Abstract:

The use of LPG by collective transport actors is becoming increasingly widespread in many African cities. Moving beyond strict geographical and economic approaches to transport and mobility, our talk, based on ethnographic research in Accra and Bobo-Dioulasso, explores the way in which taxi drivers navigate their paths by transforming their cars, which goes well beyond questions of mobility and technical infrastructure. We will show how the study of the diverted use of LPG, for example, reveals itself to be a grid for reading the negotiations of power between the drivers, institutions, and the rest of the urban dwellers.

Houd Kanazoé is an urban geographer and lecturer at Université Virtuelle du Burkina Faso. His research focuses on mobility practices in African cities.

Édith Nabos is a postdoctoral researcher working at the intersection of urban and political anthropology and history. Her PhD examined the trajectories of city dwellers navigating the night in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.