Building concrete futures: materiality and urban lives in West Africa

Abstract In West Africa, concrete is increasingly taking hold of physical landscapes, popular consciousness, and everyday conversations. Ubiquitous and pervasive, concrete is now an integral part of West African urban materiality and cultural identity. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s theory on the production of space, I consider this material as both a product and a producer of urban space. By tracing flows of building materials across the West African urban corridor linking the cities of Abidjan, Accra, Lomé, Cotonou, Porto-Novo and Lagos, this article proposes to understand how cement and concrete (re)shape African built environments, human lives and urban futures. It examines three dimensions of this concrete urban materiality: its links with capital, its social meanings for inhabitants-builders and its ecological impacts. I conclude by highlighting the potentials, limits and contradictions raised by this now contested material, thus shedding light on the complexity of the production of urban spaces in West Africa.