Everyday urbanism: The social use of space within the Accra Airport City in Ghana
Funding period: 1 February 2023 – 31 May 2023
Type of funding:
International Fellowship
Dr Irene Appeaning Addo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. She obtained her PhD in Geography and Resource Development from the University of Ghana in 2013. She is the co-lead investigator for the Ghana component of the Andrew Mellon funded multi-country (South Africa, Uganda and Ghana) research project ‘Entanglement, Mobility and Improvisation: Culture and Arts in Contemporary African Urbanism and its Hinterlands” and also a recipient of the 2022 University of Liverpool Virtual Fellowship. Her research studies the intersection of politics, popular culture, urbanism and the built environment in West Africa, with a specific focus on urban planning, architecture, and heritage studies. Her research is grounded in postcolonial discourse.
As a USF International Fellow, Dr Appeaning Addo will spend four months with Prof. James Ogude at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research writing will focus on expressions of everyday urbanism within the Accra Airport City. Although classified as a world class space, the everyday practices, and the ordinary street encounters within and outside the airport city enclave empirically and theoretically disrupts and challenges formal planning systems. The informal activities in this space spills over to the neighbouring border developments. The paper will throw light on the conflicting urbanities and demonstrate how urbanism is produced, lived, and navigated in the urban space. It will also highlight the gaps in planning laws in Ghana.