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Datos Bibliográficos

ID24141237
AutoresJ Sumich (0000-0001-5486-2798, University of Essex, autor de correspondencia), Sandra Manuel (0000-0001-6540-1786, Kaleido Technology (Denmark))
Año2026
Volumen96
Número3
Páginas409-427
Fecha de publicación2026-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAfrica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0001972026102071
OpenAlexW7208711213
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas21

Many scholars have argued that the explosive growth of gated communities in African cities results from the soaring inequalities and insecurities unleashed by the adoption of neoliberalism. Based on our analysis of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, we demonstrate how gated communities are the latest attempt in a long-term social engineering project that aims to use the built environment to create the desired urban subject. We then trace how utopian ambition and aspiration bring such projects into being and how lack of resources and faulty management exacerbate internal tensions that cause them to fall apart. We argue that it is not only the lack of cultural knowledge or the ‘one size fits all’ authoritarian imposition of modernizing plans that causes these projects to fail. Instead, through the case study of Mozambique, we trace the ways in which seemingly exclusionary spatial forms, such as a gated community, draw upon the legacies of former utopian projects.

Authoritarianism · Capital (architecture) · Cultural capital · Inequality · Social capital · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance · Water Governance and Infrastructure