Authors such as Buckley et al. (2016) have warned that the recent rise of large-scale housing programmes, aiming to solve the problem of affordable housing, will rather profit the middle classes and may reproduce problematic aspects of earlier social housing programmes and resettlement. Inadequate housing locations, people's deprivation from sources of income, and increased living costs may be the most prominent ones among them. In Casablanca, Morocco, authorities are practicing an innovative approach, facilitating shantytown resettlement through land subsidies and investment of small-scale private constructors. The programme could be successful in avoiding some of the above-mentioned problems. The specific modalities have enabled even most vulnerable families to move from their shacks into new, more comfortable flats. However, more could have been reached if there were no conflictual political interest. Urban modernisation plans, security policies and profit interest in land were the main drivers behind the prohibition of in-situ solutions. Instead people were forced to move to the urban peripheries. Although many households appreciate the increase of living comfort and the fact that they have become owners of a formal apartment, they also report a feeling of isolation, a loss of job opportunities, higher transport costs and a lack of public services. The split results underline the heterogeneity within the judgement of resettled households and call for an abandonment of single-solution-strategies. The paper builds on four months of field research in Casablanca. It uses own empirical household data and draws from participatory observation as well as qualitative interviews.

Drawing on a case of resettlement that occurred 20 years ago in New Atuabo, an area built by a mining company on the outskirts of Tarkwa (Ghana), this paper shows how resettlement not only reshapes the urban political space, but also constitutes a quasi-experimental case of social differentiation along several boundaries that go beyond classic dichotomies such as rural/urban, especially since the original settlement (Old Atuabo) could also be considered in many respect as « urban ». From this perspective, the « political » is but one aspect that needs to be taken into account if the resettlement is to be understood as a multifaceted process.

I argue that while the beginning of the resettlement process was constrained and enforced by major political authorities, the development of the area now rests on more fundamental - yet blatant - dynamics of socioeconomic differentiation, involving a wider variety of actors, behaviors and conflictual relations that inform the politics of everyday life.

Among these dynamics, I will focus on 1) The progressive becoming of New Atuabo into a fast-developing « real estate » market that generates unequal opportunities 2) The (over)use of some urban infrastructure such as roads and the electrical grid, and 3) The competitiveness and relative (in)stability between streams of revenues. Depending on their social trajectories, which are tied to past events, access to different forms of capital and more or less strategic dispositions, people face unequal chances to succeed in this new suburb.

Cette communication propose d'explorer les modalités de réinstallation de citadins ayant été ciblés par des mobilités résidentielles imposées par la modernisation et la réalisation de grands projets urbains à Lomé. Depuis 2009, la capitale du Togo est l'objet de nouvelles coopérations économiques suite à la levée de sanctions liées au « déficit démocratique ». Cette étape d'ouverture est marquée par une mise en chantier de la capitale (investissements dans les infrastructures) et de transformation des normes institutionnelles et politiques.

Dans ce contexte, les modalités de mise en œuvre du projet du Grand Contournement de Lomé permettent d'explorer de nouvelles relations entre les pratiques de pouvoir de l'Etat et les citadins. Les modalités d'action de l'Etat dans le cadre de cette opération emblématique constituent un enjeu qui va au-delà des projets puisqu'il s'agit alors de mettre en visibilité l'amorce de nouvelles pratiques de gouvernement : faire accepter le projet de modernisation, remettre en ordre les usages de l'espace, instiller un mode de « bonne conduite », être à la « bonne place »… Comment analyser les formes de contrôle et de pouvoir exercées à la fois par l'Etat et les citadins dans le site de réinstallation ?

La communication propose de cibler l'analyse sur les modalités d'acceptation de la relocalisation et l'instauration de règles de conduites (sociales et spatiales) à travers l'étude des pratiques ordinaires prenant place dans la situation de replacement quelques années après la réinstallation.