ABSTRACT
In the post-colonial global south, the range of actions implied by scholars is far wider and inclusive than that traditionally understood as urban politics. ‘The political’ encompasses anti-colonial configuration, fought in nationalist struggles and by liberation movements; a politics post-independence committed to building a developmental state; the reconfiguration of this project as ‘crisis’, torn asunder by internationally driven structural adjustment programmes that redefined access to the city and its services. The political also includes contemporary struggles for democratization, in a context of decentralization, where a fierce battle for social protection is a central, normalized part of the neoliberal urban project.
