Urban land contestations, challenges and planning strategies in Malawi’s main urban centres

The paper commences with a brief reflection on some examples of urban strategies and challenges encountered by the state authorities in their effort to impose the abstract space of modernity as envisioned in urban master plans. The focus then shifts to urban challenges faced by authorities in Malawian urban centres, and concludes with the strategies adopted to deal with these challenges. The research relied on primary sources of data and interviews conducted with 19 key informants working in the planning environment in Malawi. These multiple sets of information were subjected to multiple analysis techniques by using Atlas.ti (qualitative data analysis software) to analyse the key informant responses and data from electronic and print media. The analysis focuses on the institution of urban planning as a state mechanism in the production of urban space in Malawi. Challenges in this regard range from the institutional and administrative framework of urban planning, legal challenges and contradictions, land rights and inherent spatial planning contradictions to political factors vis-à-vis democracy and economic factors. The study observes that the nature of conceived space and how the very apparatus that it uses to impose abstract space turns against itself when dealing with institutional challenges and incapacities. The foregoing challenges suggest that urban planning in Malawi faces a set of constraints in pursuance of its modernist ambitions of creating a planned city.