Planners and the Work of Renewal in Addis Ababa: Developmental State, Urbanizing Society

McClelland, Jesse. Planners and the Work of Renewal in Addis Ababa: Developmental State, Urbanizing Society (Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Washington).

My dissertation project focuses on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Though the urban fabric has long been typified by 'slum' infrastructures, today the city is being reordered by a variety of new transnational flows and state programs of massive redevelopment. Within this transformative period, I explore the work lives of planners who advance renewal programs on core urban land. As planning gradually becomes a standard (if contested) practice of governing urban lives and landed property, it regrounds urban questions of citizenship and dramatically underscores the links between development and ideology. The project draws on 'low theory' convergences of socio-legal studies, postcolonial studies, Marxism and new African urbanisms. With support from a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship and an affiliation with the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the Addis Ababa University, I completed the fieldwork stage of this project in 2015 and now I am writing. My dissertation commitee includes Dr. Steve Herbert (Chair), Dr. Ben Gardner, Dr. Lucy Jarosz, and Dr. Victoria Lawson.

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