Spatial rewrites and the politics of development

This dissertation explores how international development interventions reshape both space and social life in Thiaroye sur Mer, a historically marginalised coastal community located on the periphery of Dakar, Senegal. The study is based on eight months of multi–scalar ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2018 and 2019. Drawing on decolonial and feminist methodologies, the research is grounded in participant observation, life history interviews, circular walks, spatial mapping, and collaboration with local associations, notably women's and youth groups. These methodological choices allow for a situated and relational understanding of the lived experiences and spatial strategies of those who inhabit, navigate, and contest the everyday effects of international aid. At the centre of this inquiry is an examination of how collective actors – especially women's groups, youth associations, and 'returnee' migrants – engage with and rework aid–driven development agendas. The dissertation foregrounds the spatial practices, informal economies, and forms of urban improvisation that emerge in response to – and often in resistance to – the spatial logics of international cooperation. I introduce the concept of spatial rewrites to describe the material and social transformations that result from this interaction, and I develop the notion of spatial co–formation to conceptualise the reciprocal and often contested production of space between local actors and institutional development agents. The analysis shows how international aid does not simply impose a top–down vision of progress, but becomes embedded in everyday life, shaping local subjectivities, practices, and socio–spatial arrangements. In this context, space becomes both a site and an instrument of negotiation, appropriation, and struggle. Local actors are not merely passive recipients of aid, but active co–producers of space, policy outcomes, and alternative visions of development. The dissertation examines how collective agency manifests in varied spatial registers – through the reorganisation of domestic and economic space, the reinvention of public infrastructure, and the strategic navigation of visibility and invisibility in relation to state and donor agendas. Structured around thematic chapters that examine historical land transformations, youth mobility and the aspiration to migrate, gendered urban economies, and local organisational forms, the dissertation offers a grounded, multi–dimensional perspective on how development becomes entangled with urban and social change. It argues that development is not merely a policy framework, but a spatial and relational force that produces new territorialities, moral geographies, and urban subjectivities. Situated at the intersection of critical sociology of space, urban anthropology, and development studies, this work contributes to ongoing debates on the spatiality of development, the role of grassroots agency, and the enduring legacies of colonial urbanism. It challenges dominant narratives that portray development as either purely emancipatory or entirely coercive, showing instead how it functions ambivalently – as a vehicle for both empowerment and control. The case of Thiaroye sur Mer illustrates how marginalised communities navigate this ambiguity, using space itself as a terrain of political and social invention. Ultimately, the dissertation invites a rethinking of development through the lens of spatial practice, arguing that the everyday remaking of space is a key site for understanding contemporary forms of collective action, governance, and resistance in the urban Global South.