Urban redevelopment in Addis Ababa since 2018

Drawing on ongoing research on Addis Ababa’s redevelopment since 2018, this talk examines how large-scale projects, walkways, parks, museums, squares, and high-end real estate are framed through narratives of prosperity and productivity. Beyond material frameworks, it highlights how moral and ideological idioms present the remaking of urban space in the name of progress and renewal as inevitable.

Biruk Terrefe is a Lecturer in Politics & Sociology of Africa at the University of Bayreuth. His research lies at the intersection of political science, development studies, and geography, and currently spans two main areas of interest. The first area investigates the relationship between infrastructure and state-building, particularly how large energy, transport, and logistics systems have shaped (and are shaped by) political orders and overlapping sovereignties, especially in the Horn of Africa. His second area of research focuses on the political and social struggles that arise in cities, their peripheries, and hinterlands during rapid urban redevelopment. He holds a PhD from the University of Oxford.