Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T02:26:37.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2021

Naomi van Stapele
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Résumé

Résumé

La débrouille, en tant que concept a parcouru le globe, trouvant sa source dans les installations urbaines les plus précaires, négligées, marginalisées, et souvent théâtres de ségrégation raciale. Le renouveau linguistique du terme « hustling » (débrouille) dans toutes sortes de langues urbaines vernaculaires, et la culture musicale « Black Atlantic » indiquent une expérience commune dans les quartiers populaires de part le monde entier. Il montre également la flexibilité du terme alors qu'il acquiert de constantes et nouvelles interprétations. Cet article se concentre sur les façons dont les jeunes hommes défavorisés de Nairobi s'organisent et pratiquent la débrouille pour améliorer leur survie immédiate, et imaginer un avenir possible, et ce faisant, ce qu'ils produisent. Il semble évident que considérer la débrouille en tant que gestion de la vie quotidienne illustre le genre d'expériences vécues dans les quartiers de Nairobi qui sont les moins desservis mais paradoxalement hautement policés, et sert de comparaison avec le quotidien de jeunes hommes vivant dans d'analogues circonstances de par le monde. Nous nous pencherons plus particulièrement sur ces pratiques locales de la débrouille en tant que rites de passage pour devenir des hommes adultes, alors que la façon de négocier la peur et l'espoir dans des situations d'incertitude extrême, tout à la fois définit et sape leur sentiments de masculinité.

Type
Harnessing the ‘hustle’
Information
Africa , Volume 91 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 57 - 76
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, S. (2014) Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, D. M. (2002) ‘Vigilantes, violence and the politics of public order in Kenya’, African Affairs 101 (405): 531–55.10.1093/afraf/101.405.531CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, A. (2013) The Future as Cultural Fact: essays on the global condition. London: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Babb, S. (2005) ‘The social consequences of structural adjustment: recent evidence and current debates’, Annual Reviews of Sociology 31: 199–222.10.1146/annurev.soc.31.041304.122258CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bay, E. G. (2006) ‘Introduction’ in Bay, E. G. and Donham, D. L. (eds), States of Violence: politics, youth and memory in contemporary Africa. Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia.Google Scholar
Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Berman, B. J. (1998) ‘Ethnicity, patronage and the African state: the politics of uncivil nationalism’, African Affairs 97 (388): 305–41.10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a007947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, B. and Lonsdale, J. (1992) Unhappy Valley: conflict in Kenya and Africa. Book Two: Violence and ethnicity. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Cacho, L. (2012) Social Death: racialized rightlessness and the criminalization of the unprotected. New York NY: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. (1987) Gender and Power: society, the person, and sexual politics. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. (1995) Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. (2000) The Men and the Boys. Oakland CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, E. and Pratten, D. (2015) ‘Ethnographies of uncertainty in Africa: an introduction’ in Cooper, E. and Pratten, D. (eds), Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137350831CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, F. (1980) From Slaves to Squatters: plantation labor and agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
De Boeck, F. and Plissart, M. (2004) Kinshasa: tales of the invisible city. Ghent: Ludion.Google Scholar
Duneier, M. (2017) Ghetto: the invention of a place, the history of an idea. New York NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Durrant, S. and Lord, C. M. (2007) Essays in Migratory Aesthetics: cultural practices between migration and art-making. Amsterdam: Rodopi.10.1163/9789401204675CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyson, M. E. (1996) Between God and Gangsta Rap: bearing witness to black culture. New York NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elkins, C. (2005) Imperial Reckoning: the untold story of Britain's gulag in Kenya. New York NY: Henry Holt and Company.Google Scholar
Ference, M. (2016) ‘“Together we can”: redefining work in Nairobi's urban transportation sector’, Anthropology of Work Review 37 (2): 101–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gertz, G. (2007) Kenya's Trade Liberalization of the 1980s and 1990s: policies, impacts, and implications. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Gibbon, P. (1996) ‘Structural adjustment and structural change in sub-Saharan Africa: some provisional conclusions’, Development and Change 27 (4): 751–84.10.1111/j.1467-7660.1996.tb00610.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Githinji, P. (2006) ‘Bazes and their shibboleths: variation and Sheng speakers’ identity in Nairobi’, Nordic Journal of African Studies 15 (4): 443–72.Google Scholar
Gladney, M. J. (1995) ‘The black arts movement and hip-hop’, African American Review 29 (2): 291–301.10.2307/3042308CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guenther, L. (2013) Solitary Confinement: social death and its afterlives. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.10.5749/minnesota/9780816679584.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honwana, A. M. (2012) The Time of Youth: work, social change and politics in Africa. Washington DC: Kumarian Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
