City planning in Nairobi:

Médard, Claire

doi:10.2307/j.ctvk3gmfc.6

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…45 In a global comparison, Nairobi is a young city: it was established in 1899 by the British colonial authorities, and at Kenya's independence in 1963 only had around 300,000 inhabitants. 46 At the time of the latest census, the population figure had risen above 3 million. 47 The rapid growth of the urban population, much of which has been informal and unregulated and beyond the control of city planners, 48 mirrors major cities elsewhere in the developing world.…”

Section: Violence In Nairobimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…46 At the time of the latest census, the population figure had risen above 3 million. 47 The rapid growth of the urban population, much of which has been informal and unregulated and beyond the control of city planners, 48 mirrors major cities elsewhere in the developing world. 49 The relatively recent urbanisation also means that power is not yet entrenched in the city; although Nairobi is 'the key to Kenyan political life', much of the political power base remains centered on rural areas and issues.…”

Section: Violence In Nairobimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

Elfversson

Höglund

2019

Conflict, Security & Development

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Rapid urbanisation in the global South has prompted attention to the causes and dynamics of urban violence. Yet, much research tends to either analyse urban violence without attention to the broader conflict complexes of which it forms a part, neglecting linkages between different forms of urban violence and between urban and rural dynamics, or conversely study violence in cities without acknowledging the particularities of the urban context. In this article, we conceptualise urban violence, theorise how it is shaped by urban dynamics and explore its manifestations in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that while Nairobi is not uniquely violent inside Kenya, violence takes on distinct urban forms given citylevel processes, and also that urban violence has led to policies that increase securitisation and militarisation of the city. Our analysis thus improves knowledge of how criminal and political violence is shaped by and shapes the stability of developing cities.

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Section: Violence In Nairobimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Violence In Nairobimentioning

confidence: 99%

Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

Elfversson

Höglund

2019

Conflict, Security & Development

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“…The governments before and after independence were aware of the high value of the site close to the city centre. They staged different attempts to get hold of it via the reconstruction of parts of Kibera, eg for a golf course in the 1930s, or for middle-income housing from the 1950s till the 1990s (Médard 2010). A comparatively recent example is the early 1990s Nyayo high-rise estate, a landmark housing project of Daniel arap Moi, president of Kenya at the time, whose slogan was 'Nyayo', ie footsteps, referring to his intention to follow the path of Kenyatta, his predecessor (Huchzermeyer 2011:141).…”

Section: A History Of Perpetual Exceptionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

People’s room for manoeuvre in a fragmented city: state housing in Kibera, Nairobi

Schramm¹

2017

Transformation

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In Kenya, the direct provision of housing by the state is limited to slum upgrading and housing for state employees. In Nairobi, the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP) aims to reconstruct Kibera, one of the city's largest slums, with multistory housing. The stated goal is to rehouse the current dwellers of Kibera. However, Kibera is a melting pot of vested interests of central and local state-actors, urban dwellers and quasi-legal landlords. Its iron and mud shacks are representative of the drastic socio-spatial fragmentations of Nairobi. KENSUP brings elemental changes to Kibera's built space, economic possibilities and social relations. It expresses some of the vested interests of actors and puts others at play -thus it reflects broader African urban governance issues. This makes it an insightful platform for the examination of state-society interactions in an African city. Given the struggles around land ownership as well as broader housing market dynamics, gentrification is an apparently inevitable outcome of the project. This article addresses the struggle for access to, and the living conditions in the 'decanting site', until 2016 the only inhabited housing estate of the project. It highlights people's potential to shape events within the KENSUP project, to make use of the permanent uncertainty the project brings about, and to expand the minimal room for manoeuvre that it leaves for those living in, or refusing to move to, the housing estate.

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“…Focusing on this particular gender dimension of hustling enables us to tease out the specific meanings these young men ascribe to hustling and how this shapes their practices (Khoury 2018), while also keeping in sight the similarities with broader uses of the term. As such, the analyses here add to theories on ‘precarity’ (Standing 2011; 2014; Scully 2016) by exploring situated connections between economic uncertainty and gendered forms of hardship in contexts of urban marginality (Kimari 2016; Médard 2010). Finally, it aims to investigate new avenues in youth studies by looking at how shared fears of protracted juniority (Jeffrey 2010; Vigh 2006; 2009) inform their aspirations and orientations to the future (L'Estoile 2014; Appadurai 2013) and shape practices and experiences in the present.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Providing to belong: masculinities, hustling and economic uncertainty in Nairobi ‘ghettos’

Stapele¹

2021

Africa

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Hustling as a concept has travelled through the global soundscapes of impoverished, neglected, racialized and otherwise marginalized urban settings. The widespread rearticulation of the term ‘hustling’ in a broad range of urban languages reveals that its use in particular forms of Black Atlantic music cultures speaks to shared experiences worldwide. Simultaneously, it shows the flexibility of this term to acquire new and unfolding meanings. This article focuses on the modes in which poor young men in Nairobi (re)deploy, translate and practise hustling to fit immediate circumstances and imagine possible futures, and on the meanings these men produce in the process. I argue that interrogating hustling as a practice provides insights into gendered experiences of urban life worlds in the underserved and highly policed areas of Nairobi, which may tentatively resonate with young men in comparable positions worldwide. I specifically examine how positions of (junior) manhood are configured by localized hustling practices to elucidate how navigating fear and hope, while facing extreme uncertainty, simultaneously defines and undermines their sense of manhood.

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City planning in Nairobi:

Cited by 16 publications

References 7 publications

Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

People’s room for manoeuvre in a fragmented city: state housing in Kibera, Nairobi

Providing to belong: masculinities, hustling and economic uncertainty in Nairobi ‘ghettos’

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