CityLabs - inventing the future: A comparative study of ‘making’ in four African cities

In cities throughout Africa, like elsewhere, makerspaces such as Fabrication Laboratories (FabLabs) are mushrooming. They are part of the ‘Maker Movement’, an amalgam of initiatives characterized by a DIY-attitude, emphasis on open access to data, knowledge and produce, and driven by environmental concerns. The actors in this creative economy such as engineers, hobbyists, architects, urban planners, but also hackers, artists, tinkerers redefine the African city of the future, and here lies our key concern: focusing on four cities (Lomé, Accra, Cape Town, Nairobi) the CityLab project looks into the impact these actors and their innovations have on the urban landscape along three axes: a) knowledge: how are hi-tech innovations reconciled with local craftiness and worldviews; b) environment: how do these actors envision a sustainable urban development; c) the products: what technological, cultural or aesthetic void do they intend to fill?

Keywords:African urban futures, Makerspaces, knowledge production, innovation, urban anthropology

Disciplines:Anthropology