hooks, b. (2003) We Real Cool: black men and masculinity. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hunter, A. G. and Davis, J. E. (1992) ‘Constructing gender: an exploration of Afro-American men's conceptualization of manhood’, Gender and Society 6 (3): 464–79.Google Scholar
Ighobor, K. (2013) ‘Africa's youth: a “ticking time bomb” or an opportunity?’, Africa Renewal <https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2013/africa's-youth-“ticking-time-bomb”-or-opportunity>, accessed 8 November 2020., accessed 8 November 2020.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ighobor,+K.+(2013)+‘Africa's+youth:+a+“ticking+time+bomb”+or+an+opportunity?’,+Africa+Renewal+,+accessed+8+November+2020.>Google Scholar
Jeffrey, C. (2010) Timepass: youth, class, and the politics of waiting in India. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9780804775137CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, C. and Young, S. (2014) ‘Jugād: youth and enterprise in India’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104 (1): 182–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, P., Kimari, W. and Ramakrishnan, K. (2017) ‘“Only the people can defend this struggle”: the politics of the everyday, extrajudicial executions and civil society in Mathare, Kenya’, Review of African Political Economy 44 (154): 559–76.10.1080/03056244.2016.1269000CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanogo, T. (1987) Squatters and the Roots of Mau-Mau 1905–1963. Athens OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Khoury, N. (2018) ‘Plotting stories after war: toward a methodology for negotiating identity’, European Journal of International Relations 24 (2): 367–90.10.1177/1354066117711743CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimari, W. (2016) ‘“We do not want any more masters”: ruins, planning and the “messy labours” of the urban poor’, Mambo! 14 (5): 1–7.Google Scholar
L'Estoile, B. de (2014) ‘“Money is good, but a friend is better”: uncertainty, orientation to the future, and “the economy”’, Current Anthropology 55 (S9): 62–73.10.1086/676068CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lonsdale, J. (2008) ‘Soil, work, civilisation, and citizenship in Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 2 (2): 305–14.10.1080/17531050802058450CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majors, R. and Billson, J. M. (1993) Cool Pose: the dilemma of black manhood in America. New York NY: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Maloba, W. O. (1993) Mau Mau and Kenya: an analysis of a peasant revolt. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. (2003) ‘Necropolitics’, Public Culture 15 (1): 11–40.10.1215/08992363-15-1-11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Médard, C. (2010) ‘City planning in Nairobi: the stakes, the people, the sidetracking’ in Charton-Bigot, H. and Rodriguez-Torres, D. (eds), Nairobi Today: the paradox of a fragmented city. Nairobi: French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA).Google Scholar
Morrell, R., Jewkes, R. and Lindegger, G. (2012) ‘Hegemonic masculinity/masculinities in South Africa’, Culture, Power, and Gender Politics 15 (1): 11–30.Google Scholar
MSJC (2017) A Participatory Actions Research Report against the Normalization of Extrajudicial Executions in Mathare. Nairobi: Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC).Google Scholar
Nelson, N. (1978) ‘Dependence and independence: female household heads in Mathare Valley, a squatter community in Nairobi, Kenya’. PhD thesis, SOAS University of London.Google Scholar
Nelson, N. (1987) ‘Selling her kiosk: Kikuyu notions of sexuality and sex for sale in Mathare Valley, Kenya’ in Caplan, P. (ed.), The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Nelson, N. (1997) ‘How women and men got by and still get by (only not so well): the gender division of labour in a Nairobi shantytown’ in Gugler, J. (ed.), Cities in the Developing World: issues, theory and policy. New York NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Newell, S. (2012) The Modernity Bluff: crime, consumption, and citizenship in Côte d'Ivoire. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226575216.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ocobock, P. (2017) An Uncertain Age: the politics of manhood in Kenya. Athens OH: Ohio University Press.10.2307/j.ctv224tw99CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, W. (2006) ‘“The streets”: an alternative black male socialization institution’, Journal of Black Studies 36 (6): 918–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, O. (1982) Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, J. and van Stapele, N. (2020) ‘“Our time to recover”: young men, political mobilization, and personalized political ties during the 2017 primary elections in Nairobi’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 14 (4): 724–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratele, K. (2013) ‘Masculinities without tradition’, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 40 (1): 133–56.10.1080/02589346.2013.765680CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salo, E. (2006) ‘Mans is ma soe: ganging practices in Manenberg, South Africa, and the ideologies of masculinities, gender and generational relations’ in Bay, E. G. and Donham, L. D. (eds), States of Violence: politics, youth, and memory in contemporary Africa. Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Samper, D. A. (2004) ‘“Africa is still our mama”: Kenyan rappers, youth identity, and the revitalization of traditional values’, African Identities 2 (1): 37–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scully, B. (2016) ‘Precarity North and South: a Southern critique of Guy Standing’, Global Labour Journal 7 (2): 160–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, C. (1995) Colonial Inscriptions: race, sex, and class in Kenya. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Silberschmidt, M. (1999) Women Forget that Men are the Masters. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Silberschmidt, M. (2001) ‘Disempowerment of men in rural and urban East Africa: implications for male identity and sexual behaviour’, World Development 29 (4): 657–71.10.1016/S0305-750X(00)00122-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silberschmidt, M. (2004) ‘Men, male sexuality and HIV/AIDS: reflections from studies in rural and urban East Africa’, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa 54: 42–58.10.1353/trn.2004.0026CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simone, A. (2015) ‘It's just the city after all!’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 40 (1): 210–18.10.1111/1468-2427.12275CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singerman, D. (2007) ‘The economic imperatives of marriage: emerging practices and identities among youth in the Middle East’. Working Paper 6. Washington DC and Dubai: Wolfensohn Centre for Development and Dubai School of Government.10.2139/ssrn.1087433CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommers, M. (2011) ‘Governance, security and culture: assessing Africa's youth bulge’, International Journal of Conflict and Violence 5 (2): 292–303.Google Scholar
Sommers, M. (2012) Stuck: Rwandan youth and the struggle for adulthood. Athens GA: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Spraggins, J. D. (1999) ‘African American masculinity: power and expression’, Journal of African American Men 4 (3): 45–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spronk, R. (2012) Ambiguous Pleasures: sexuality and middle-class self-perceptions in Nairobi. New York NY: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat: the new dangerous class. London and New York NY: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Standing, G. (2014) A Precariat Charter. London and New York NY: Bloomsbury.10.5040/9781472510631CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarus, I. (2004) ‘A history of the direct taxation of the African people of Kenya, 1895–1973’. PhD thesis, Rhodes University.Google Scholar
Thieme, T. (2013) ‘The “hustle” amongst youth entrepreneurs in Mathare's informal waste economy’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 7 (3): 389–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thieme, T. (2018) ‘The hustle economy: informality, uncertainty and the geographies of getting by’, Progress in Human Geography 42 (4): 529–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thieme, T. (2021) ‘“Youth are redrawing the map”: temporalities and terrains of the hustle economy in Mathare, Nairobi’, Africa 91 (1): 35–56.10.1017/S0001972020000832CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Klinken, A. (2013) Transforming Masculinities in African Christianity: gender controversies in times of AIDS. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
van Stapele, N. (2015) ‘“Respectable illegality”: gangs, masculinities and belonging in a Nairobi ghetto’. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
van Stapele, N. (2016) ‘“We are not Kenyans”: extra-judicial killings, manhood and citizenship in Mathare, a Nairobi ghetto’, Conflict, Security and Development 16 (4): 301–25.10.1080/14678802.2016.1200313CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Stapele, N. (2020) ‘Police killings and the vicissitudes of borders and bounding orders in Mathare, Nairobi’ in Albreght, P. and Mynster, M. (eds), ‘Urban border work: ethnographies of policing’ (special issue), Environment and Planning D 38 (3): 417–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vigh, H. (2006) Navigating Terrains of War: youth and soldiering in Guinea-Bissau. New York NY: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Vigh, H. (2009) ‘Motion squared: landscapes, seascapes and a second look at the concept of social navigation’. Seminar paper presented at Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR), University of Amsterdam, 9 December.10.1177/1463499609356044CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vigh, H. (2011) ‘Vigilance: on conflict, social invisibility, and negative potentiality’, Social Analysis 55 (3): 93–114.10.3167/sa.2011.550306CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vigil, D. J. (2003) ‘Urban violence and street gangs’, Annual Review of Anthropology 32: 225–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wacquant, L. (2008) ‘Ghettos and anti-ghettos: an anatomy of the new urban poverty’, Thesis Eleven 94 (August): 113–18.10.1177/0725513608093280CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wacquant, L. (2011) ‘A Janus-faced institution of ethnoracial closure: a sociological specification of the ghetto’ in Hutchison, R. and Haynes, B. (eds), The Ghetto: contemporary global issues and controversies. Boulder CO: Westview.Google Scholar
White, L. (1984) ‘Women in the changing African family’ in Hay, M. J. and Stitcher, A. (eds), African Women South of the Sahara. London and New York NY: Longman.Google Scholar
White, L. (1990a) The Comforts of Home: prostitution in colonial Nairobi. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226895000.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L. (1990b) ‘Separating the men from the boys: constructions of gender, sexuality, and terrorism in central Kenya, 1939–1959’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 23 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, C. (2017) ‘Mau Mau and masculinity: race, gender, and the body in colonial Kenya’. MA thesis, University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Willemse, K. (2009) ‘The Darfur war: masculinity and the construction of a Sudanese national identity’ in Hassan, M. and Ray, C. E. (eds), Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan. Ithaca NY and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar