Informality and Temporary Urbanism as Defiance: Tales of the Everyday Life and Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa

The role of informality in African citizens’ everyday survival reflects the strategies and attitudes of citizens towards state plans and policies. This chapter dissociates the discussion of temporary urbanism from its typical Global North perspective to explore how this concept plays out in a Southern context, namely Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We look at the relationships between temporary urban settlements, citizens’ resilience to socio-economic deprivation, loss of trust in government, and resistance to neoliberal policies in such a context. The chapter begins with a historical account of informality in SSA in order to explain its socio-political construction in the present. We then explore how informality is addressed in its ‘temporariness’ as a state strategy to evade the realities of African cities or to avoid providing adequate housing. The overall argument of this chapter is that there is a need for attitudinal change in the political disposition to informality, which could help to recognise the value and permanence of informality in SSA.