Territories of Infrastructure, Development and Logistics: Reframing Port-City Relations toward Inclusive Urban Futures in Africa

African port cities are vital gateways between the rapidly urbanising hinterlands and global trade networks. They are also sites of tension, where global logistics and urban dynamics collide, producing conflicts across capital, governance, and territorial claims. TIDAL addresses this disconnection between port functions and urban dynamics by using the Port-Urban Interface (PUI) as both a spatial framework and an analytical tool to reframe the understanding of port cities. Scholarship on PUI remains heavily Eurocentric, while African PUIs—where such frictions destabilise both cities and maritime flows—are understudied. TIDAL extends the PUI to a Global South perspective.The project's objectives are: (1) identify territorial configurations and spatial layouts of PUI; (2) analyse governance structures and soft infrastructures shaping port–city development; and (3) develop a platform for knowledge co-production among port authorities, municipal actors, communities, and researchers. TIDAL pursues these objectives through fieldwork in Mombasa and Djibouti—key nodes on the Asia–Europe shipping route and anchors of regional development corridors—and through collaborative workshops.The project employs an interdisciplinary methodology that combines spatial analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and co-production of research tools. It draws on the researcher’s prior field experience in East Africa and on POLITO’s expertise in infrastructure-led urbanisation and global logistics. A secondment at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) will support fieldwork, stakeholder engagement, and dissemination. TIDAL will create new methods for understanding port cities from a Global South perspective. It will deliver societal impacts by fostering more equitable, collaborative, and sustainable pathways for port–urban development. The research outputs will also consolidate the researcher’s profile as a leading scholar on African and Global South port cities.