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Ilda Maria Lourenco LindellSenior Lecturer, Docent

About me

Ilda Lindell, Associate Professor

Position: Senior Lecturer. Deputy Head of Department. Coordinator of the Department’s research. 

E-mail: ilda.lindell@humangeo.su.se

Telephone: +46 (0)8 16 48 49.

Visiting address: X316, Geovetenskapens hus, Svante Arrhenius väg 8 C, Stockholm, Frescati

Postal address: Stockholms Universitet, Kulturgeografiska institutionen, 106 91 Stockholm

Membership in boards and councils:

Member of the editorial board of the journal International Development Planning Review

Member of the editorial board of The African Resources Development Journal

Awards:

Lindell’s doctoral thesis received the award for Best Doctoral Thesis in the Social Sciences for the academic year (2001/02).

Lindell’s co-authored chapter with M Hedman and K-N Verboomen is part of a book that was awarded the 2014 Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Prize.

Teaching

 

Director for Master’s Programme Globalization, Environment and Social Change (120 HECs). Course coordinator for (a) Environment and Urbanization (2nd level, 15 HECs);  (b) Theory and Method (2nd level, 15 HECs);  (c) Staden i Världen, Global Utveckling I, First level, 7.5 HECs; (d) Motstånd och Globala Rörelser, Global Utveckling II, First Level, 7.5 HECs. Supervision of master's thesis.

Main supervisor of two PhD candidates.

Research

Ilda Lindell’s research is concerned with urban change in the context of global processes, with a special interest on the urban South. Her empirical work has focused on African cities. It addresses the challenges of rapid urbanization; processes of economic and political exclusion/inclusion in cities; strategies by the urban poor to access basic services, incomes and livelihood resources; urban economic development and the politics surrounding large urban informal economies; struggles over access to/use of urban space and the multiple forms of influence used by the grassroots, including through collective organizing; entrepreneurial urban governance, including ’modernizing’ urban interventions and their impacts on disadvantaged urban groups.

Current project:

Coordinator for the Research programme Urban Imaginaries and socio-economic exclusion The project investigates the effects on marginal urban groups of certain urban visions and strategies that seek to change the image of African cities from one of chaos and decay to one of an orderly, prosperous and ‘world-class’ city. It further examines how affected groups respond to interventions affecting their opportunities in the city and their own visions for the city. A three-year project funded by SIDA. The project is a collaboration with the Urban Cluster of The Nordic Africa Institute.

See also The Urban Africa Group for activities, publications etc.

 

Publications (selection):

Lindell, I; Hedman, M., and Verboomen, K-N. (2014) ‘“The World Cup, ‘World Class Cities,’ and Street Vendors in South Africa”, In Little, Walter B., Tranberg Hansen, K., Milgram, LYnne, Street economies in the urban Global South, School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe. This book has been awarded the 2014 Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Prize

Lindell, I and Ihalainen, M. (2014) ‘The Politics of Confinement and Mobility: Informality, Relocations and Urban Re-making from Above and Below”. In Willems, W. and E. Obadare (eds) Civic Agency in Africa: African arts of resistance in the 21st century. James Currey, Suffolk, UK.

 

Meagher, Kate and Lindell, Ilda (Guest editors)(2013) African Studies Review Forum: Engaging with African Informal Economies: Social Inclusion or Adverse Incorporation? African Studies Review, 56:3.

 

Utas, M and Lindell, I (Guest editors)(2012) Thematic Issue: Networked City Life in Africa. Urban Forum, 23(4).

 

Lindell, I and Utas M (2012) Networked City Life in Africa: Introduction. Urban Forum, 23(4), pp 409-14. http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12132-012-9180-y

 

Lindell, I (Guest editor) (2011), Organizing across the formal-informal divide in the Global South, Thematic Issue in Labour, Capital and Society. 44(1) pp 3-23. Introduction vailable at: http://www.lcs-tcs.com/PDFs/44_1/1%20Lindell.pdf

 

Lindell, I (2012) “Between Exhilaration and pain: Hosting the All Africa Games in Maputo”. In Africa’s Changing Societies Reform from Below. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute.

 

Lindell, I (2011) Transnational activism networks and gendered gatekeeping: Negotiating gender in an African association of informal workers. Current African Issues, No 48, 44p.  Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=2&pid=diva2:471392

 

Lindell, I. (2011) ‘The contested spatialities of transnational activism: gendered gatekeeping and gender struggles in an African association of informal workers’, Global Networks 11:2, 139–158.

 

Lindell, I.; Hedman, M. and Verboomen, K-N (2010) “The World Cup 2010 and the Urban Poor: ‘World Class Cities’ for All?”, Policy Notes, 2010/5. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute Available at: http://nai.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:352346

 

Lindell, I. (2010) “Urban informal workers’ networks in Guinea-Bissau”, in Bryceson, D.F. (ed), How Africa Works: Occupational Change, Identity and Morality, Rugby UK: Practical Action Publishing, pp 149-164.

 

Lindell, I. (2011) “Informal work and transnational organizing”, in Bieler, A. and Lindberg, I. (eds), Global restructuring, labour and challenges for transnational organizing, Routledge.

 

Lindell, I. (ed.) (2010) Africa’s Informal workers: collective agency, alliances and transnational organizing in urban Africa. London/Uppsala: Zed Books and The Nordic Africa Institute.

 

Lindell, I. (2010) “Introduction: The changing politics of informality – collective organizing, alliances and scales of engagement”. In Lindell, I. (ed.) Africa’s Informal workers: collective agency, alliances and transnational organizing in urban Africa. London/Uppsala: Zed Books and The Nordic Africa Institute. Available at: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=2&pid=diva2:291569

 

Lindell, I. (2010) (ed.) Between Exit and Voice: Informality and the Spaces of Popular Agency, Special Issue of African Studies Quarterly, Vol. 11, Nos. 2/3. Available at http://nai.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=1&pid=diva2:320429

 

Lindell, I., (2010) ‘Informality and Collective Organizing: Identities, Alliances and Transnational Activism in Africa’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2.

 

Kamete, A. and Lindell, I. (2010): “The politics of ‘non-planning’ strategies in African cities: Unravelling the international and local dimensions in Harare and Maputo”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 36:4, 890-912.

 

Lindell, I. (2009) “ ‘Glocal’ movements: place struggles and transnational organizing by informal workers”, Geografiska Annaler, 91:2, pp 123-136.

 

Lindell, I. and J. Appelblad, (2009) “Disabling governance: privatization of city markets and implications for vendors’ associations in Kampala, Uganda”, Habitat International, 33:4, pp. 397-404.

 

Lindell, I. (2008): “The multiple sites of urban governance: Insights from an African City”. Urban Studies, 45:10, pp 1879-1901.

 

Lindell, I. (2008): “Building alliances between formal and informal workers: Experiences from Africa”. In Bieler, A. et al (eds), Labour and the Challenges of Globalization: What Prospects for International Solidarity?. London: Pluto Press.

 

Lourenco-Lindell, I (2002) Walking the tight rope: informal livelihoods and social networks in a West African city. Stockholm Studies in Human Geography 9. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell Intern. This doctoral thesis received the award for Best Doctoral Thesis in the Social Sciences for the academic year (2001/02). Available at: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=1&pid=diva2:189997

Research projects

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Governing urban informality

    2019. Ilda Lindell, Christine Ampaire, Andrew Byerley. IDPR. International Development Planning Review 41 (1), 63-84

    Article

    This article addresses evolving ways of governing urban informality that increasingly draw upon the management of space. Drawing inspiration from governmentality studies, the article examines contemporary governmental strategies of spatial enclosure and expulsion deployed upon street vendors in Kampala, in the context of an ambitious urban transformation agenda and a recentralisation of political authority. The article uncovers the complex configuration of actors involved in the realisation and contestation of such spatial strategies, the messy political interactions and the multiple lines of tension they generate, thus questioning simplistic conceptual oppositions and coherent categories. The contradictory agency of the vendors comes to light, encompassing both resistance and active participation in their own enclosure. The state, far from operating as a cohesive repressive force, emerges as deeply divided around the fate of street vendors, suggesting that ways of governing informality play a central role in struggles for power among state actors. The article also explores the outcomes of dominant spatial strategies of governance in Kampala, both in terms of the effects on the targeted population and of the limits of these strategies for the intended transformation of the city.

    Read more about Governing urban informality

  • Street Work

    2018. Ilda Lindell. Articulo.ch (17-18), 1-19

    Article

    Street workers may engage in multiple forms of agency. This paper conceives of such forms in terms of a continuum where some forms may evolve into others, dissolve or revert to previous ones. Closer attention is given to the dynamics and trajectories of street workers’ organizations, which vary widely and are poorly understood. In particular, the paper addresses the prospects for and limitations of transformative and sustained collective organization among street workers. Both external and internal processes influencing the dynamics of street workers’ organizations are examined, such as the economic and political context of associations, the nature of their relations with political elites, the governing powers of associations, the nature of their leadership, and who they represent and exclude. This paper enquires into what accounts for demobilization, regression and political disengagement. It also explores whether participation in wider associative networks and collaborations can help overcome some of the fragilities of street workers’ associations, promote their sustainability and broaden their visions. The discussion draws upon literature addressing collective organizing among street workers in a wide range of urban contexts in Africa and the global South.

