ABSTRACT This thesis traces the development of land and housing markets in an informal settlement, Kanyama, in Zambia to determine the institutional structure that characterises their operation. Taking a new institutionalist approach, the thesis uses historical, rational choice, and sociological institutionalism concepts to reveal a complex and multi-layered process of institutional interactions in market processes. The study shows that informal land and housing markets are structured at the micro, meso, and macro levels and reveals an entanglement of institutional arrangements in facilitating access to land, housing construction, and market transactions. The thesis also shows that informal institutions are intricately tied to formal institutions, and constant interactions have structured market processes since Kanyama emerged in the colonial period. New institutions arise from existing institutions and adapt to changing socioeconomic environments. However, the exogenous changes from political and economic reforms were not as abrupt as critical juncture theory holds. Instead, subtle and gradual shifts that arose through everyday interactions between residents of Kanyama, local leaders, and the government culminated in significant change years and even decades later. These changes led to the structural transformation of the social networks that guided initial settlement in Kanyama and subsequently influenced the housing market to evolve from predominant owner-occupation to a primarily rental market. Although social networks remain strong in the community, they exist mainly at the family level, and the clan structure that exists in rural areas from which Kanyama’s residents initially emigrated is no longer prominent. The thesis concludes that markets are processes, malleable to changes in the physical, social, economic, and political environments and responsive to the needs of actors who exert power at different stages of market development. The institutional process tracing undertaken here was informed by a mixed-methods approach that involved primary and secondary data collection through in-depth interviews, observation, focus group discussions, a survey, and archival research.