Preface :
The idea for this book has its roots in the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab
project, a collaborative graduate school on urban management between the
University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), the Technical University of Berlin
(TUB), and the University of Lagos (UNILAG), funded by the German Federal
Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. While working jointly
across and within the three partner institutions, team members decided to
author a joint publication to reflect the discussions on urban management
across the locations involved in the Urban Lab and beyond. Tasked with
furthering the project’s goal of transforming urban studies and knowledge
networks in and on Africa, the postdoctoral cohort from Wits, TUB, and
UNILAG took the lead in conceptualising this book as a means of academic
conversation and putting it into realisation. With the team working together
throughout 2021, this culminated in the initiation of the first in a series of
collective thinking and writing workshops involving Urban Lab team mem-
bers in Johannesburg, Berlin, and Lagos. This creative space allowed the
book, from its inception, to be co-created. This first workshop, facilitated
by Associate Professor Pamela Nichols of the Wits Writing Centre, enriched
the early stages of conceptualising the book through innovative techniques
of unlocking creative writing, for which we would like to express our sin-
cere gratitude. The collective writing process would be continued through
further writing retreats and workshops in 2022 and 2023, funded in part by
the discretionary research fund and the School of Architecture and Planning
at Wits.
For the contributing authors from all three institutions, participation in
this project involved a commitment to explore either prior or new research
through the lens of the book’s core argument. The book’s central theme was
defined co-productively while its collective crafting unfolded. The incor-
poration of co-authors from beyond the current project team in the writ-
ing of some of the chapters furthered co-production and allowed a mix of
established research views and new arguments and positionalities to stand
alongside each other. This added to the book’s efforts to interrupt established
knowledge, even at the cost of exploring authors’ own discomforts. Editing
the book’s content and development was a similarly co-produced endeavour,
with an editorial team representative of the Urban Lab’s three-member insti-
tutions and academics spanning different disciplinary backgrounds, regional
expertise, viewpoints, experience, and career stages. At times, the writing
and editing took the form of lengthy iterative processes of reconciling diver-
gent views among different schools of thought and navigating diverse aca-
demic cultures and practices, marked by deliberation, productive tension,
and constructive exchange. Simultaneously, the writing and review process
created spaces for elevating voices and positionalities that question estab-
lished knowledge relating to international norms and globalised urban devel-
opment policies.
The collaboration was drawn to the topic of “disruption,” juxtaposing
this with notions of the “everyday,” out of a collective concern that using
(and thereby reinforcing) the urban norms and strategies that circulate in the
corridors of authority at various levels will not meet the everyday realities
with which urban populations are confronted across the globe. In the face of
rising socio-economic disparities, this rang particularly true on the African
continent, where those in this project focus most of their research on aspects
that resonate with the idea of everyday practices. The notion of disrup-
tion, directed at the normative buzzwords and concepts at the global level,
therefore emerged as the most compelling point of convergence during the
co-creation of the book, bridging the varying theories, methodologies, and
subject matter leanings of the authors. This inspired us to organise the book
not around topics that are extracted from universalising norms but rather
around four themes, collectively identified, that frequently arose as disrup-
tive concepts. This resulted in the decision to explore heterogeneity, fluid
belongings, persistence, and interplay. These four themes form the structure
of the book and were explored further and given meaning within the scope of
the chapters collected under the theme, introduced by short pieces from the
contributors acting as section editors. They reflect on the notion of disrup-
tion as the book’s core topic and core approach. With our collective belief
in the human capacity for change and in making positive contributions, we
used these insights for constructive suggestions on how to re-assemble after
dismantling a number of concepts across the chapters.
Within these four themes, and while still coalescing around the central
topic and approach that the notion of disruption provided, we each brought
our own positionalities to the book as individual and collaborating authors
(in some cases, these are incorporated into the individual chapters). Our posi-
tions are not attributed to our funders or various institutional affiliations
but rather find their roots in our varying identities. Some of us are local citi-
zens while others have migratory backgrounds, our academic backgrounds
range from established to early career, and our underpinnings are inextri-
cably shaped by our diverging and, at times, conflicting orientations, cul-
tural beliefs, linguistic roots, and geographies, as well as other intersectional
elements of our identities. Despite best efforts to work collaboratively, we are
aware that this was by no means a level playing field.
We owe a debt of gratitude to many for their unwavering commitment
to the project and its vision throughout the often experimental and iterative
process of co-production. A group of 11 anonymous scholars took part in
the peer review of the individual chapters, providing valuable provocations
and prompts, thereby sharpening our arguments and approaches. Zakiyyah
Ayob ensured that project administration functioned smoothly to enable
essential academic exchanges and activities, which allowed the book’s ideas
to develop and later become chapters. Lucas-Andrés Elsner took on the
role of supporting the editors with a particular focus on the book’s posi-
tion within the Urban Lab commitments, while maintaining sight of project
finances and communications. Following the peer review process, Iolandi
Pool and Sathyasri Kalyana Sundaram worked diligently worked diligently
under shifting timelines to copyedit the chapters. Till Sperrle assisted under
similarly challenging conditions in developing and aligning the graphic lan-
guage of the maps and illustrations across the book. Dilara Uçar supported
us conscientiously in formatting and compiling the manuscript.
We would like to acknowledge Professor Philipp Misselwitz for initiat-
ing and co-heading the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab. We owe thanks
to Professor Nnamdi Elleh, Head of the School of Architecture and Plan-
ning at Wits University, for encouraging and supporting the Urban Lab
and, similarly, to Professor Timothy Nubi, Professor Taibat Lawanson,
and the team at the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development
at the University of Lagos for their continuous support. We would like
to acknowledge our team of editors at Routledge—Helena Hurd, Rosie
Anderson, and Katerina Lade—for supporting us along the road to pub-
lication. Special thanks also to the section editors for their guidance to
chapter authors and for ensuring that sections were tied together; we’re
grateful in particular to Taibat Lawanson and Elke Beyer for agreeing to
this role. Most of all, a vote of thanks to the chapter authors for placing
their trust in this project by sharing their research through this publica-
tion, as well as being willing to revisit it from a disruptive viewpoint,
interrogating their own assumptions. Finally, we’d like to acknowledge
with thanks that, as an output of the Wits-TUB UNILAG Urban Lab,
this book project was funded by the German Academic Exchange Ser-
vice (DAAD) with funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
