Coming back from Nairobi, I am still carrying the energy of a truly special week at the School of Urban Popular Economies. Together with 22 scholars from across the world, we shared an intense and refreshing space of thinking, questioning, and learning. I presented some ideas about concrete blocks and life in Dakar.
Our conversations moved across scales and urban life in African cities, from architecture to platform urbanization, from critical mapping to war regimes. At the heart of it all was a persistent question: how do we understand and engage with the lives of the urban majority in times shaped by acceleration, violence, and precarity, but also by solidarity, collective life, and possibility? What does it mean to imagine urban futures when the environments we depend on are themselves collapsing?
Some of the most grounding moments came from being in the city itself: walking through Gikomba Market and Eastleigh, spaces that constantly transform with complex economies, collaborations, and everyday arrangements. Urban theory is always inseparable from lived realities.
Deep gratitude to AbdouMaliq Simone, Filip de Boeck, and Kenny Cupers for convening this powerful gathering, and to Wangui Kimari and Jennifer Omae for hosting us at the BIEA. A special thank you as well to Gathanga Ndung’u and Mwangi Mwaura for generously sharing parts of their Nairobi, and to all participants!
This week will stay with me, not only as part of my intellectual journey, but as a deeply human and personal experience. It was, simply put, inspiring.
