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CC Nairobi: Produce, use and remix urban representations. A Nairobi city guide designed for its inhabitants under Creative Commons attribution share-alike license is a collaborative Africa-Europe research and capacity building project developed with an unconventional and innovative methodology. The project aims at questioning urban representations through an interdisciplinary and applied approach. More specifically CC-Nairobi focuses on Nairobi as a key case study, it produces a Nairobi city guide with new urban representations specifically designed for its inhabitants under Creative Commons attribution share-alike license, and it develops a Kenyan and international legal framework for urban studies. Developing a Nairobi city guide for its inhabitants under the open license Creative Common attribution share-alike means to collect new data and post-processing existing data to provide a transversal overview of the entire city of Nairobi, its services, toponymy and landmarks. At the same time, making this content available under Creative Common attribution share-alike means to define the legal framework for urban studies and to produce guidelines which can allow researchers and institutions to legally acquire and release content for commercial and non commercial use, taking into account issues related to intellectual property, copyright, privacy and open licenses. A city guide allows an interdisciplinary research team to converge towards a common milestone, it develops an applied research which produces and questions urban representations, it uses, remixes and translates existing content, and it fills a specific gap in Nairobi. A city guide under Creative Common attribution share-alike license allows to produce and collected knowledge which can be easily disseminated and transferred in new projects by different stakeholders, and it allows to produce infinite, collectively built and ever-changing city guides, which can respond to individual and collective needs. The project is conceived to be scalable and it produces resources and guidelines to replicate the experience in new contexts.

Background, Questions and Objectives

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Contribution to New Ideas

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The project is an interdisciplinary and applied research which aims at questioning urban representations and at focusing on Nairobi as a case study. The pioneer idea of the research is to produce a city guide for the inhabitants in Nairobi and to make this resource fully available under the open license Creative Commons attribution share-alike. The challenges of this idea are to conceive new urban representations targeting the inhabitants of an African city and to bridge urban studies and their legal frame. The project is conceived to be scalable and it produces resources and guidelines to replicate the experience in new contexts.

Scientific Questions and Capacity Building Objectives of the Project

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The project implements two main activities

  1. Collaborative Research Project - The objective of the collaborative research is to question urban representations. More specifically the project focuses on Nairobi and it produces a Nairobi city guide with new urban representations and data-processing of existing documentation targeting its inhabitants. The Nairobi city guide for its inhabitants and all its documentation is released under Creative Commons attribution share-alike license (please refer to A4 project description for the specific research questions and hypothesis).
  2. Capacity Building Project. The objective of the capacity building is to bridge urban studies and their legal frame. To allow the city guide to be under an open license, issues of intellectual property, copyright and privacy needs to be fully taken into consideration.

Basis of the Project and Present State-of the-Arts

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Urban Representations

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Urban representations orientate our perception and understanding of territories. But urban representations are never neutral, they are interpretations (Lynch, 1960): they summarise, select and return an image of a territory through maps, texts and photos that are made by different subjects for different purposes. Urban representations are also research tools: they are used by urban planners and designers, mainly produced within the field of urban studies, but also in many other disciplinary fields, such as anthropology, geography, cultural studies, economics, political sciences; they provide content for context analysis and background knowledge for the implementation of development and cultural projects; they are used to construct a city brand and identity (Bonini Lessing 2010); they are essential in the development of urban services and georeferenced applications. Understanding a city and knowing the opportunities a city offers deeply benefits its inhabitants. Representing the city, especially in rapidly-growing metropolis, literally means revealing what exists (Simone 2007, De Boek 2006, Dehaene and Amerasinghe 2007). Partial representations are produced and used by different groups to show their own environment (Mbembe, 2001), the rest – what is not represented – does not acquire a precise status in their mental maps and somehow it does not exist, allowing different (misleading) interpretations. Urban designers and researchers create maps to study, design and redesign a city; cultural institutions focus on cultural hubs and events; NGOs and public administrations use urban representations to highlight services. Every disciplinary field and network focuses on specific layers, there is very little interaction among those different representations, and very rarely this documentation is made available to be used, reused and remixed to update and create new representations. Every city is documented and portrayed in different ways. Overlapping existing partial urban representations, completing the overview by crossing data from different sources has the power to disclose the entire city to the majority of its population, giving the possibility to better know what it can offer, opportunities that can allow better (cultural, economical…) exchange.

Nairobi as a Case Study

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City's are changing, evolving, experienced entities and Nairobi is no exception. East Africa's largest metropolis, it has recently witnessed an unprecedented boom in business and construction, a reflection of the study economic growth rates that Kenya has been experiencing for the last 10 years. Office blocks seem to appear overnight, bars open every weekend and the road network is slowly, but surely, being entirely redesigned. Nevertheless, whilst the built environment changes on an almost daily basis, some structures appear not to shift. The basic socio-economic divide within the city, with most of 'The Eastlands' still remaining the poor side of town, reflects an urban philosophy stemming from the British Colonial Urban Masterplan of 1948. The east of the city is also experiencing its own construction revolution, favouring tenement buildings, the so called 'gorofa' which house people in such confined areas that Marie Huchzermeyer estimates this part of Nairobi to be the most densely populated area in urban africa. If we add to this heady cocktail of rampant high end office construction and low income housing developments, the continued existence of a network of slums all over town, a very present global north in the form of the many UN agencies, independent NGOs and multinational companies and and the increasingly visible presence of Chinese business you get a sense of a multifaceted, dynamic megacity of the South that for many reasons resists traditional methods of representation. But what is so palpable in this new, emerging city is the continued existence of a fairly rigid segregation; the social spaces that Nairobians frequent tend to reflect their class, neighbourhood and ethnicity. Whilst this is of course true for most cities, Nairobi is interesting in that there seems to be very imperfect knowledge about the spectrum of events and places that exist in the city. There is no Time Out Nairobi, or any other widespread listings (nairobinow.wordpress, kenyabuzz.com and xpatlink.info both have limited readership in terms of numbers and heterogeneity).

Research Gap and Novel Character of the Research and Capacity Building Proposed

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A city guide for citizens is a space that needs to be filled. A city guide allows an interdisciplinary research team to converge towards a common milestone, it allows to produce knowledge which can be easily disseminated and transferred in new projects by different stakeholders, it develops an applied research which produces and questions urban representations, and it fills a specific gap in Nairobi. Making a city guide available under Creative Commons attribution share-alike license requires a new methodology which combines law and urban studies, involves scholars and institutions in releasing content with open licenses, and it produces guidelines to replicate the experience in other contexts. Urban representations and open licenses are at the centre of many research and applied research initiatives, but no international project has ever focused on those combined fields.

Interdisciplinary Approach and Africa-Europe Added Value

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The research is implemented by an interdisciplinary European and African team specialised in the fields of urban studies, intellectual property, visual communication, cultural studies, anthropology and African studies. Members of the team have already efficiently cooperated in research projects; the complementary expertise of the different research units is an asset for a long-term collaboration. In the development of a city guide the involvement of an Africa-Europe research team is an added value which allows to discuss relevant questions with different perspectives and observation points; furthermore, the legal frame for urban studies is a necessity both in Europe and Africa. The African partners have a strong expertise on Nairobi, legislation of African countries and on international comparative projects. The European partners have an expertise in field research and in creative approaches to represent and study African cities.

Impact

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The project is designed for a large dissemination and its license allows content produced and collected to be used, reused and remix for commercial and non commercial use. This guarantees that the impact of the project results will continue in the long-term. The project will produce a tool conceived for the inhabitants of Nairobi and it will provide individuals and institutions with a series of resources (texts, maps, images, visual materials) which can be used for further research, commercials and non commercial urban services, mobile phone applications, digital and analog projects.

Stakeholders

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Stakeholders will be involved through networking and training and they will have access to the city guide, the documentation produced and the guidelines developed. More specifically each research team will involve specific stakeholders, according to their expertise and network (international and Kenyan cultural institutions, institutions working in the field of urban studies and institutions working in the field of Intellectual Property and Copyright). Please refer to “Section E Impact of Project Results” for an overview of the stakeholders involved.

References

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  • Emanuela Bonini Lessing, Interfacce Metropolitane, et al., Milano 2010.
  • Michiel Deahene, Anojie Amerasinghe eds. Karachi – SITE town and Orangi Nalla, Leuven 2007.
  • Kevin Lynch, The Image of the city, MIT Press, Cambridge 1960.
  • AbdulMalique Simone, For the city yet to come, Duke University Press Books, 2004
  • Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony, University of California Press, 2001
  • Marie Francoise Plissart, Filip de Boek, Kinshasa: tales of the invisible city, Ludion 2006

Project description

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Methodology

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The project has a clear and specific milestone: producing a Nairobi city guide under the open license Creative Common attribution share-alike. This milestone requires a new and interdisciplinary approach, a combination of expertise and the implementation of a unconventional and innovative methodology.

  1. Nairobi city guide for its inhabitants. The project produces new urban representations for a Nairobi city guide specifically designed for its inhabitants. Current representations focus on the city centre, contribute to reinforce the segregated structure and image of the city, and they are meant for tourists accustomed to traditional city plans. The CC-Nairobi city guide for its inhabitants focuses on the whole city of Nairobi, on toponymy and landmarks, and it offers a transversal overview of the existing services (mobility, health, safety, sport, arts and entertainment, shops, trading...), by collecting new data and post-processing existing. All documentation is made available online on crossed platforms to make sure it is widely accessible. The documentation produced and collected is post-produced for specific presentations and an exhibition in all the countries involved in the project. We expect to upload over 200 multimedia files for the Nairobi city guide and to develop content according to the general structure presented in the following table.
  2. Legal framework for urban studies. The project produces content which can freely be used, reused and remixed under an open license, i.e., a Creative Commons attribution share-alike license. To the extent that the project output incorporates existing content related to Nairobi, this approach requires a careful selection process to avoid violations of third-party copyright as well as incompatibilities with other open licenses. More generally, however, this project will investigate the relationship between copyright protection on the one hand and urban studies on the other. By providing exploitation monopolies for creative works, including street art and some publicly accessible buildings, monuments and the like, copyright protection can become a potential stumbling block for urban studies projects like this one. For the benefit of this particular project but also as a reference tool for future urban studies projects, this project’s legal research component is geared toward capacity building for relevant stakeholders by producing country reports, briefs and guidelines, an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document as well as a short training course designed for researchers and institutions working in the field of urban studies. We expect to train 30 people (research team, scholars and representatives of institutions/stakeholders); we expect to involve 10 stakeholders in releasing their content about Nairobi with open licenses (i.e. cultural institutions such as GoDown, grant-makers supporting projects in Kenya such as Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, NGOs and online media projects). This methodology contributes to reinforce open access, open data and open government, working directions supported also by the European Union and the Kenyan government.

