Catholic University of Mozambique. They were trainees in Biodiversity Monitoring and Evaluation at WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY CHILE (WCS Chile) in Chile. They hold skills and experience in reconciling economic development with biodiversity conservation; support conservation of key marine species and their habitats, contributing to climate resilience and the livelihoods of the coastal communities depending on services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems and also have experience in natural heritage conservation. Among her publications include an opinion article: 2014: Pelembe, D. Santos, E. (2001). La pesca artesanal como un modelo de economía circular: la esperanza de inclusión de los pueblos indígenas en Chile.“Artisanal fishing as model of circular economy: the hope of inclusion of indigenous peoples in Chile” which can be accessed at https://laprensaaustral.cl/2020/12/29/la-pesca-artesanal-como-un-modelo-de-economiacircular-la-esperanza-de-incl. Also I conduct a current project: “Assessing to different sources of water supply in the Quelimane city (Mozambique)”.
With a Bachelor Degree in Architecture and Urban Planning, a Master’s degree in Urban Mobility and working experience in Teaching, Construction and Interior Design, Hassan’s research focuses on the field of urban development and mobility planning following the concept of integrated urbanism. His studies include Urban Design and planning, Urban Mobility, Construction and their effects on the city with a focus on interdisciplinary knowledge. Studying in Egypt and Germany gave his studies the depth needed to tackle urban challenges in different ways.
Laurence Stewart is a former masters student in the Wits History Workshop. His thesis focussed on the Industrial and Commercial Worker’s Union in the former Western Transvaal. He currently helps co-ordinate projects in the Wits HW. He also works for South African History Online as an intern. Football, cricket and music are some of his favourite things.
Olusegun Stephen Titus is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Music, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. He obtained a PhD degree in African Musicology/ Ethnomusicology from University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His work focuses on musical narratives on climate change, space and place, musical narratives on insects (honeybee) urban spaces, performance studies. ecomusicology, migration, trafficking, internally displaced Persons, medical musicology, and peace building. He is a Fellow, IFRA-Nigeria, Fellow, A. G. Leventis Program and visiting scholar, SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom, Fellow, AfOx-TORCH and visiting scholar Oxford University, Fellow of American Council of Learned Society under the African Humanities Program of the Carnegie Corporation New York, Fellow, Carson, LMU Munich Germany and Fellow, PROSPA and visiting scholar Rhodes University, South Africa.
I am a Doctor of Transport Geographer and a researcher affiliated with Point Sud. I was selected as a researcher at the Institute of Human Sciences during the recruitment of teacher-researchers in Mali in October 2022. I have a certificate in Project Management and Monitoring and Evaluation, Accountability and Learning from Bioforce. My research focused on urban mobility and mobility in a context of insecurity. They relate to urban mobility, the difficulties of users and urban transport actors as well as the difficulties of access of populations to basic social services in insecure areas.