Mapping Urban Informality in Tangier

Mapping Urban Informality in Tangier investigates Tangier's informal economy and urban practices across four themes, by following an object paradigmatic to each: informal housing through the brick, food markets through local cheese, recycling through the plastic bottle, and smuggled goods through the smartphone. The four tours and objects are reconfigured and integrated into the classical board game Parchis, creating alternative ways to reenact the urban experience of the...
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Mapping Urban Informality in Tangier investigates Tangier's informal economy and urban practices across four themes, by following an object paradigmatic to each: informal housing through the brick, food markets through local cheese, recycling through the plastic bottle, and smuggled goods through the smartphone. The four tours and objects are reconfigured and integrated into the classical board game Parchis, creating alternative ways to reenact the urban experience of the formal-informal interface through the neighborhoods and markets of the city. Mapping Urban Informality in Tangier is the result of a collaboration between CLUSTER, an urban research and design platform in Cairo, and Think Tanger, a cultural platform dedicated to the exploration of urban challenges arising in Tangier. This work, it is hoped, will offer an alternative reading and experience of Tangier and contest the official urban narrative on informality dominating mainstream media and public discourse. In particular, it proposes engaging the formal-informal interface as a nuanced journey, connecting sites and routes, actors and economies, institutional regulations and community negotiations.