The Land series is an umbrella research project exploring land in Khartoum and the impact of various planning schemes, policies, laws and structural plans on land acquisition and land rights. Land Power Dynamics in Post Village Incorporation Settlements: The case of Al-Shigeilab The State of Khartoum’s urban expansion, in response to massive population growth over the decades since its independence, has seen many transformations in the planning structures and market logics that dictate it. Village incorporation, as introduced in the early 90s, was one way in which existing villages around the Khartoum State were regulated; by overlaying ‘formal’ planning and governance paradigms, such as land titling, onto existing local customary land distribution and governance practices. The research aims to study the impacts of village incorporation schemes more than 4 decades after their implementation, specifically on Al-Shigeilab as an example. By focusing on Al-Shigeilab, a historical riverbank settlement within the Jebel Awlia locality, the study aims to investigate the aforementioned topic in relation to the impact of Khartoum’s rapid urbanization on settlements along the White Nile’s riverbank. .
Through the predominant use of mapping, the research intends to work with the neighborhood committees and members of the community to document and analyze the processes as well as the spatiality of how the radical demands of urban justice are foregrounded by newcomers to these existing structures.
By using the tools of action research, this research aims to provide an overview of the dynamics around land and the knowledge gaps in the existing structures in which these dynamics unfold through a series of maps and diagrams with potential urban development recommendations on the finding.
