Governing urban informality: re-working spaces and subjects in Kampala, Uganda

• Published in: International development planning review 2019, Vol.41 (1), p.63-84
• Main Authors: Lindell, Ilda, Ampaire, Christine, Byerley, Andrew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ambition; Analysis; city markets; Economic aspects; Enclosures; evictions; Expulsion; Governance; Governmentality; Informal economy; Management; Metropolitan areas; Metropolitan government; Participation; Peddlers; Political aspects; Politics; Power; Public spaces; Resistance; Social aspects; Spatial analysis; spatial rationalities; State power; street vending; Transformation; Urban areas; urban informality; Urban planning; urban politics; Vendors
• ISSN: 1474-6743; 1478-3401; 1478-3401
• DOI: 10.3828/idpr.2019.4

This article addresses evolving ways of governing urban informality that increasingly draw upon the management of space. Drawing inspiration from governmentality studies, the article examines contemporary governmental strategies of spatial enclosure and expulsion deployed upon street vendors in Kampala, in the context of an ambitious urban transformation agenda and a recentralisation of political authority. The article uncovers the complex configuration of actors involved in the realisation and contestation of such spatial strategies, the messy political interactions and the multiple lines of tension they generate, thus questioning simplistic conceptual oppositions and coherent categories. The contradictory agency of the vendors comes to light, encompassing both resistance and active participation in their own enclosure. The state, far from operating as a cohesive repressive force, emerges as deeply divided around the fate of street vendors, suggesting that ways of governing informality play a central role in struggles for power among state actors. The article also explores the outcomes of dominant spatial strategies of governance in Kampala, both in terms of the effects on the targeted population and of the limits of these strategies for the intended transformation of the city.