Urban-Rural Straddling Conceptualizing the Peri-urban in Central Africa

In: Journal of developing societies: a forum on issues of development and change in all societies, Band 27, Heft 3-4, S. 421-443

Abstract

African urban hinterlands are fascinating spaces of imbalance where ordinary people have imagined new constructions of space and time. On the basis of interdisciplinary field research in central Africa, this article analyzes how power over nature is structured in peri-urban areas. It defines the concept of peri-urban space and identifies the stakeholders working, living, exploiting, and imagining this hybrid form of social space. It addresses the way urban populations have reconfigured the complex relations that link them to their hinterlands. It concludes that demographic pressure will continue in peri-urban areas, that the environment will be increasingly degraded and people living in these areas will find access to land for housing and agriculture more and more challenging.