Hellen Chido Doisi, Eric Kushinga Makombe
Abstract Emerging around 2008, Zimbabwe’s mushikashika informal taxis created demand-responsive networks connecting peri-urban settlements to Harare’s central business district, though ownership structures enabled elite capture by politically connected actors. State regulation exercised authority without resolving underlying crises, entrenching mushikashika in postcolonial urban life. Drawing on archival research and fieldwork, we argue that mushikashika represents subaltern urbanity: infrastructure built from below amid the collapse of formal transport, mass unemployment, and state abdication. Mushikashika thus endures as both a means of transport and a survival strategy in Zimbabwe’s protracted economic crisis.