Ghostly Encounters in Lagos
Virtual Reality between Urban Marketing and Media Activism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21086609 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hervé Roquet (0009-0006-7256-1802, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0309-1317 • E-ISSN: 1468-2427 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1468-2427.70114 |
| OpenAlex | W7167496168 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
This article examines the role of virtual reality (VR) technologies in mediating and contesting dominant visions of urban futures in West Africa. Drawing on theoretical insights from a hybridization of the work of the German‐born Jewish critic Walter Benjamin and the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, I introduce the concept of phantasmagoria as a theoretical tool to analyze the politics of immersive media utilized in urban imagineering projects and urban media activism. Based on fieldwork data from Nigeria, the article contrasts the top‐down urban branding of the ‘Eko Atlantic City’ megaproject in Lagos, which uses VR to promote an exclusive and spectral vision of urban life, with the bottom‐up practices of local media activists who produce 360° videos that showcase the lived experiences and struggles of Lagosians. I argue for the understanding of VR experiences as phantasmagoric , sensory mystification carrying potentialities of radical disenchantment, and discuss how VR technologies may be appropriated, domesticated, and subverted in the context of emancipatory struggles. By highlighting the expanding role of emerging technologies and mediated sensory immersion in contesting and haunting urban spaces, the article contributes to the broader discourse on media activism and discussions of the role of digital technologies in shaping urban futures
Context (archaeology) · Digital media · Emerging technologies · Futures contract · New media · Social media · Virtual reality · Vision · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Urban Planning and Governance · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation
Real Cities
Digital Visualisation as a New Driver of Urban Change in Africa
Feeling good about feeling bad
Video as Method
Decolonising the Academy
Assemblage Theory
Worlding Cities
ICTs as Juju
The allure of ‘smart city’ rhetoric
Urban Pulse—A Geography of Serial Seduction
Does Africa not deserve shiny new cities?’ The power of seductive rhetoric around new cities in Africa
Film as Method in the Geohumanities
African urban fantasies
Seeing the City Digitally
The City of Our Dream
Autistic Architecture
Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom
Further Considerations of Afrofuturism
Incompleteness
Inhabiting Ocular Ground
Decolonizing the Virtual
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |