ANZE ZADEL is a Ph.D. candidate in the Public and Urban Policy program at The Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at The New School. His dissertation project, The Design of Community Participation, uses both scholarly and creative practices to investigate the role of community participation in struggles over access to resources and infrastructure in New York City and Lagos, Nigeria.

As a GIDEST fellow, Anze will investigate instances of “community participation” in NYC and Lagos. His research examines cases of communities who have successfully organized for policy change and/or access to resources. In the fields of urbanism, community participation is an oft-used term, the meaning of which nonetheless frequently remains elusive. By critically investigating and disaggregating the multiple meanings of the term and their use, this study draws on and contributes to social theory on citizenship, civil society, and social movements, bridging the gap between the “uses” of community participation in planning and policymaking and the sometimes abstract theories that address citizenship.

Having conducted research in NYC in 2015 and 2016, Anze will visit Lagos in the summer of 2016 to conduct ethnographic research with the Lagos Marginalized Communities Forum (LAMCOFOR). Investigating the design of community participation and using the collective design process as a laboratory, he will investigate specific initiatives pursued by LAMCOFOR, how they organize participation, and its effects, while continuing to work with members on an open source rainwater collection and filtration prototype initiated in 2013.