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‘You will build me’: fiscal disobedience, reciprocity and the dangerous negotiations of redistribution on Nairobi's matatu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2021

Meghan E. Ference
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Abstract

Those who populate the productive frontiers of capitalism are often targets of violence by groups and institutions aiming to poach, control and regulate their economic practices. This article draws on years of ethnographic research conducted with informal transport operators in Nairobi who drive, conduct and own the minibus taxis called matatu. In order to navigate the city, this workforce engages in a coordinated but tense economic dance along the dangerous and shifting lines between illegality, work and reciprocity. The article aims to situate the more dangerous and morally ambiguous aspects of the ‘hustle economy’ ethnographically, within the generative and ultimately mobile location of urban transportation infrastructures of the matatu sector. Building on the conceptualizations of social infrastructure of AbdouMaliq Simone and Janet Roitman's study of fiscal disobedience, whereby the legitimacy of regulatory authority is questioned and undermined, matatu workers as infrastructure challenge multiple levels of state and non-state regulation through a variety of practices that blend danger, violence and control with solidarity, reciprocity and redistribution. This article evaluates and analyses distinctive features of ‘hustling’ in Nairobi through the ethnographic lens of matatu transportation operators as they navigate dangerous negotiations with the state, the police and vigilante gangs.

Résumé

Résumé

Ceux qui peuplent les frontières productives du capitalisme sont souvent cibles de violence de la part de groupes et d'institutions visant à subtiliser, contrôler et réglementer leurs pratiques économiques. Cet article s'appuie sur des années de recherche ethnographique menée à Nairobi auprès d'opérateurs de transport informel, qui possèdent, organisent, et conduisent les taxis minibus appelés matatus. Pour naviguer dans la ville, cette main d'œuvre se lance dans une danse économique coordonnée mais tendue, flirtant avec les limites dangereuses et moralement ambiguës entre l'illégalité, le travail et la réciprocité. Cet article met l'emphase ethnographique sur les aspects les plus dangereux et moralement ambigus de cette économie de débrouille qu'est le secteur des matatus, générateurs de mobilité et ses infrastructures de transport urbain. S'appuyant sur les conceptualisations d'infrastructure sociale décrites par AbdouMaliq Simone et l'étude de Janet Roitman sur la désobéissance fiscale, selon lesquelles la légitimité de l'autorité régulatrice est remise en cause et ébranlée, les opérateurs de matatus, deviennent eux-mêmes infrastructure défient sur plusieurs nivaux les réglementations étatiques et non étatiques, à travers un ensemble de pratiques qui mêlent danger, violence et contrôle d'une part, avec solidarité, réciprocité et redistribution de l'autre. Cet article évalue et analyse donc différentes facettes de la débrouille à Nairobi d'un point de vue ethnographique, pour capter le modus operandi des opérateurs de matatus, dans leur façon de gérer de dangereuses négociations avec l'état, la police, et les gangs de « vigilante ».

Type
Harnessing the ‘hustle’
Information
Africa , Volume 91 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 16 - 34
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Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2021

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