Economic knowledge in the urban informal economy of Zaria, Nigeria

Colin Marx, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London

This research is framed within relational processes of impoverishment that characterise the urban economies of Zaria, Nigeria. The project seeks to subvert dominant understandings of urban economies and their associated processes of impoverishment by deploying a concept of ‘economic knowledge’ that has been developed in the context of formal, advanced economies. The concept of economic knowledge offers this potential because, hitherto, it has been theoretically impossible to associate economic knowledge with the informal economies of poor women and men thereby consolidating an unhelpful consensus on processes of impoverishment between different economies. The project is part of a broader research programme on urban dynamics in Nigeria and builds on relational conceptualisations of poverty I explored with Charlotte Lemanski in a co-edited book, “The city in urban poverty” (2015).

Photo credit: Michael Walls