Informal re-use of waste tyre in Lagos, Nigeria
Dr David Garbin has been awarded a £50k grant under the British Academy Cities and Infrastructure of Well-Being Programme. The Programme funds interdisciplinary research projects that address the challenge of creating and maintaining sustainable and resilient cities, with the aim of informing relevant policies and interventions in developing countries.
On receiving the award, Dr Garbin said “I am delighted to receive this funding. This new award will enhance the policy and public engagement impact of the already-funded ‘Pneuma-city’ project (2019-2023) on the informal economies and ecologies of waste tyres in urban Africa.
“The money will enable our international team to continue to explore waste governance, environmental sustainability and the urban cultures of recycling/upcycling in African contexts, using the Nigerian cities of Lagos and Ibadan as case studies.”
Pneuma-City is a partnership between the universities of Kent, York, Toronto (Canada), Lagos (Nigeria) and combines Urban Anthropology, Sustainability Science, Material Engineering, Urban Planning and the Sociology of Work. It also involves Lagos-based award-winning visual artist and photographer Andrew Esiebo who has been documenting the urban aesthetics of road ecologies and informal tyre-related work in the Nigerian capital.
The project brings together key stakeholders such as the social enterprise YAAH (Young Artists Art Hub) and the Waste Museum in Ibadan, Lagos-based artists and international curator Inês Valle who is leading the key public engagement activities of the project. Public engagement is central to the project and will be achieved through a combination of workshops (on recycling/upcycling and waste governance) and art-in-the-street activities reaching different constituencies in Lagos and Ibadan, showcasing the audio-visual outputs of the project to local communities and the wider public in Nigeria and elsewhere (through our web-based resources).
For more information please visit the project website: https://pneuma-city.org/