The co-constitution of city-time, materials and youth life in urban Lagos

This article uses the co-constitutive intersections of time, youth and materials to explain change in postcolonial city life. The focus here is not so much on how each of the concepts individually makes postcolonial cityness, but on how the relationships that are built between and among them translate into the dynamism that we see in postcolonial cities. Focussing on a site on the edge of a thriving city, in this case Ibeju Lekki in Lagos, Nigeria, the article shows the subtle but consequential ways in which major infrastructural investments like the multibillion-dollar Dangote Refinery can affect social life. It also shows how the framing of actors, such as youth, shapes the way infrastructural projects are themselves emplaced within cities. It draws on ethnographic and documentary material from fieldwork between 2020 and 2023 and a collection of Lekki real estate marketing posters to make its point.