The Porous Infrastructures of Somali Malls in Cape Town

This chapter takes as its subject a series of contingent mixed-use urban markets that have been established in Cape Town, South Africa by migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from various parts of the African continent. Known colloquially as 'Somali malls', these markets typically occupy once-vacant or underused office blocks, occupying them with multiple small shops, services and residences. Read through the lens of infrastructure, these spaces of flows tie Somali diasporic communities into transnational networks of sociality and exchange.