Sociogenic Construction: A Concept for Theorising How African Cities Are Built

Most buildings in African cities are not produced by developers, designers, lenders or the state. Households generate them, finance them with irregular income and remittances, and artisans build them on site after learning the trade, often completing them (if ever) over many years. Existing vocabulary describes this either as a deficit (informal, unplanned, unregulated) or as a process (incremental, progressive, self-help). Neither name what produces the building. This note introduces sociogenic construction: the production of buildings generated primarily by social rather than technical or regulatory systems. Drawing on Frantz Fanon’s concept of sociogeny and Sylvia Wynter’s sociogenic principle, it contrasts sociogenic with technogenic construction, identifies five social systems that generate sociogenic buildings, proposes a measurable Sociogenic Construction Index, and advances the sociogenic governance gap: the argument that building regulation designed for technogenic construction cannot govern sociogenic construction. The note sets out testable propositions and an empirical programme in Kumasi, Ghana, and invites comparative work across the Global South.