Coloniality and racialization of informality

Abstract

This article is inspired by Finn's work which historizes the structure of formal–informal dialectic in Africa, arguing that the origin dates to the colonial era. I extend Finn's argument through the prism of formal–informal as a racialized binary embedded in the coloniality of Africa's socio-spatial policies. Drawing insights from African cities generally and Lagos in particular, I argue that the formal–informal binary has always been a tool of colonial domination, which (re)produces and maintains racial hierarchies and racialized displacement in contemporary times. This provides a useful frame to understand and challenge the hierarchical positioning of informality relative to formality.

Introduction

Informality has witnessed a burgeoning interest and has become an object of growing policy and scholarly debates, particularly in Africa where it remains central to urban development discourse. Informality is invoked in relation to regulations, an exception to the order of formal (Roy, 2005) or as the formal's ‘other’ (Acuto et al., 2019), with informality being referred to as abnormal and formality as the ideal (Banks et al., 2020). This view has been critiqued through several propositions (Acuto et al., 2019; António, 2022; McFarlane and Waibel, 2016; Roy, 2005), rendering visible the importance of informality as the dominant mode of housing and livelihoods production in Africa (Azunre et al., 2022; Finn and Cobbinah, 2023; Olajide, 2015). Notwithstanding, informality is often perceived by the state with negativity, requiring modernist intervention (Azunre and Boateng, 2023; Cobbinah, 2025), as exemplified by the case of Lagos (Olajide and Lawanson, 2022). Despite claims that informality is not desirable for Lagos’ megacity aspiration, it remains the reality for marginalized communities as sources of housing and livelihoods across generations (Olajide, 2015). In agreement with Finn (2025), this demonstrates the enduring status of informality beyond just being a post-colonial phenomenon.

Finn (2025) argues that the origin of what is currently known as informality in Africa dates to the colonial era. Using the case study of the Zambian Copperbelt, he demonstrates that the early 20th-century history of urbanization and migration produced the informal/formal dialectic and established the grounds for inequalities that proliferate in contemporary times. He further noted that the structure of informality is rooted in colonial spatial strategies central to the formation of global capitalism. Finn (2025) asked an important question: ‘Why did/do states produce informality?’ He also calls for scholars to consider how contemporary and future urban inequalities are structured by the colonial past and what the informal/formal dialectic means for progressive and inclusive interventions related to urban informality. I found particularly relevant Finn's statement about the need ‘to interrogate how top-down conceptions of informality originate and are instrumentalized to “justify” unequal and often racist urban and labour policies’ (Finn, 2025). This article reflects on and extends Finn's provocations through the prism of formal–informal as a racialized binary embedded in the coloniality of Africa's socio-spatial policies and economic practices.

Through the notion of coloniality, I argue that the formal–informal binary has always been a tool of colonial domination, which (re)produces and maintains racial hierarchies and racialized displacement in contemporary times. I use racialized displacement as a theoretical tool to explain how the residents of informal settlements in Lagos are undervalued and are constantly under threat of forced eviction or actual displacement as they are considered not deserving to inhabit the city's prime locations. This embodies a form of colonialism, reinstating dominance over racialized groups through the maintenance of hierarchies of superiority/inferiority based on a colonial taxonomy and the categorization of individuals into constructs of ‘zone of being’ or ‘non-being’ (Maldonado-Torres, 2007). The notion of coloniality, as an enduring legacy of colonialism (Grosfoguel, 2007; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013), provides a frame to understand the enduring binary between formal and informal and challenges the hierarchical positioning of informality relative to formality. Coloniality represents the presence of colonial consequences and divisions, highlighting its enduring impact of power domination, racial disparities, and inequalities (Mignolo, 2007). As described by Quijano (2007), coloniality persists as the most prevalent form of global dominance and racialized practice in modern times.

The coloniality, hierarchization, and racialization of formal–informal binary

The formal–informal binary in Africa is shaped by colonialism and contemporary neo-colonial challenges, underscoring the enduring impact of colonization on development. Prior to colonization, African cities functioned within the limits of their resource. However, colonialism imposed global capitalism on Africa under the pretense of modernizing Africa. This, however, resulted in inequalities and reductive representations of social realities through dichotomized and hierarchized categories such as modern versus traditional and formal versus informal (Mahmoud, 2016). At the crux of colonial domination was socio-spatial segregation, which systematically separated and privileged European communities over local communities, resulting in racially and ethnically segregated urban neighbourhoods (Salm and Falola, 2005). This established the foundation for spatial and economic dualism now known as formal–informal (Agunbiade and Olajide, 2016).

