Category: Allgemein

Hybrid Urbanisms in Secondary Cities of the Global South Insights from Urban Planning and Infrastructure Delivery in Ghana and Peru

Edited by Christian Rosen & Nina Gribat
Published by Routledge

This book presents the concept of ‘Hybrid Urbanisms’ aiming to deconstruct the still-existing and often critiqued dualism of formalised and informalised practices in urban planning and infrastructure delivery. Using an innovative perspective, the book addresses this issue by focusing on the complex configurations in which both forms always co-exist and compete as powerful social constructs. It unveils the juxtaposition, simultaneity, dependency and intertwining of in-/formalised practices and highlights the relevance of the hybrid urbanisms perspective to better understand urban development, especially in the global South. At the same time, the book focuses on secondary cities of Ghana and Peru that are often overlooked in the existing literature but play a relevant role in global urbanisation quantitively and qualitatively. In offering a comparative perspective on two very diverse geographical contexts, ten empirical studies are framed by a conceptualisation of ‘Hybrid Urbanisms’ and a concluding systematisation of perspectives on this central aspect of urban development. Taken together, this volume makes an innovative contribution on how to produce new and more diverse urban theories of cities of the global South.

The Hybrid Urbanisms research project was funded by DFG – The German Research Foundation (project number. 458375534, https://hybridurbanisms.org). We were able to publish the book in open access thanks to the support of the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany and by the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning of Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. You can read the book here: Open Access

To celebrate the release we cordially invite you to our online book release on June, 10th 2025 at 11:00 (Peru time), 16:00 (Ghana), 18:00 (Germany). The program includes short presentations of both, the concept of hybrid urbanisms and panel discussions on cross-cutting issues that bring together some of the empirical chapters of the book. Please save the date and use the following link to join the event: https://tu-darmstadt.zoom-x.de/j/69202062016

Program:

Introduction to Hybrid Urbanisms 
Nina Gribat (B-TU Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany) & Christian Rosen (TU Darmstadt, Germany)

Hybrid Planning Landscapes
Millicent Awialie Akaateba (SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana) & Jessica Pineda Zumaran (Urbes Lab, Lima, Peru)

Hybridity in Infrastructure Delivery
Katherin Tiburcio Jaimes (Urbes Lab) & Rejoice Wireko-Gyebi (University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana

We are thrilled to share the success of our 2-day Authors and Stakeholders workshop, which was conducted in collaboration with the University of Energy and Natural Resources -Sunyani. The central theme of the workshop, “Hybrid Urbanisms in Secondary Cities of the Global South: Insights from Ghana and Peru”, was explored by a gathering of seasoned scholars and practitioners of Development Studies and Urban Planning from all over Ghana.

The first week of September marked an important milestone for the Hybrid Urbanisms project. The whole team travelled to Arequipa to visit our fieldwork sites and to meet with the authors of our planned edited volume on Hybrid Urbanisms in Secondary Cities in Ghana and Peru. As a special guest we also invited Prof. Dr. Julio Calderón Cockburn from Lima to discuss with us topics such as urban informality, planning policies and future scenarios for urban development in Peruvian Cities. After an afternoon full of discussions all authors agreed on the common schemes for the book and the writing process was officially started.

In the same week we could also open our Summer School “Practicing Interdisciplinarity in Planning and Design of Secondary Cities”. Thanks to funding from the German Academic Exchange Service we could bring a total of nine lectures from different universities in Germany and Peru and from different disciplines to Arequipa. Together with the 23 participants of the summer school we conducted fieldwork in the same areas where our Hybrid Urbanisms project work is taking place using the already existing good relations with the local neighbourhood associations. The summer school delivered very concrete project ideas to improve living conditions in Ángeles de la Cruz and Sector 10 in Peregrinos de Chapi, addressing topics such as public spaces, accessibility, climate adaption and social cohesion. Our cooperation partner, the Universidad de San Martín de Porres agreed to use the results of our summer school to further cooperate with the neighborhoods towards a realisation of some of the project ideas from our participants.

