Participatory mapping and food‐centred justice in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Food vendors are pivotal in the local food system of most low‐income informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, despite being seen as an obstruction and as agents of disease and filth by city authorities. This paper explores the geography of these foodscapes – defined as public sites of food production and consumption – in selected low‐income settlements in Nairobi, focusing on the interaction of food vendors with their surrounding environment and infrastructure services. The research uses participatory geographic information system tools, including food mapping with mobile apps and high‐resolution community aerial views with balloon mapping, to capture and contextualise local knowledge. The community mappers collected data on 660 vendors from 18 villages in Kibera, Mathare, and Mukuru, and situated them on multi‐layered synoptic geographic overviews for each settlement. The resulting data on hazardous areas in relation to food spaces and infrastructure provision allowed local communities to prioritise areas for regular clean‐up activities and assisted advocacy to improve these places in cooperation with local authorities. These multiple visual representations of foodscapes make local food vendors, and the risks they face, visible for the first time. Reframing their “right to safe food and environment” from a social and environmental justice perspective allows local communities to put their experiences, knowledge, and challenges faced at the forefront of urban development planning, policy, and practice.

Urban Livestock Keeping in the City of Nairobi: Diversity of Production Systems, Supply Chains, and Their Disease Management and Risks

“…Moreover, water and sewage systems in the city are not designed for livestock production. Nairobi rivers that are polluted by industrial effluents and human waste are used and contaminated by livestock ( 7 , 17 , 22 ). Furthermore, results in this study indicate important waste management hazards, with cadavers disposed on roads and in many occasions sold and/or consumed, with existence of organized black markets.…”

“…Furthermore, urban livestock is often seen as a sign of “backwardness,” with authorities remaining hostile to these activities and few central government policies supporting it ( 18 , 23 ). The situation for livestock keepers become even more difficult in informal settlements, where conflicts are created with food vendors and other business due to livestock eating their products or contaminating their environment ( 22 ). In Nairobi, control of these livestock keepers was reported in this study to present an important challenge, due to their “outlaw” status in the city, that makes them to avoid contact with government officers and generate “lack of trust”; their “general lack of training”; the “farmers lack of financial capabilities,” especially those small scale and/or in informal settlements; and their “inaccessibility” due to “insecurity” of those located in informal settlements or because they are “temporal” or “transit” farmers and not always present or available.…”

Food (In)Security in Rapidly Urbanising, Low-Income Contexts

“…In Nigeria, urban residents spend up to half their food budget on street foods, while in Accra this accounts for 40 percent of low-income families’ food purchases [ 28 ]. In low-income settlements of Johannesburg, over 80 percent of households source food from informal vendors [ 39 ]. Consumption of street foods also tends to increase when food and cooking fuel costs rise since their price usually goes up more slowly as a result of economies of scale in production [ 28 ].…”

Foodscape: A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies

“…Most highlight the diversity of foodscapes people are exposed to, both in their neighborhood [18,22] and in their daily journeys [23]. By using participatory GIS to map foodscapes in three cities in Kenya, Ahmed et al [26] shed light on food vendors and the food safety issues they face.…”