Week 10: Development as anti-urbanism
DVST 6901: The global politics of development (Semester 2,
2026)
October 12, 2026
Development projects—urban growth, for instance—would be much more successful if it weren’t for all the residents. If colonialism is racial governance, then often development policy is racialized poverty governance.
Main reading: Ng’weno (2025), intro. and chap. 8; Mamdani (1996), chap. 7
Other reading: Rooney (2021)
Notes
Notes to be added later.
Keywords
anti-urbanism, the right to the city, slums, squatter settlements, self-help housing
Learning outcomes
- Be able to identify examples of anti-urbanism
- Be able to assess urban social policy and development strategy in general in terms of anti-urbanism, and to formulate an opinion on this critical perspective
References
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and
the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press.
Ng’weno, Bettina. 2025. No Place Like Home in the New City:
Anti-Urbanism and Life in Nairobi. Oakland: University of
California Press.
Rooney, Michelle Nayahamui. 2021. ““We Want Development”: Land and
Water (Dis)connections in Port Moresby, Urban Papua New Guinea.”
The Contemporary Pacific 33 (1): 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2021.0001.