Sécurisation des quartiers et gouvernance locale

Enjeux et défis pour les villes africaines (Afrique du Sud, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibie, Nigeria)

Claire BENIT-GBAFFOU, Seyi FABIYI et Elisabeth PEYROUX (éd.), 2009, Paris, Karthala; Johannesburg, IFAS
ISBN: 978-2-8111-0318-7
Collection Hommes et Sociétés : Histoire et géographie

[Book in French – with 4 chapters in English]

Secure neighbourhoods within African cities take on many forms, but they have in common the importance of non-state actors and a certain degree of informality. The use of private security companies in the residential, commercial or business (City Improvement District, Waterfront) areas, the mobilisation of residents for their local security (neighbourhood committees, street patrols, vigilantism) and the confinement within gated communities have a profound impact on urban forms, spatial practices, but also and especially on social relations, the internal dynamics to communities and the relationship between citizens and state.

Nourished by case studies (most often at the neighbourhood level) on urban contexts as yet little studied, based on viewpoints between cities in West, East and Southern Africa, contributions in this book have a common point of departure by exploring the changing role of the state and urban governance issues highlighted by the security challenge, and to question the impact of privatisation of city security within a context of the transfer of international models.

Claire Bénit-Gbaffou is a geographer and senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud), and associate researcher at the Gecko laboratiry at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense.

Seyi Fabiyi is geographer and lecturer-researcher at the Department of Geography at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Elisabeth Peyroux is a geographer and researcher at the French National Scientific Research Centre, Centre interdisciplinaire d’études urbaines (LISST-CIEU, UMR 5193), University of Toulouse.