Candongueiros and urban “disorder” in Luanda: an analysis of the social representation of informal transport

Abstract Luanda city, the capital of Angola, is characterized by informality and precariousness of activities and services that, to a large extent, follow the logic of social production of urban space. Luanda has “candongueiros” as the main public transport mode. They consist in an informal or semi-informal means of transport responsible for the daily displacement and dynamics of the city, and represent one of the fundamental elements for the expansion of the urban/metropolitan mosaic. However, the peculiarities of this transport mode have led discourses to (dis)qualify it, labeling it as unordered or disorganized. The present study carried out an analysis and discussion of the idea of order usually imposed by a contemporary and global hegemonic logic. The aim is to present the “candongueiros” as a social category from a different urban farming, representative of their social habitus. It is expected to contribute to the socio-spatial understanding of Luanda from the perspective of cultural differences and social representations of informality, which is so common in the reality of contemporary metropolises of peripheral countries. These countries, classified as precarious metropolises by the way they are inserted in the capitalist system of globalized production and consumption, present a paradoxical socio-spatial rationality, object of study of territorial planning.