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‘Youth are redrawing the map’: temporalities and terrains of the hustle economy in Mathare, Nairobi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2021

Tatiana Thieme
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Abstract

This article examines the temporalities and terrains of the home-grown hustle economy of Mathare, one of the oldest and largest informal settlements in Nairobi. It builds on my previous work mobilizing the notion of ‘hustle’ to ground the narratives of struggle, opportunity and place-making expressed by youth whose livelihood strategies have centred around neighbourhood-based informal waste labour in order to assert claims to their local environment. Drawing on three ethnographic portraits and over a decade of longitudinal ethnographic research, the article shows how hustling connects to and evolves with particular generational and gendered identities, revealing the shifting demands on ‘older’ versus ‘younger’ youth. As everyday lives are mired in constant uncertainty, youth occupy a ‘precarious present’, caught in a state of suspension but also well versed in adapting to adversity and shaping local politics of provisioning in the absence of formal structures of support. The article sheds light on local logics of wealth redistribution among youth who belong to the same neighbourhood but whose claims to particular resources shift over time. The article demonstrates how hustling in Mathare sits at the nexus of agentive economic, environmental, political and social struggles, as youth on the urban periphery manage waste in their neighbourhoods to negotiate their place but also their time in the city.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article se penche sur les temporalités et les terrains dans lesquels s'inscrit l'économie de la débrouille intrinsèque à Mathare, un des bidonvilles les plus vastes et plus anciens de Nairobi. Il s'inspire de mon étude précédente sur la notion de débrouille en tant que base pour la lutte, pour les opportunités et pour se faire une place dans ces quartiers coupés de tous services essentiels et de travail salarié. Face à ces défis, un grand nombre de jeunes ont développé des stratégies de survie centrées autour du traitement informel des déchets, revendiquant par là leur environnement et leur économie locale. S'appuyant sur trois portraits ethnographiques, observés pendant plus d'une décennie, cet article montre la connexion et l'évolution de la débrouille au sein d'identités particulières de genre et de génération, et révèle les exigences transitaires selon l'âge. Alors que la vie de tous les jours est faite de constantes incertitudes, la jeunesse vit dans un quotidien de précarité constante et dans un état de suspension, mais elle est aussi très capable de gérer la politique locale d'approvisionnement pour faire face à l'adversité et au manque de structures formelles de soutien. Cet article illustre donc la logique locale de redistribution de gains parmi les jeunes d'un même quartier, dont les revendications varient au fil du temps; il décrit cette jeunesse de la périphérie urbaine gérant les déchets de leurs quartiers pour se faire une place dans Mathare, et démontre à quel point la débrouille y est au cœur de leurs luttes économiques, environnementales, politiques et sociales.

Type
Harnessing the ‘hustle’
Information
Africa , Volume 91 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 35 - 56
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Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2021

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