Housing Self-building in Dar es Salaam's Peripheral Territories

Abstract

This session draws from our previous work and publications on housing self-building in peripheral territories of Dar es Salaam and its significance to social and spatial transformation, urban governance and to the popular economy of this fast growing city. We discuss how, as a mode of production prevalent in the Global South and in African cities, self-building unfolds through the everyday practices, actions and decisions of residents operating collectively or individually, in context-specific articulations with government institutions and authorities. As such self-building is markedly dissimilar and contradictory: on the ground, overlapping modalities reflect different temporalities, housing aspirations, tenure arrangements, customs and traditions, forms of community activism, as well as state and citizens’ relationships. Incremental housing and neighborhood building is costly, especially to care takers, primarily women, who struggle to protect local livelihoods while accumulating productive and reproductive roles. At the same time, community action instills in residents a sense of the city and of their rights as citizens. The state meanwhile addresses self-building territories and communities in ambiguous and fragmented ways. The section draws from the empirical investigations of the authors about housing transformation in the neighborhoods of Tandale and Chamazi, at the center and in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.