A spatial interface in Dakar’s sustainability transition
(2025) Learning from the South: Cultural Landscapes and Transnational Dialogues on Urbanization in Transition / HRC — Location: Lausanne (10.June.2025)
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- Abstract
- This contribution addresses a challenge that is rooted in the urban disposition of Dakar (Senegal) and resonates in other urban contexts: rapid urbanization has become both the driver and the victim of socio-ecologic issues (i.a., water scarcity, flooding, pollution, poor health, and ecosystem damage). The water geography of Dakar is heavily perturbed, and drainage strategies prevail, pushing institutional and local initiatives to rethink their territorial agencies. Echoing the discourse of The Production of Space (Lefebvre 1974)—a conceptualization of space that is historical, context-specific, and inclusive of material forces, social relations, and imaginative creation—the interaction between human societies and the environment is manifested in ‘geographies’ of spaces in transformation. Over the past decades, two trends of transformation in urban water geographies can be observed: the enforcement of alternative operations and the attention to integrative actions. These trends represent a body of theories and actions shaping artificialized water systems in response to sustainability goals. Alternative operations—generally site-specific actions that go beyond constructing conventional drainage systems—are widely discussed in the sustainability and urban drainage literature yet remain underrepresented in empirical research concerning the Global South (Dobre et al. 2018; de Graaf and van der Brugge 2009). In contrast, integrative actions—recognizing and integrating the role of the citizen as an active participant in service production—are more commonly implemented in urban water management across the Global South, although their actual impact on sustainable outcomes remains insufficiently understood (Ostrom 1973; Brandsen, Trui Steen, and Bram Verschuere 2018). Through fieldwork performance, this study aims for a spatial contribution foregrounding the geography of sustainability transitions and emphasizing the importance of territorial context (Köhler et al. 2019; Coenen, Benneworth, and Truffer 2012). By critically analyzing the evolving configuration of Dakar’s most urbanized drainage systems—across the cultural landscapes of the Niayes terres humides and Rufisque cuvette—this work seeks to understand how spatially embedded alternative and integrative practices can support sustainable urban transformations.
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Van den Bruel, E. (2025). A spatial interface in Dakar’s sustainability transition. Learning from the South: Cultural Landscapes and Transnational Dialogues on Urbanization in Transition / HRC, Lausanne.