‘Just waiting?’

This article looks at the ‘waiting’ of truck drivers stopping in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. By focusing on the night-time practices of drivers and the way they participate in urban life, it reveals the richness and complexity of the transit experience, during which the experience of ‘passing through’ can become one of ‘anchoring’, and shows that the stopover, far from having the immobility of a ‘dead’ or ‘lost’ time, is instead a precious and productive space-time, which should be considered as such.