Learning from Africa’s adaptation
- Wits University
Urban life is being built not just through infrastructure, but through improvisation and social intelligence.
Click here to read the research that informs the Atlas of Uncertainty, first published in Nature Africa on 16 December 2025 and written by Wits PhD candidate, Carina Tenewaa Kanbi, and Wits migration and displacement studies scholar, Dr Kabiri Bule.
Carina Kanbi is a PhD candidate at Wits’ African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), with a doctoral thesis titled Understanding Creative Cosmopolitanism, Lifeworlds, and Mobility within the Continent's Cultural Capitals of Lagos and Accra. She is a curator and co-founder of Aya Editions in Accra, Ghana.
Dr Kabiri Bule is a researcher at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) and a scholar in the field of migration and displacement studies. She hold a PhD from Wits, and her research occupies a critical niche at the intersection of urban and migration studies, focusing on the profound impact of migration and human mobility on urban politics within African cities.
The Atlas of Uncertainty opening exhibition launches to the public on Saturday,18 April 2026, 10:00-15:00 at the Origins Centre, Wits University, Johannesburg, and runs until 3 July 2026.
Exhibitions in Accra, Nairobi, and Amsterdam are planned for 2027.
The Atlas of Uncertainty is a project of the Oxford/Wits Mobility Governance Lab and Wits University's African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), the continent's leading scholarly institution for research and teaching on human mobility.
The book, Atlas of Uncertainty: Transforming African Cityscapes (Actar/Wits University Press), will be released in January 2027.