Advantages of the Methodology Chosen

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1. Nairobi city guide its inhabitants

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City guides are generally seen as a neutral genre, a simple tool everybody can use to move around, get directions and information. But a guide is, on the contrary, always written for a certain target group, by one or few authors, in a specific context and period. Therefore a city guide gives a very partial image of a place, directing newcomers' eyes only to certain points, driving them on precise routes. If on the one hand great attention has been given to travel literature, on the other hand guidebooks – intended as simple tools to orient the visitor – have been less studied, especially in Africa. On top of that, often guides on African countries do not even describe cities but only natural attractions, portraying Africa as the land of wildlife and just talking about “authenticity” (Price 1989). In the continent with the fastest urban growth, cities are somehow perceived as not interesting. The gap between the number of city guides existing on New York and Nairobi tells about strong differences in processes of production, data retrieval, interpretation of space, visual representation. Moreover, it highlights the fact that most of the times African city guides have been written by non-Africans and/or for non-Africans, often still offering distorted, simplified and limited interpretations (Vanin 2008). Today, the evolution of this genre, thanks to new technologies and communication devices, has brought to the rise of participatory guides, freely accessible and editable that aim at being used more by citizens than tourists (NFT – http://www.notfortourists.com/; My Local Guide  http://mylocalguide.org/). People living in Nairobi most of the times do not know their own city due to the physical segregation of the neighbourhoods, to safety and security matters, to the limited access to information, and to the different spatial references the use to move around and which most of the time do not not correspond to the traditional city plans. By imagining to construct a city guide of Nairobi the research group will not only be forced to understand which representations (maps, images, texts etc.) are more useful and understandable for the inhabitants, but they will be confronted with legal matters to make this content fully available to citizens and for further developments, updates and use. Moving from a synthetic representation of Nairobi with institutional information according to an international geographical code (i.e. google map) to meaningful representations for the inhabitants implies the application of different methods. A city map can be constructed starting from the spatial perception of the users and the understanding of their mental map (Venturi Brown Izenour 1972) which can differ very much from the official ones. Landmarks, significant places, nicknames, paths, names of shops or bars can be the actual elements that form the references most of the people or groups normally use to move in the urban context (Lynch,1960). That is maybe one of the strongest evidences in most African cities, where for a long time and until recently the colonial city has been “the other city”, with little sense of belonging. The relevance of “emotional geographies” for African cities is, for example, exemplified by the statements of the Triennale de Luanda (Alvim 2013) claiming the importance that emotions and relationships have in conflicted, dangerous contexts. The detachment that exists between physical space and its functioning, from the emotional, cultural meanings of places existing in every human being becomes radically evident in traumatised spaces - by war, disasters etc. (Ligi, 2009). The displacement of a cemetery, the destruction of a church, the occupation of a square can provoke collective reactions that are not purely linked to functional needs. Involving artists and cultural institutions in representing cities allow to use our potential to imagine city spaces as a way into the problematic of representation and offer valuable references (Afropolis, Urban Mirror , Tony Mochama, Slum TV and Fruitmarket films). Observing the behaviour of man in the city is another way of understanding daily practices and shaping differently urban representations. Everyday life, shared spaces and the practices they allow can define a geography where space has a central role (Bourdieu 1977) but where the user can not consciously define its acts and the overview becomes clear only to the observer (Low, 2000). Recording and surveying these information can lead to different mapping exercises that can highlight subjective-shared relevant elements which can be emotional, cultural, derived from common practices but anyway more relevant than traditional city plans.

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  1. Which image of a city is provided by city guides? -> City guides convey the image of a city and they are an extremely powerful tool; they also represent a tool capable of allowing people to discover their own city. Current city guides – in particular in Africa – provide a extremely partial representation of a city and they provide maps which are not necessarily efficient tools to move throughout a city.
  2. Can a city guide influence the representation and perception of a city? -> Yes. City guides allow to apply urban and cultural studies, to influence the representation and perception of a city and to target in a simple way the audience. An interdisciplinary approach, the production of new open contented and the use and remix of existing open content allow to produce infinite, collectively built and ever-changing city guides, which can respond to individual and collective needs.
  3. Is a city guide a relevant research topic? -> Yes. A city guide is normally formed by spatial interpretations (maps), pictures, descriptive texts and practical information: it immediately forces to face the problems of access to information, its dissemination, authorization and licenses. It forces to work on representation: to question common codes, and to look for tool which more properly correspond to how people interpret space.
  4. How can a city guide about Nairobi be relevant for its inhabitants? -> It can reveal the whole city: most inhabitants do not know their own city but a limited space, their neighborhood. It can strengthen sense of belonging and active citizenship. It can rise attention to the identity of places, possible uses of spaces beyond the neighborhood. It provides information about opportunities to better perform within the urban space. It can support the interaction with other territories and communities by revealing them.
  5. How can a city guide about Nairobi be relevant for Europe? -> The complexity of documenting Nairobi allows to develop a scalable process to analyze urban phenomena. Furthermore Nairobi is a city that have been at the centre of a wide number of mapping projects and it provide a unique and extremely relevant case study.
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The project involves a legal research component that is geared toward capacity building for relevant stakeholders. Project output will include country reports, briefs and guidelines, an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document as well as a short training course designed for researchers and institutions working in the field of urban studies. This component will:

  • ensure that project output, including the CC-Nairobi city guide, is properly released under an open license (i.e., a Creative Commons (CC) Attribution Share-Alike license) and made available online for (re-)use and adaptation (remix);
  • raise awareness in urban studies scholars and other stakeholders (NGOs, grant makers, public and private organizations) of the legal framework they operate in to increase the lawful dissemination of scientific material.

The legal research component of the project comprises of the following two distinct phases: Between April 2014 and October 2014, the research team will conduct an in-depths analysis of the implications of copyright law for this specific project (i.e., the creation of a CC-licensed city guide for Nairobi, Kenya). While this will mainly involve desk-research techniques, the research team will also utilise surveys in order to probe actual practices on the ground. This first phase will result in a research report as well as comprehensive guidelines for project participants. Both these documents will be presented at the Nairobi meeting in October 2014 and are meant to guide the work of other project teams in the following months. The second phase of the legal research component, between November 2014 and November of 2015, will built upon the findings of the first phase and extend the research beyond Kenya. The purpose of this research component is aligned with the overall objective of the project to produce results that are easily replicable elsewhere. Consequently, this research component will investigate the international and regional copyright framework for urban studies projects – as manifested, for instance, in the Berne Convention or the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the TRIPS Agreement and relevant European Directives – and subsequently engage in an analysis of selected domestic laws. These domestic laws will represent different regions and law traditions in Africa and Europe, and at this point the following countries have been identified for further examination (in addition to Kenya): South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Senegal, Egypt, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. This research component will result in a research report and a general guideline document for urban studies stakeholders in Africa and Europe. The results of the second research phase will be presented at the project’s final workshop in Beyreuth, Germany, in March 2016.”

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  1. How to foster collaborative long distance research? -> This is an implied question in any collaborative research and this project addresses it through open licenses. Open licenses provide content which can be used, reused and aggregated on the long-term. For this reason open licenses are the most powerful tool to foster collaborative long distance research, working on a common milestone and allowing partners and other research units, individuals and institutions to further develop research also after the end of the project.
  2. Is it possible to replicate the project in other cities in Africa or Europe? -> Yes. Documenting a city is directly connected to copyright legislation. Understanding which photos can be taken, which sites can be documented and who can provide the necessary authorizations (with references to the relevant legislation and bibliography) allows to replicate the project and to produce and make accessible open and legal documentation.”

Synergy Between Different Tasks of the Project and Exploitation =

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The project tasks can be group in

  1. Networking.
  2. Specific research on the legal framework for urban studies.
  3. Collection of data and production of visual representations (texts and visual material).
  4. Releasing of existing documentation with open licenses and support to the institutions involved.
  5. Data post-production and editing.
  6. Production of uploads, presentations and exhibition.
  7. Meetings, training, field research and workshop.

Each task is performed in synergy with researchers from different research teams, each one providing his/her specific expertise. All tasks contribute to the current research work of all institutions involved and they correspond to their specific focus. For this reason the project tasks can be exploited for further research projects, and their results can be applied to new contexts.

References

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  • Kevin Lynch, The Image of the city, MIT Press, Cambridge 1960.
  • Venturi, Brown, Izenour, Larning from Las Vegas, MIT Press, Cambridge 1972.
  • Gianluca Ligi, Antropologia dei disastri, Laterza, Bari 2009.
  • Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1977.
  • Setha Low, On the Plaza, University of Texas Press, 2000.
  • Bremner, Lindsay. Writing the City into Being: Essays on Johannesburg, 1998–2008, Fourthwall Books, 2010.
  • Murray, Martin J. City of Extremes: The Spatial Politics of Johannesburg, 2011.

Team information

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The project establishes a collaboration among four research institutions focused on specific and interconnected fields. This consortium is not only necessary for the project implementation, but it also provides a valuable network to reinforce each institution specific current work and its future programmes.

Team information Kenya 1/2: Technical University of Kenya. Department of Spacial Planning and Design

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • Urban studies, urban planning, maps and visual representations.
  • Navigating African cities and spacial frames.
  • Based in Nairobi and strong expertise on Nairobi urban studies.
  • Synergy with the current focus of the department on planning in Kenya and with previous architectural and urban projects.

5 members + associated member

  • Dr. Lawrence Esho. Project coordinator. Ph.D in Architectural Engineering (KULeuven), M.A Human Settlements (KULeuven), M.A Planning (University of Nairobi), BA Sociology and History (Kenyatta University); Senior Lecturer, Chair - Department of Spatial Planning and Design. Technical University of Kenya, Principal, Partner, Centre for Urban and Regional Planning
  • Young researchers Researchers. 4 young researchers will directly contribute to the research project and the data post-processing. Students will also be involved in the training, data collecting and presentation.
  • Joy Mboya. Associated member. Executive director of the GoDown cultural centre. She will be involved in the project as a major stakeholder and she will participate in the meeting, training and workshop.

“The Mode of Extemporization: The Role of Informality in Reconstituting Formal Urban Spaces: The Case of Nakuru, Kenya”. Published Doctoral Dissertation. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 2009. References

  • Esho, L., “On Navigating the African City: Spatial Frames of Disorientation” Submitted Journal Article, 2009.
  • Esho, L., “Urban Development by Co-production” (co-authored with Van Den Broeck, J & Verschure, H) In. Loeckx, A, et. al. (Eds). Urban Trialogues: Visions, Projects & Co-productions: Localizing Agenda 21. UN-Habitat, Nairobi, 2004.

Tasks

  1. Project coordination: overall coordination, organization of the coordination meetings, intermediate and final reports (R); quarterly reports to Kenya MoHEST (r).
  2. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Bayreuth Germany March 2016).
  3. List of questions related to the legal framework for urban studies (by May 2014).
  4. Networking with Kenyan institutions working in the field of urban studies.
  5. Organization and coordination of the Nairobi meeting and training (October 2014)
  6. Data collection and production of maps and texts with the involvement of students (Nairobi City Guide) - first deadline April 2015, final deadline September 2015.
  7. Data post-processing (Nairobi City Guide) - Deadline December 2015.
  8. Presentation of the Nairobi City Guide at the Technical University of Kenya (between January-February 2016).

Team information Kenya 2/2: Strathmore University. Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law CIPIT

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • Intellectual Property, Information Technology Law, open licenses, open access and Creative Commons.
  • Kenyan legislation.
  • Synergy with current research projects “Open AIR project, an African‐wide research and capacity building collaboration on intellectual property law, innovation and development on the continent”.
  • Synergy with current training projects.

3 members

  • Dr. Isaac Rutenberg Principal investigator. Director and Lead Consultant for the Center for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) at Strathmore Law School. Focusing on practical aspects of intellectual property (IP), he continuously advocates for Kenyan organizations and individuals to expand their use of worldwide IP systems. J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law (California, 2011) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from California Institute of Technology (2004). He is a Registered Attorney with the California State Bar and he is registered to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office.
  • Young researchers Researchers. 2 young researchers will directly contribute to the research project. Students will also be involved in the training and presentation.

Tasks

  1. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Nairobi October 2014 and Bayreuth Germany March 2016).
  2. FAQ, guidelines related to intellectual property, copyright, open licenses and urban studies in Nairobi (deadline October 2014).
  3. Training course for team members, scholars and institutions working in the field of urban studies related to urban studies and intellectual property, copyright and open licenses issues (October 2014).
  4. Legal support and advice.
  5. Report and paper on urban studies in Nairobi and their legal issues - deadline November 2015.
  6. Presentation of the Nairobi City Guide at the Strathmore University (between January-February 2016).
  7. Quarterly reports to Kenya MoHEST (r).

Team information South Africa: University of Cape Town. Intellectual Property Law & Policy Research Unit UCT

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • Intellectual property, particularly the relationship between intellectual property law and innovation and development in Africa.
  • Open licenses, open access and Creative Commons.
  • South African legislation and international comparative projects.
  • Intellectual property, particularly the relationship between intellectual property law and innovation and development in Africa.
  • Synergy with previous projects “Open AIR project, an African‐wide research and capacity building collaboration on intellectual property law, innovation and development on the continent” and “Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright (2010)”.

2 members + students/interns

  • Dr. Tobias Schönwetter Principal investigator. Director of the Intellectual Property Law and Policy Unit at the University of Cape Town's law faculty and the Regional Coordinator for Africa for the Creative Commons Corporation. Principal Investigator for the Open AIR project. Since 2009 he is the legal lead of Creative Commons South Africa. He studied and practiced law in Germany, the U.S. and South Africa, and holds Ph.D. and LL.M. degrees at UCT.
  • Kelsey Wiens Research assistant and project manager. Ma in Library Science, BA Communications. Focus in Open Access with research experience at the University of Cape Town/Centre for Educational Technology, Creative Commons South Africa and “WikiAfrica: Increase the quantity and quality of African content on Wikipedia”.
  • Students/Interns Students will directly contribute to the research project. Students will also be involved in the training and presentation.

References

  • Schonwetter, T. and C. Ncube, ‘New hope for Africa? Copyright and access to knowledge in the digital age’ (2011) 13(3) Info 64 -74.
  • Schonwetter, T. and all, Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright (2010) by Dr Tobias Schonwetter et al (ed), UCT Press.
  • Schonwetter, T. and C. Armstrong, Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) 2009 Regional Report Africa .

Tasks

  1. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Nairobi October 2014 and Bayreuth Germany March 2016)..
  2. Networking with international institutions working in the field of IP and copyright.
  3. Legal support and advice.
  4. FAQ and guidelines related to the legal framework of urban studies; first deadline October 2014, second deadline November 2015.
  5. Report and paper on urban studies and their legal issues - Deadline November 2015.
  6. Presentation of the Nairobi City Guide at the University of Cape Town (between January-February 2016).

Team information Belgium 1/2: Latitude - Platform for Urban Research and Design Lat

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • Urban studies, urban planning, maps and visual representations.
  • Comparative research and urban studies in Africa (Maputo, Nairobi and Luanda)
  • Synergy with previous projects “Mobile A2K”, “Floating Urbanism”.

2 members

  • Dr. Fabio Vanin Principal investigator. Co-founder of Latitude Platform, is urban designer and researcher. He is specialized in mapping processes and urban representations. He holds a Ph.D in Urbanism with a thesis titled “Maputo: open city” on the image, representations and urban features of the capital. He is currently working on the research “Mobile A2K” as principle investigator for the case study of Luanda. He collaborated on urban researches, teaching activities with various universities in Africa (University of Witwatersrand, SA; Univerisdade Eduardo Mondlane, MOZ; University of Nairobi, KE) and in Europe. He is promotor and researcher of investigations on urban-territorial issues “Floating Urbanism” (2010-13), “Veneto 2100” (2011-13), “City visions Europe” (2009). He is curator of exhibitions such as “Living with Water” (Benetton Foundation Treviso 2013; NAI Rotterdam; British Museum London, 2012), “History and Future of EU cities” (Mechelen, 2009).
  • Catherine Vilquin o-founder of Latitude Platform, is architect and urban designer. She holds a master degree in Human Settlements at the Katholieke University of Leuven (Belgium) where she has been working as researcher on urban-territorial projects dealing with flooding, water management issues and reconstruction (Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Haiti). She has experience in the field of participatory planning and capacity building, teaching and training. Catherine is involved in the mapping process for the Strategic plan for Port-au-Prince’s metropolitan region (Haiti) and in research projects about ‘Floating Urbanism’ in the Dutch Delta, the Amazon Basin and the Mekong Delta.

References

  • Vanin, F., “Maputo cidade aberta - Maputo open city”, Quetzal Editora, Lisbon (forthcoming – 2013).
  • Vanin, F., “Pancho Guedes: Vitruvius Mozambicanus”, DoDo, Edizioni IUAV, Venezia (forthcoming – 2013).
  • Vanin, F. and T. Lombardo, “Scenarios for fragile territories” in Tosi, E. Anguillar, E. Bonini Lessing, M. Ranzato eds, Delta Landscape 2100, Professional Dreamers 2012, pp. 28-29.
  • Report, “Nairobi Metropolitan Region: Networking the Sustainable African Metropolis: Issues, Visions, Concepts”, 2011) with Center for Urban and Regional Planning, Nairobi (KE), DURP - University of Nairobi (KE), Columbia University (USA), ASRO - University of Leuven (BE). Fabio Vanin researcher, urban designer and graphic designer for the spatial planning concept for the Nairobi Metropolitan Region.
  • Vanin, F., “Maputo open city” in V. Verrario, A. Sampieri, P. Viganò (eds), Landscapes of Urbanism - Q6, Officina Editori, Bari 2011, pp. 125-135.

Tasks

  1. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Nairobi October 2014 and Bayreuth Germany March 2016).
  2. List of questions for the legal framework for urban studies (by May 2014).
  3. Filed research in Nairobi (October-November 2014).
  4. Production of maps and visual material in collaboration with Université Libre de Bruxelles (Nairobi City Guide); first deadline April 2015, final deadline September 2015.
  5. Data post-processing (Nairobi City Guide); Deadline December 2015.
  6. Visual editing of the guidelines related to the legal framework for urban studies; Deadline December 2015.
  7. Report and paper on “Questioning urban representations”; by 12/2015

Team information Belgium 2/2: Université Libre de Bruxelles. Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta ULB

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • Urban studies, urban planning, maps and visual representations.
  • Strong academic network both in Europe and Africa.
  • Synergy with previous projects “Inventaire, cartographie entre Porto-Novo (Bénin) et Lubumbashi (Congo)” in partnership with the Ecole du patrimoine africain and the WBI.

2 members + students

  • Dr. Luisa Moretto Principal investigator. Ph.D in Analysis and Governance of Sustainable Development, Urban Studies (2008). lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Architecture of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, she has a strong experience in researches on urban issues in Africa (Congo, Marocco).
  • Dr. Marco Ranzato Researcher. Ph.D in Environmental Engineering (2011), postdoctoral researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, he is an urban designer specialized in the issue of urban resilience and in conceptualizing and mapping the relation between urban spaces and urban flows (water, energy, etc.). Between 2008 and 2010, he researched on the methods to conceptualize urban flows. In 2003, he made a research survey on the displacement of people after the flood disaster occurred in 2000 in the slum of Chamanculo (Maputo, Mozambique). Curator of “Living with Water” (Benetton Found Treviso 2013; NAI Rotterdam 2012).

Students Bachelors and master students will be involved in the research process, data post-processing and in the presentation at ULB. References

  • Boniburini, I., J. le Maire, L. Moretto, H. Smith (eds), 2013, Le droit à la Ville la Ville comme bien commun  : entre politiques sociales et planification urbaine, Cahier dArchitecture de la Faculté LaCambre-Horta, La Lettre Volée.
  • Azaitraoui, M., L. Moretto, 2013, «La valorisation des déchets urbains à Sfax (Tunisie): entre reformes politiques et récupération informelle», dans Sociétés Urbaines et Déchets, Presses Universitaires François Rabelais, Tours.
  • Brunfaut, Victor et Luisa Moretto, Viviana d’Auria, Bruno de Meulder, Kelly Shannon, editors, «The Production, Use and Dissemination of Urban Knowlegde in Cities of the South», Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference of N-aerus, 28-30 October 2010, Brussels, Belgium.
  • Ranzato, M. (forthcoming), Actions for a deltaic resilience, In: Towards an atlas of the European delta landscape, LISt, Trento.
  • Zaccariotto, G., Ranzato, M., Tjallingii, S, (2011), Water sensitive design tools for urban landscapes. In: blue in architecture09 _ symposium proceedings. Università Iuav di Venezia.

Tasks

  1. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Nairobi October 2014 and Bayreuth Germany March 2016).
  2. Questions for the legal framework for urban studies (by May 2014).
  3. Filed research in Nairobi (October-November 2014).
  4. Production of maps and visual material in collaboration with Latitude (Nairobi City Guide); first deadline April 2015, final deadline 09/2015.
  5. Data post-processing and involvement of students (Nairobi City Guide); Deadline December 2015.
  6. Production of a report and paper on “Questioning urban representations”; deadline December 2015.
  7. Two presentations of the Nairobi City Guide at Université Libre de Bruxelles (in May-June 2015 and between January-February 2016) in collaboration with Latitude.

Team information Switzerland: University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland/Department for Environment Constructions and Design/Laboratory of Visual Culture SUPSI

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • Visual communication, interaction design, digital interfaces.
  • Comparative research on culture and urban transformations.
  • Open access applied to scientific research; Experience in guiding and supporting institutions and scholars in releasing and disseminating their content with open licenses.
  • Established network with international institutions (NGOs and grant-makers) working in the field of development in Africa.
  • Synergy with previous projects (“Mobile Access to Knowledge: Culture and Safety in Africa. Documenting and assessing the impact of cultural events and public art on urban safety in Douala, Luanda, Johannesburg” and “Share Your Knowledge: Creative Commons and Wikipedia for Cultural Institutions”).

2 members

  • Dr. Davide Fornari Principal investigator. Architect with a Mater in Art and Culture Management and a Ph.D. in Design Sciences from University Iuav of Venice with a thesis on humanoid interfaces. He is coordinator of the project “Mobile Access to Knowledge: Culture and Safety in Africa. Documenting and assessing the impact of cultural events and public art on urban safety”.
  • Dr. Iolanda Pensa Researcher. Art historian with a Ph.D. in anthropology and in territorial government and planning (2011, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano). She has been Scientific Director of the project “WikiAfrica: Increase the quantity and quality of African content on Wikipedia” (2007-2012) and “Share Your Knowledge: Creative Commons and Wikipedia for Cultural Institutions” (2011-2012) for lettera27 Foundation.

References

  • Anceschi, D. Fornari, entry "Web design", in: Treccani XXI secolo. Treccani, Rome 2010, pp. 589-597.
  • Fornari, D. (2012) Il volto come interfaccia, et al./EDIZIONI.
  • Pensa, I. (2012) Public Art and Urban Change in Douala. Domus, 9-4-
  • Pensa, I. Rewrite History: Wikipedia as a tool to produce a collaborative history and historiography, Conference of African Studies, 19-6-2012, Università di Pavia.
  • Pensa, I. Creative Commons and Wikipedia as new productive paradigms for cultural institutions, STS Italia National conference: Emerging Technologies, Social Worlds, 23-6-2012, Rovigo.

Tasks

  1. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Nairobi October 2014 and Bayreuth Germany March 2016).
  2. List of questions for the legal framework for urban studies (by May 2014).
  3. Networking with international institutions working in the field of urban studies (in particular NGOs and grant-makers).
  4. Assistance in producing the guidelines related to urban studies and their legal framework for researchers and institutions.
  5. Supporting institutions in releasing existing data with open licenses and meeting with the institutions during 3 days of field work (10-11/2014).
  6. Uploading the documentation released with open licenses online and on the Wikimedia projects (Nairobi City Guide).
  7. Production of a report and paper on open licenses for institutions.
  8. Presentation of the Nairobi City Guide at SUPSI (01-02/2016).

Team information Germany: University of Bayreuth. Iwalewa-Haus UB

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Expertise/Infrastructure

  • African studies: Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies.
  • Network with international artists and curators in Europe and Africa.
  • Active academic, cultural and artistic program at Iwalewa-Haus which contributes to disseminate the project, accessing audiences.
  • Elaborated and articulated network in Nairobi (Slum TV, Urban Mirror, Contact Zones – artist monographs, Maasai Mbili).
  • Synergy with previous projects (Mashing Up the Archive, Afropolis).

3 members

  • Dr. Ulf Vierke Principal investigator. Director of the Iwalewa-Haus University of Bayreuth and DEVA (the digital archive of African studies). PhD in Anthropology, Senior Fellow at the Bayreuth Graduate School of African Studies.Specialised in African arts, popular culture, curatorial studies and disability studies (Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique).
  • Nadine Siegert Researcher. Deputy Director at Iwalewa-Haus, Africa Centre of University of Bayreuth and Associate Member of the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies. PhD on “(Re)Mapping Luanda - International Art Networks and local assertiveness in Angolan Contemporary Art Production” expected June 2013. Curator of exhibitions such as “Agora Luanda” (2007).
  • Sam Hopkins Researcher (1979, lives in Nairobi and Bayreuth). He studied Spanish and History at Edinburgh University, University of Havana and San Alejandro Art Academy; art at Oxford Brookes University and Bauhaus University Weimar. Co-founded in Nairobi the media collective Slum TV and helped found Urban Mirror, a group of public space activists. His work is typified by a conceptual approach that explores issues of public, participation and memory. Artist and curator of exhibitions, at Transmediale, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Goethe Institut Nairobi; Afropolis, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne (2010); Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth (2011); NGBK Berlin (2011); Nairobi - A State of Mind, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2012). http://samhopkins.org

References

  • Hopkins, Sam & V. Cavallo (2012), Ghosts that provoke violence. In: über(w)unden: Art in Troubled Times. pp 198-203.
  • Hopkins, Sam (2010), Roomah & Upgradasion. In: Pinther, Kerstin et.al., Afropolis. Köln: Walther König. pp. 206-09.
  • Hopkins, Sam (2011), Sam Hopkins. Nairobi: Contact Zone 02.
  • Siegert, Nadine & Ulf Vierke (forthcoming), “Urban Memories and Utopias – Contemporary Art in Luanda and Nairobi”. In: Elísio Macamo et. al., Living The City. Hamburg: LIT-Verlag.
  • Siegert, Nadine (2011), (Re)mapping Luanda. Post-war Utopias of the Angolan Contemporary Art Scene. In: Peter Weibel and Andrea Buddensieg (ed.), Global Studies. Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.

Tasks

  1. Participation in the research discussion and meetings (Nairobi October 2014 and Bayreuth Germany March 2016)..
  2. Questions for the legal framework for urban studies (by May 2014).
  3. Networking with international and Kenyan cultural institutions.
  4. Field research in Nairobi (October-November 2014).
  5. Data post-processing and artistic research with production of maps, texts and visual material (Nairobi City Guide); by December 2015.
  6. Exhibition of the project at Iwalewa-Haus and workshop involving all the participants (March 2016).

Project management

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The project will be coordinated by Lawrence Esho who is based in Nairobi. Each task – as showed in the project time schedule – is identified with a leading institution implementing it. Decisions will be taken during the coordination meetings organised online through conference call and in person in Nairobi and Bayreuth. Each research team involved has specific tasks to perform based on its expertise. The training and the Nairobi city guide represent to tasks where all research team need to converge. Several research members have already worked together on common projects and there is a complementarity of skills between the group which can allow the project to manage delays and problems related to human resources. A specific challenge of the project and project methodology is to release content under open licenses; previous experiences have showed good reactions from cultural and development institutions working in the field of urban studies, but of course the choice of institutions is unpredictable; the project manages this task by involving a wide network of institutions and by producing also new content under open license.

Organizational chart

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Timeline

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SWOT

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Project's SWOT Analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
  • Urban studies are not only a research field, but they also offer content for other disciplinary research. Furthermore urban studies provide information for citizens and inhabitants, cultural and development projects, city-branding and for applications and start-ups linked to urban services.
  • Nairobi is becoming an ICT hub and it is at the centre of many mapping projects.
  • A city guide is by default an interdisciplinary tool meant for dissemination. Focusing on a city guide allows a research team to concentrate on a specific objective, to converge on a common goal and to include within a scientific research processes of translations to make sure the project results are disseminated and exploited.
  • In Kenya Wikipedia is accessible online, offline and for free on mobile phones through Orange mobile company; Wikipedia volunteers have organised in 2012 Wiki Loves Monuments, a photographic contest to document Kenyan cultural heritage on Wikipedia.
  • Guidebooks of Kenya focus on touristic informations and natural resources; Nairobi city guides concentrate on few places and landmarks and are meant for tourists .
  • City guides tend to focus on urban centres and to split cities into neighbourhoods; this approach define and orientate our perception of a city and of the hierarchic value of each site.
  • Scientific research, cultural initiatives and development projects have produces a large number of resources to understand and study Nairobi (urban representations, maps, images, photos, repository, texts); even though those resources are often online, they can not necessarily be used, reused or remixed legally.
  • The Internet is certainly a powerful tool to disseminate knowledge, but also the Internet has hubs and gate-keepers. To efficiently make content available on the Internet it is important to make knowledge and resources accessible on the major hubs. Wikipedia is one of those, with over 400 million readers. Since Wikipedia strictly respect copyright and intellectual property, to allow content to be accessible on Wikipedia it is necessary to provide it with open licenses, to obtain the requested authorisations and to verify all the legal issues related to content.
  • With the growing number of ICT projects and the activism of open online communities, questions about intellectual property, copyright and licenses are intensifying.
  • Nairobi has been at the centre of many mapping projects; those maps are an extremely useful resource for stakeholder to exploit and transfer into different projects but they are not currently fully accessible for commercial and non commercial use, reuse and remix.
Opportunities Threats
  • City guides are a simple tool to allow citizens and inhabitants to discover the opportunities offered by their own city.
  • City guides can produce new images of a city; they can orientate the understanding of its territory beyond neighbourhoods and traditional power dynamics of centre versus periphery, rich territories versus poor territories.
  • Providing existing resources with open licenses allows to use, reuse and remix content.
  • The open license Creative Commons attribution share-alike is an existing easy-to-use legal tool, which allow content to be used, reused and remixed for commercial and non commercial purposes; authors need to be credited (attributions) and the derivative works need to have the same license (share-alike). This license has already been largely tested by users and institutions with a strong and beneficial impact on distribution and content exploitation.
  • In Nairobi a city guide for citizens does not exist.
  • The legal framework for urban studies needs to be defined and guidelines needs to be produced to allow institutions and researchers to be able to make their content available and accessible.

Impact of project results

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The project is designed to address specific stakeholders and to be scalable. For this reason the project results are fully disseminated and exploited. All the documentation produced and collected is by default under the Creative Commons attribution share-alike license and it is meant to be used, reused and remix by others.

Dissemination of the results among specific targets and stakeholders and potential utilization

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How stakeholders are addressed by the project

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Ethical issues

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Privacy and Research Involving Developing Countries

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Ethical and legal issues are fully taken into consideration by the project as part of the project methodology. The legal research component is fully integrated within the project structure; it does not only address the project specific needs but it also provides a general legal framework for urban studies with guidelines for scholars, researchers and institutions.

Gender

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The research team has a balanced number of male and female researchers.

Young researchers

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Young researchers are involved within the research team; the students of fours universities contribute to the research and students participate in the training.

Credits

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This project was proposed for the ERAfrica programme call for project in April 2013 and it was initially conceived by Iolanda Pensa and Fabio Vanin, drafted by Iolanda Pensa and developed in collaboration with

  • Dr. Lawrence Esho, Technical University of Kenya/Department of Spacial Planning and Design
  • Dr. Tobias Schönwetter, University of Cape Town/Faculty of Law/Intellectual Property Unit.
  • Dr. Isaac Rutenberg, Strathmore University /Centre for IP and Information Technology Law.
  • Dr. Fabio Vanin, Latitude-Platform for Urban Research and Design.
  • Dr. Marco Ranzato, Université Libre de Bruxelles/Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta.
  • Dr. Davide Fornari, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland/Department for Environment Constructions and Design/Laboratory of Visual Culture. Dr. Iolanda Pensa as main researcher.
  • Dr. Ulf Vierke, University of Bayreuth/Iwalewa-Haus.

Expected duration: 1 May 2014 - 30 April 2016 (24 months)

See also

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