Contested fiscal geographies: urban authority, everyday practice, and emerging state-finance relations

Cirolia, L. R. (2020). Contested fiscal geographies: Urban authority, everyday practice, and emerging state-finance relations. Geoforum, 117, 33–41. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.09.002

Platform
Cape Town
Publication type
Scientific article (peer-reviewed)
Projects
Urban Public Finance
DOI Title
Contested fiscal geographies: Urban authority, everyday practice, and emerging state-finance relations
Journal
Geoforum
ISSN/ISBN
0016-7185
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.09.002
Author(s)
Liza Rose Cirolia
Published year
Subject
Sociology and Political Science

 

Abstract

The study of fiscal geographies foregrounds the spatialities of fiscal instruments, such as taxes or bonds. Of central concern in the fiscal geographies literature are the ways that fiscal spaces are co-constituted with stateform and the built environment. Recent scholarship argues for ‘placing’ fiscal geographies in urban studies, drawing attention to the ways in which fiscal tools shape urban governance and the material development of city spaces. I build on this work, further placing fiscal geographies in the context of an ordinary city in Africa, Kisumu (Kenya). Inspired by conceptual and methodological debates within the ‘African urbanism’ literature, I provide a rich account of two ‘sites’ through which Kisumu’s fiscal geographies are given effect. First, I focus on the newly formed Kisumu County Government. The County represents a reterritorialization of urban authority. This authority is given substance, and contested, through fiscal instruments. Second, I focus on low-level bureaucrats. I foreground the relationship between fiscal policy and everyday practices. These two sites draw our attention to the multiple and relational logics at play in Kisumu’s fiscal geographies.

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