OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
This talk explores the political and temporal life of infrastructure in East African cities, focusing on the Tanzanite Bridge in Dar es Salaam and the stalled La Gare redevelopment in Addis Ababa. Through these case studies, it interrogates how megaprojects—often celebrated as symbols of progress—can entrench exclusion, serve elite interests, and become suspended in speculative futures. Drawing on urban theory and original research, the session reflects on how ruination, finance, and geopolitical ambition shape both the material and imaginative landscapes of African urbanism.
The speaker, Zayaan, studied BA Land Economy at Cambridge and is currently pursuing an MSc in Environmental Change and Management at Oxford. With a passion for cities, infrastructure, finance, and the political economy of the built environment, Zayaan brings an interdisciplinary lens to questions of development globally. The session invites interactive discussion and reflection on what inclusive, just infrastructure might look like.