If you would like to know more, please visit the summer school section on this website.

The Hybrid Urbanisms Team is organising a session at the XX. ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne: “Trying to Get Connected: Examining Social and Infrastructural Inequalities”

The XX ISA World Congress of Sociology took place in Melbourne, Australia from June 25 to July 1, 2023. The Hybrid Urbanisms team organized two sessions under the umbrella of the RC21-Regional and Urban Development research committee of the international Sociological Association. All presentations were addressing the relationship between social and material aspects of inequality in infrastructure delivery. We had an extremely productive day at our panel meeting many scholars with similar research interests. We continued our conference week visiting other panels and with presenting our work in different contexts.

Right at the beginning of the new year, we welcomed our Hybrid Urbanisms project partner and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad San Martín de Porres (USMP) Álvaro del Carpio León to B-TU in Cottbus.

We took the opportunity to discuss the many joint projects for 2023: the upcoming workshop with Peruvian experts on the findings from our project in Arequipa, the freshly approved summer school directly afterwards and the preparations for a joint book project to conclude the research project.

We also used the time to talk about further joint projects and deepening the exchange between the B-TU and the USMP. After a full day of work we also had a wonderful evening together to celebrate our fruitful cooperation!

We have received the good news from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) that our application in the programme area “Summer Schools Abroad” was successful. For September 2023, we are planning a 10-day summer school in Arequipa, which will be run jointly by 10 academics from Peruvian and German universities.

The summer school “Practising Interdisciplinarity in Planning and Design of Secondary Cities” will use concrete projects in Arequipa to look for interdisciplinary approaches to finding answers to planning and architectural challenges in Secondary Cities of the Global South.

Up to 30 students and young researchers from Peru can participate in the summer school. We will soon publish a Call for Participation and the programme of the summer school, both of which will also be posted on this website.

After Pearl´s first day of exploration in the various study areas, it was key for her to build a relationship with members of the community, their traditional leaders, opinion leaders and experts in the Municipal Assembly (Sunyani West Municipal Assembly and Sunyani Municipal Assembly) as well as experts in Ghana Water Company. To be allowed to enter a suburb for official purpose, it was important for the team to formally visit the Traditional Leaders of Baakoniaba and Berlin Top and the locally elected opinion leaders to inform them about our presence in their neighborhood. This act, technically known as community entry, was done to show respect to the elders of the community as well as serve as a safety measure for the team members since acceptance from the elders can be directly translated as acceptance from the residents of the community thus community members being more opened to team members. The team also went to the offices of all the experts that will be needed in the course of the study. Two weeks after being in Sunyani, Pearl had to visit Nairobi-Kenya for a workshop on African Cities in which she had a presentation on informal water vendors. Returning in the last week of the month, Pearl with the assistance of the research assistant began interviews with households as well as water vendors and taxi drivers.

Investigation into hybrid forms of infrastructure delivery can only be exhausted if the researchers live with and speak to the people who are directly involved in these infrastructures; water and mobility. For this reason, to begin the field survey, Pearl Puwurayire, arrived in Sunyani, Ghana on Sunyani 7^th May, 2022. To integrate more easily into the city, it was imperative for her to consult Dr. Akudugu, the Dean for the planning school in University of Energy and Natural Resources – Sunyani and engage the services of a research assistant, Nathaniel, with whom they took a trip to take a look at the tentative study areas by moving through the nook and cranny of the various areas; looking out for the first impression of the water points, water vendors, stand pipes, tanks, roads and transport services. Few conversations were held with dwellers of the residents during the short expedition for the purpose of building rapport and having a fair understanding of their interpretation of translated words in the interview guide.

Generally, the reception by members of the community were was very warm. The team was able to decided which neighbourhood fitted best into the criteria of the Project. In the end, it was agreed that ´Kotorkrom´, ´Baakoniaba´ and ´Berlin top´ were the most suitable places for the study.