    Read more about Street Work

  • The untamed politics of informality

    2016. Ilda Lindell, Christine Ampaire. Theoretical Inquiries in Law 17 (1), 257-282

    Article

    This article examines the ways in which market vendors in Kampala, Uganda, responded to plans to redevelop their markets through the concession of long-term leases to private investors. These plans met with massive resistance from the marketers, with significant outcomes. The article uncovers how the marketers actively negotiated a “gray space” between legality and illegality and creatively used the law, with a view to asserting themselves as the legitimate rulers of their markets. It shows how the marketers engaged in highly diverse modalities of struggle, stretching across the legal/illegal boundary. They organized in multiple configurations which were flexible, hybrid and mutant in character, rather than being fixed in particular organizational categories. In their struggles, the marketers engaged in shifting alliances and with a disparate range of political allies. Their politics were fluid, untamed and pragmatic, but also contradictory and fractured. This flexibility and pragmatism enabled them to navigate a complex political landscape and to make instrumental use of a generally unfavorable legal environment.

    Read more about The untamed politics of informality

  • New City Visions and the Politics of Redevelopment in Dar es Salaam

    2016. Ilda Lindell, Jennifer Norström, Andrew Byerley.

    Report

    In the midst of widespread urban deprivation, African governments increasingly give priority to large-scale ultra-modern urban projects, intended to increase national income and propel their urban settlements onto the global stage of ‘world-class’ cities. However, such projects are often in tension with the realities of local residents. This study explores one such initiative, a redevelopment project, the Kigamboni New City, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It discusses the vision, intentions and rationales behind the project, as well as the tensions that the plans gave rise to, as residents in the area were to be resettled or displaced to make way for the New City. It shows that the urban vision underlying the New City project took shape without taking the different realities and desires of the local residents of Kigamboni into consideration. The study discusses how residents perceived and acted upon the redevelopment plans. A local organization claiming to represent the people of Kigamboni was mainly concerned with issues of compensation and the particular interests of landholders, and seemed to marginalize women and the concerns of tenants. The difficulties surrounding implementation of the futuristic plans finally brought them to a standstill, leaving the remaining residents in a state of uncertainty about the future. The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with urban planners and local residents, as well as analysis of urban plans and other relevant documents.

    Read more about New City Visions and the Politics of Redevelopment in Dar es Salaam

  • The contested spatialities of transnational activism

    2011. Ilda Lindell. Global Networks 11 (2), 222-241

    Article

    In this article I explore the geographies of emerging transnational networks of organized informal workers, with empirical reference to a local association based in Mozambique and a transnational network of which it is part. I uncover the gendered spatialities of this transnational activism to demonstrate how participation is unequal and heavily mediated rather than direct. In particular, I show how influential actors have engaged in practices of gendered gatekeeping that tend to keep women in place. I also explore the tensions that emerged because of these practices and the negotiation of divergent gender ideologies and strategies within the network. In the article, I relate to recent theoretical work that problematizes the unequal and contested geographies of transnational activism, and introduce insights from feminist scholarship to reflect on gender inequalities and gender visions in transnational networks.

    Read more about The contested spatialities of transnational activism

  • Informality and Collective Organising

    2010. Ilda Lindell. Third World Quarterly 31 (2), 207-222

    Article

    This paper is a conceptual exploration of the dimensions of the contemporary politics of informal economies, from the vantage point of collective organising by 'informal workers'. It inquires into the formation of the political subjectivities and collective identities of informal actors. The importance of the relations between their organisations and other organised actors is illustrated with a discussion of emerging alliances with trade unions. The transnational scales of collective organising by 'informal workers' are addressed. The paper suggests an analytical approach that takes account of the diversity of organised actors, of a variety of governing powers and of the various spatial scales of social struggle involved in the politics of informal livelihoods today. The reflections are informed by the considerable social and economic differentiation contained in informal economies and emphasise the importance of the great diversity of actors, positions, agendas and identities for understanding the complex and contingent politics of informality. Empirical illustrations are drawn from the African continent, but the discussions in the paper address wider trends and theoretical debates of relevance for other developing regions.

    Read more about Informality and Collective Organising

  • The Politics of 'Non-Planning' Interventions in African Cities

    2010. Amin Y. Kamete, Ilda Lindell. Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (4), 889-912

    Article

    Urban planning bases its interventionist strategies on the reasoning that change has to be rationally managed and that control is necessary in the 'public interest'. In Africa, for various bureaucratic and political reasons, urban planning has often been notoriously lax. In the face of uncontrolled urban development, many urban governments have abandoned comprehensive planning and increasingly resort to ad-hoc 'sanitising' measures of various kinds. This paper explores the forces and rationales that lie behind the intensified use of such 'non-planning' strategies. It draws on examples from Harare and Maputo, where urban authorities applied forceful measures to remove unplanned settlements and market places. In these cases the forces at work behind the scenes included the political strategies of elites seeking to maintain and strengthen political control over urban areas, rationalising and legitimising such unpopular interventions by appealing to ongoing efforts at 'city marketing' through international events, and referring to the imperative of upholding a modern city image. We discuss the tensions that arose from these decisions and the subsequent political processes among the intended 'victims', and between them and the authorities. In comparing and contrasting the cases of Harare and Maputo, we bring out the dilemmas of planning resorting to 'non-planning' and the complex politics triggered by such interventions.

    Read more about The Politics of 'Non-Planning' Interventions in African Cities

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