Not a voluntary,sustainable,or scalable outcome: Resilience in urban settings of fragility in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This article focuses on urbanization in settings of fragility, addressing the research question of how new and older settlers manage natural resource use and competition in increasingly urbanizing settings of fragility. Based on two case studies of intermediary sub-Saharan African cities, we find that new and older settlers demonstrate everyday resilience in managing their shared compounded, persistent precarity. This precarity involves constant difficulty in securing water amidst three larger contextual forces: urban poverty, absence of inclusive governance and transparent and fair distribution, and a dynamic landscape of interventions by multiple actors to cope with this precarity. We further find that this resilience was somewhat efficacious in mitigating against the rise of major violence between new and older settlers, though this efficacy may well be highly contingent. We draw on these findings in arguing that resilience may not be a voluntary, sustainable, or scalable solution to increasing urban fragility. Alternative conceptual and practical approaches are finally outlined.