Research project "We’ll starve before we get sick!"
The study aims to generate new knowledge about how the current global corona crisis impacts urban societies in Africa. In particular the study explores the short and long term social, economic and political effects of corona-related interventions among informal workers, and how they respond and cope during and in the aftermath of the crisis. These will be analysed across two urban settings – Maputo and Lagos. Research questions: What, and how, are governmental prevention strategies being deployed in the context of the pandemic threat, and what are the impacts on informal workers? What are the short- and longer-term effects of governmental prevention strategies on the lives of informal workers? How do street and market vendors respond to, cope with and recover from prevention strategies during and after the corona crisis? How do effects and ability to cope vary according to gender and age? The study will use qualitative methods: interviews with state officials; street and market vendors and their leaders; and analysis of media articles to gain an insight into local public debates.
Lindell, I. and Ugembe Z. (2026) “The necropolitics of informality: contested strategies of banishment, carceralisation and peripheralisation.” International Development Planning Review, 48:1&2, pp 13-38. DOI: 10.3828/idpr.2025.27
Adama, O. and Lindell, I. (2026), “Geographies and entanglements of governance: making marketplaces governable during pandemic times in Lagos, Nigeria”. International Development Planning Review, 48:1&2, pp 59-80. DOI: 10.3828/idpr.2025.8
Lindell, I. and Kontinen, T. (2026), “Reconfiguring citizenship in times of crisis: (Post)pandemic experiences from the urban South – Introduction”. International Development Planning Review, 48:1&2, pp 1-12. DOI: 10.3828/idpr.2025.32
Lindell, I. and Almeida, I. (forthcoming, 2026), Informal workers agency in a changing world, in Anwar, M (ed.), Handbook of labour studies in Africa, Routledge.
Research Presentations:
Ilda Lindell, “Provisional livelihoods and infrastructures in the (post)pandemic city”. Presented at the Nordic Geographers Meeting, 25-27 June 2024, Copenhagen. https://ngm2024.com/
Onyanta Adama, “Onyanta Adama-Ajonye: Governing from below: the role of market associations in the enforcement of the Covid-19 restrictions in markets in Lagos, Nigeria”. Presented at 25-27 June 2024, Copenhagen. https://ngm2024.com/
Ilda Lindell and Tiina Kontinen, convened a panel on “Urban citizenship during and after the Covid-19 pandemic: Situated experiences from African cities” (two sessions). At the Royal Geographical Society & Institute of British Geographers Conference, 27-30 August 2024, London. https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/ac2024-roundup
Onyanta Adama, “Governing the Covid-19 pandemic from below: the role of market associations in Lagos, Nigeria”. Presented at the Royal Geographical Society & Institute of British Geographers Conference, 27-30 August 2024, London. https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/ac2024-roundup
Ilda Lindell, “Undoing informality and collective life in the (post)pandemic city: the case of Maputo, Mozambique”. Presented at the Royal Geographical Society & Institute of British Geographers Conference, 27-30 August 2024, London. https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/ac2024-roundup
Ilda Lindell, “Infrastructural Responses in the (Post)Pandemic City”. Presented at the Development Research Conference, 21-23 October 2024, Lund. https://www.lucsus.lu.se/devres2024