Reimagining resilience: informal workers and adaptive strategies for post-disaster urban futures in Lagos, Nigeria

Purpose

This article examines how informal workers in Lagos, Nigeria, construct urban resilience through adaptive strategies following climate-related disasters. It challenges top-down disaster risk reduction by positioning informal workers as active agents rather than merely vulnerable populations in shaping post-disaster urban futures.

Design/methodology/approach

Using qualitative methods, the study drew on semi-structured interviews with 45 informal workers, six focus group discussions with worker associations, and 150 h of participant observation across Makoko, Oshodi and Lagos Island. Iterative thematic analysis identified patterns in adaptive strategies and resilience practices.

Findings

Five adaptive strategies emerged: livelihood diversification; leveraging social networks, including rotating savings groups and kinship ties; spatial and mobility practices; collective organising through trade associations; and hybrid formal-informal responses integrating state and independent resources. While demonstrating sophisticated organisational capacity, these strategies are constrained by land tenure insecurity, infrastructure deficits and political-economic marginalisation. Research limitations/implications The focus on three Lagos communities limits generalisability, and the cross-sectional design captures experiences at particular moments rather than longitudinal trajectories. Future research should employ comparative cross-city analysis, longitudinal designs that track informal workers over time and mixed-methods approaches that combine qualitative depth with quantitative assessments of livelihood impacts and recovery costs. Practical implications Policy recommendations include institutionalising informal worker participation in urban governance, extending infrastructure to informal settlements, developing adaptive social protection schemes, securing land tenure, mainstreaming gender equity in resilience interventions and establishing multi-stakeholder climate adaptation platforms. Social implications The study fundamentally questions the right to shape urban futures and where knowledge, priorities and experiences should guide urban development. By demonstrating that informal workers already actively construct resilient urban systems through everyday practices, the study challenges societies to recognise, support and learn from these contributions rather than dismissing or criminalising them. The social implications extend beyond Lagos to broader debates about social justice in an era of climate crisis, asking whether societies will address the structural conditions producing vulnerability or merely expect marginalised populations to adapt to crises they didn't create. This represents a profound ethical and political challenge with implications for social movements, policy frameworks and collective visions of just and sustainable urban futures. Originality/value The research advances urban resilience scholarship by foregrounding informal workers’ agency and demonstrating that resilience is constructed through social relations and informal institutions rather than formal planning systems alone. It enriches critical resilience frameworks by capturing both the resourcefulness and structural limits of “resilience from below,” challenging deficit narratives about informality and offering empirical grounding for inclusive urban planning across Global South cities.