Many African cities are witnessing coloniality, resembling modern capitalist practices, through the uncritical adoption of neoliberalism. This is akin to internal colonization (Gutiérrez, 2004), in which processes and impacts, on the marginalized populations, are just as destructive as external colonization (Calvert, 2001; The Ecologist, 1993). The impacts include state-led displacement under the disguise of development, thus perpetuating oppression against marginalized populations (Calvert, 2001; Saul, 1979). Post-colonial African states were established in a society, already infested with racial power relations in its socio-spatial ordering. As noted by Finn (2025), colonial occupation and planning laws encountered pre-colonial settlements and economic systems that existed before formal occupation and the implications continue to contemporary times. Thus, as I argue, the notions of coloniality and racialized binary of formal–informal help to locate informality in its historical and structural context. African nations perpetuate coloniality in their urban development policies and planning regulations, maintaining the formal–informal binary (Watson, 2009), and hierarchization of formality over informality in the pursuit of modernist urban development (Astolfo and Allsopp, 2023; McFarlane and Waibel, 2016; Olajide, 2015). The prevailing spatial planning logic legitimizes formal settlements as desirable, superior, and acceptable while racializing the residents of informal settlements as not desirable for the state's modernist urban development aspiration.

While the origin of racialization is associated with the core characteristics of white supremacy and imperialism, contemporary racial practices deploy neoliberal and multicultural terms of inclusion to value and devalue forms of humanity differentially. This is done to fit state-imposed socio-spatial orders and modernist development aspirations (Melamed, 2015). Drawing on Stuart Hall's theorization, race is understood as an uneasily identifiable but very effective way of dividing society into more and less deserving populations. In this way, race is the modality in which the global structure of class relations is lived, experienced, appropriated, and contested (Hall, 1997). Race also intersects with other forms of racialization used in organizing society in hierarchies, such as gender, sexuality, class, and income (Otiso, 2005). Forced displaced populations are often racialized subjects, viewed as less deserving by actors who have the power to impose conditions that cause displacement (Picker and Skłodowska-Curie, 2018).

In Lagos, marginalized communities continue to experience racialization, manifesting in displacement and forced evictions, owing to the state's urban (re)development interventions based on urban neoliberal development (Olajide and Lawanson, 2022). The narrative of Lagos aspiring to become the African model megacity and a global financial hub is strategically mobilized by the state government to promote urban development which reproduces and perpetuates socio-spatial inequalities and displacement of marginalized communities. The imperative for urban development serves as a dominant institutional ideological tool to justify the neoliberal labelling of informal settlements as illegal. The notion of illegality ascribed to informal communities remains instrumentalized by the state in the production of urban space for urban neoliberal development aspirations and projects. Production of space for urban modernity in the urban core and other prime locations constantly relies on spatial displacement and forced eviction of informal communities through racialized urban planning policies. The top-down nature of urban development interventions and decision-making on what is good or bad for the megacity image and modernity aspiration of Lagos means that those considered as not deserving of modern urban life do not get to be part of the decision making. It is important to pay attention to how top-down conception of urban development and neoliberal labelling of illegality, criminality, and unsafe of informal settlements are mobilized and instrumentalized to justify racialized urban planning and development interventions. While the locations firmly inhabited by the urban poor are often considered dangerous for habitation, the same locations are taken over by the elites through state-led urban redevelopment interventions. This ultimately results in forced evictions, racialized spatial displacement, and dispossession of the groups that are considered less deserving of urban modernity.

Conclusion

In extending Finn's work, I argue that the formal–informal binary has historically been a tool of coloniality and racial hierarchies and continues to be so in contemporary times. This understanding is essential for addressing coloniality and racialized practices embedded in Africa's socio-spatial order. The descriptive views and normative positions about the formal–informal binary, which frame and place informality as inferior and illegal and formality as the ideal and desired socio-spatial model, require a shift. A policy shift towards reevaluating and reframing the perspectives on the formal–informal divide to foster a broader societal understanding that empowers and integrates informality within the urban development landscape. This must challenge and ultimately transform the existing dominant neoliberal labelling of informality as inferior and illegal. A more nuanced understanding that mainstreams the strengths of informality and shifts its contributions from the margins to the centre of urban development. This shift requires the decoloniality of the socio-spatial hierarchies of differences and hierarchical boundaries between the formal and informal. By doing so, socio-spatial hierarchies and power structures that shape institutional views and intervention in urban development can be deconstructed, in a way that allows for the inclusion of many perspectives, particularly those that have been historically marginalized.