Bankole Oluwaseun Wright

This research advances anthropological studies by bringing infrastructure and performance studies into dialogue to understand the cultural production of street life. While anthropologists have studied infrastructure as physical and social networks and performance through formal theatrical spaces, this research demonstrates how infrastructure becomes a stage for cultural production and how urban informal actors generate street culture through everyday practices. Through an ethnographic study of agberos—transport union workers who control Lagos motor parks—this research examines how these informal actors produce street culture through their everyday practices, moving beyond their known roles as fee collectors and power brokers. Through eight months of ethnographic, one month of archival, and two months of media research, this study makes two key contributions: it reframes infrastructure as a site of cultural production and expands performance studies by showing how informal actors generate culture through street-level performative practices. This research also analyzes archival documents to understand how Nigeria’s 1986 Structural Adjustment Program shaped current agbero practices. Also, this research examines selected Nigerian songs and films to understand how the street-level performances of agberos are represented in and influence Nigerian popular culture, offering new frameworks for understanding how informal actors shape the cultural landscape in African cities.