Author: Nielsen, Morten

Source: Social Analysis, Volume 54, Number 3, Winter 2010 , pp. 153-173(21)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

Abstract:

This article explores the generative effects of the flooding that hit Mozambique in 2000. Flood victims from the country's capital, Maputo, were resettled in Mulwene on the outskirts of the city. Although initially envisaged as a 'model neighborhood' based on a set of 'fixed urban norms', it soon became apparent that the Mozambican state was incapable of realizing the project. These failures notwithstanding, residents occupying land informally in the neighborhood have parceled out plots and built houses by imitating those norms. Based on a Deleuzian reading of 'situational analysis', introduced by the Manchester School, the article argues that the flooding constituted a generative moment that gave rise to new and potentially accessible futures in which hitherto illegal squatters were reconfigured as legitimate citizens.

Keywords: EVENT; MOZAMBIQUE; PARCELAMENTO; POTENTIALITIES; SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS; URBAN PLANNING; TEMPORAL RUPTURE; VIRTUAL

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/sa.2010.540310

Publication date: 2010-12-01

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• Social Analysis has long been at the forefront of anthropology's engagement with the humanities and other social sciences. In forming a critical, concerned, and empirical perspective, it encourages contributions that break away from the disciplinary bounds of anthropology and suggest innovative ways of challenging hegemonic paradigms through 'grounded theory', analysis based in original empirical research. The journal invites contributions directed toward a critical and theoretical understanding of cultural, political, and social processes, as well as the work of active ethnographic researchers who study the forces involved in the production of human suffering, poverty, prejudice, war, and violence.
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