The Negativity of Times.

Collapsed Futures in Maputo, Mozambique Abstract for Cities in Development seminar, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 26 November 2013 Morten Nielsen Section for Anthropology, Department of Culture and Society Aarhus University etnomn@hum.au.dk Based on ethnographic research carried out in Maputo throughout the last decade, this presentation explores the variegated after-effects in the present of collapsed urban futures. The argument is built on an ethnographic analysis of kuzama utomi (trying to make a life), a temporal trope that pre-figures the future as a failure on a linear scale. Still, although it is identified by its collapse, the future wedges itself within the present as a trace of that which will never be. While manifesting the efforts needed in order to reach a desired objective, it also exposes the powers at work, which inhibit its eventual realization. The analysis of kuzama utomi will be used as starting point for discussing a series of concrete case studies involving urban planning schemes and the recent large-scale infrastructure projects carried out by Chinese construction consortia. Based on these empirically driven analyses, an argument will be made for the importance of absences and voids when studying contemporary urban assemblages in sub-Saharan Africa.