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Dear Friends and Colleagues, I hope this email finds you well. Taibat Lawanson and I will be holding a panel at the next ECAS conference in Edinburgh to explore construction booms and the regimes of production and dispossession, urban politics, finance and moral responsibility that are reconfiguring the landscape of African cites. I hope this panel may be of interest to you and your networks. Inside a Construction Boom: Politics, Responsibility and the Temporalities of Urban Development Deadline for abstract: 21 January To submit your abstract: https://www.nomadit.co.uk/ecas/ecas2019/conferencesuite.php/panels/7438 Large infrastructural projects, new housing developments and high-rise buildings are reshaping the landscape of African cities. Construction booms, such as the ones African cities are now witnessing, explode at exceptional times of economic growth. The time projections for such booms are affected by the fact that economic growth is hoped to be “structural” and not “conjunctural”, that is, triggering a continuous and cumulative expansion of the economy. Construction booms and economic growth are there to last, projections say. The idea of continuous growth is often a myth, as downturns cause resources to dry up. At the same time, the idea of economic growth as continuous and construction booms as lasting moments in the history of a city are “real fictions” that significantly affect policies of urban development and governmental ideas of responsibility. Economic growth is believed to hold the promise of a more just and abundant society, while construction booms are taken as living proofs that a better society is about to emerge. Spectacular highways and brand new high-rise buildings stand in the present as time machines connecting ordinary citizens to a future of urban abundance. The objective of this panel is not to prove these projections wrong, but to explore how construction booms are made possible through exceptional regimes of production, dispossession, urban politics, moral responsibility, and finance that rest on the assumptions that these booms are there to last and that economic growth will deliver benefits to society as a whole. All the best, Marco & Taibat ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/Anthropology-Matters * * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all * * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: * * [log in to unmask] * * * * Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new * * CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com * * an international directory of anthropology researchers * To unsubscribe please click here: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ANTHROPOLOGY-MATTERS&A=1 ***************************************************************