Audio Visual Resources

We invite you to listen to short audio reflections by the Scientific Leads from the 9 SMUS Core Partner Universities, in which they identify and discuss Wicked Urban Problems in a set of cityscape illustrations created by Uwe Lehmann. Developed in close collaboration with the Scientific Leads, the illustrations depict fictional cityscapes loosely representing African, Asian, and Latin American urban contexts. Although each Scientific Lead comments on the illustration from their particular world region, the urban challenges they highlight — such as precarious tenancy, mobility inequality, and the gendered dimensions of urban mobility — are global.

We invite you to listen to short audio reflections by the Scientific Leads from the 9 SMUS Core Partner Universities, in which they identify and discuss Wicked Urban Problems in a set of cityscape illustrations created by Uwe Lehmann. Developed in close collaboration with the Scientific Leads, the illustrations depict fictional cityscapes loosely representing African, Asian, and Latin American urban contexts. Although each Scientific Lead comments on the illustration from their particular world region, the urban challenges they highlight — such as precarious tenancy, mobility inequality, and the gendered dimensions of urban mobility — are global.

We invite you to listen to short audio reflections by the Scientific Leads from the 9 SMUS Core Partner Universities, in which they identify and discuss Wicked Urban Problems in a set of cityscape illustrations created by Uwe Lehmann. Developed in close collaboration with the Scientific Leads, the illustrations depict fictional cityscapes loosely representing African, Asian, and Latin American urban contexts. Although each Scientific Lead comments on the illustration from their particular world region, the urban challenges they highlight — such as precarious tenancy, mobility inequality, and the gendered dimensions of urban mobility — are global.

Urban development often neglects or overlooks the needs of humans, non-humans and more-than-human allies. This becomes especially evident in “hidden” systems such as waste management and drainage, which are essential to everyday urban life, yet they remain largely invisible and politically neglected. In contexts like Mexico, investment tends to favour highly visible projects like roads and highways, whilst critical systems that manage waste and environmental health are underfunded or ignored.

This inequality is not always so apparent as seen by the decision of the City of Rio de Janeiro to exclude or replace favelas with open green spaces in the official tourist and Olympic maps for the 2016 Games, masking deep social and spatial divides and providing a concrete example of how urban challenges can be highly visible in some contexts and deliberately hidden in others.

Urban mobility in Latin American cities is deeply shaped by gender. In addition to work, women’s daily movements are often tied to caregiving and domestic responsibilities, which require multiple short and interconnected trips which are often combined with travelling with babies and children, carrying goods, and/or combining work and household tasks. This creates a more complex and time-intensive mobility pattern compared to men, whose daily travel is typically more direct and linear between home and work.

These informal markets are run by hard-working ‘informal traders’ who supply affordable goods and accessible services to their clientele. Despite their economic contributions, they frequently face harassment from law enforcement authorities and formal-sector actors, who characterise them as “free riders.”

There is no clear street hierarchy, bringing fast and heavy traffic dangerously close to everyday life, where children play, and informal trade happens. With everyone sharing the same space, constant competition leads to conflict, safety risks, environmental pressure and inefficiency. The absence of a unified public transport system reveals a deeper issue: mobility here is fragmented, informal, and unequal.

Housing in this cityscape exists in two parallel forms: permanent, regulated structures and temporary, informal ones. Together, they reveal a landscape where formality and informality are not separate, but coexist side by side. This coexistence points to deeper structural challenges. Informal housing often reflects insecure land tenure, making these areas vulnerable to eviction and redevelopment. In future urban renewal processes, these settlements are likely to be targeted first — setting the stage for conflict between residents and city authorities. What emerges is a clear imbalance: while the city grows, vulnerability to eviction and natural disasters is unevenly distributed — with those in informal housing carrying the greatest risks.

What at first appears as convenience and flexibility reveals a more fragmented reality where environmental, social and economic issues are closely interconnected. What, for instance, happens to the drivers of Kolkata’s ubiquitous yellow taxis and to the business owners who serve them as private ride-sharing apps take their trade? What happens to the cars themselves? Who gained the most from the banning of trams in the city of Kolkata in 2025? The decline of public transportation options turns mobility into a broader urban challenge. It increases environmental pressure, reduces affordability, and limits access for those who cannot pay for private services. Making mobility not just a system of movement, but a growing, wicked urban problem.

In this project, three teams from Kolkata (India), Xalapa (Mexico), and Lima (Peru) co-designed KITCHENING (verb) as a collective, transversal, and intimate methodology of action-research to embark on parallel journeys through the complexities within each context, guided by their non(human) allies.

These resources were developed to offer archaeology, history and other students materials to enhance their appreciation and understanding of the Great Zimbabwe National Monument, thereby enriching their learning experience. The resources were gathered in the context of the SARDC Teaching on-site workshop which took place from October 2nd to 6th, 2023, at the Great Zimbabwe historical site. The workshop allowed students from three SMUS partner universities to acquire new theoretical knowledge, learn about responsible research practices, gain exposure to archaeological sites, interact with advanced academics and learn about the importance of stakeholder and community engagement. The workshop also benefited the more advanced researchers in the group by strengthening their teaching skills, facilitating knowledge sharing amongst peers, and facilitating greater interdisciplinary understanding and cooperation.

This 5-episode podcast special offers  insights on decolonisation from Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni a leading decolonial theorist with over a hundred publications in the fields of African history, African politics, African development and decolonial theory. We invite you to listen to the episodes and explore the accompanying resources, including reading lists, maps, and timelines, to deepen your understanding of decolonisation,  The interview series is also available as an 11-part video series.

Most of the problems that urban areas are facing today are complex and interconnected. So-called WICKED URBAN PROBLEMS cannot be solved in a linear way, nor can they be addressed from one perspective or worldview. A transdisciplinary approach has become key.