TRANSLOCAL URBANISM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA: BETWEEN JOHANNESBURG AND MAPUTO
TRANSLOCAL URBANISM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA: BETWEEN JOHANNESBURG AND MAPUTO

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates the link between mobility and urban space in the geographical context of Southern Africa. At the intersection of urban theory and mobility studies, this paper focuses on the relationship between mobility, informality and urban space in the ‘cities off the map’. Proposing and adopting the theoretical framework of ‘transnational urbanism’, it addresses the ‘mobile constitution of the urban space’ by investigating the link between trans-local geographies and socio spatial practices of “mukheristas”, Mozambican informal cross-border traders. Mukheristas deploy movement as a livelihood strategy as well as a transactional way to carve out space in the everyday life of the city. Navigating multidimensional constraints, they are able to connect heterogeneous spaces and networks across transnational distances.The paper attempts to unveil the manifold configurations of agency underlying this process by following the practices, stories, and places of informal cross-border traders between Johannesburg and Maputo deploying multi-situated ethnographic explorations.Using a view from below and a relational approach to urbanism, the paper unfolds the mobility potential and related socio-spatial agencies, often ignored and/or underestimated as important components of the spatial processes pertaining to the the construction of the “urban”.

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