Wherever you go in contemporary Nairobi, you will find yourself confronted with images of economic success. Whether the suited and smiling young professionals on the Safaricom billboards, celebrating the speed of their new data bundles, the fleet of range-rovers that block the streets in the gridlock hours of commuting, or the synthetic marbled fortresses (the office towers, the luxury flats) 鈥� Nairobi鈥檚 wealth announces itself over and above the streets below: Streets of kiosks selling warm soda, vendors (鈥�Mama Mbogas鈥� 鈥� the stereotypical figure of market trader women selling vegetables and fruits from the city鈥檚 rural hinterlands), construction workers eating chapo (chapatis)on breaks; Streets of boda-boda (motorcycle) drivers talking to each other in the sun, streets of fundis (mechanics) hammering crumpled matatu minivan doors back into shape; Streets where students gather in groups outside the University of Nairobi, where aspiring politicians argue in Jevanjee Gardens. Images of wealth barely conceal inequality, the reality of the informal economy in which the majority of Kenyans work with their ingenuity and hands to accrue cash, the lifeblood of social reproduction.
Drawing on over 21 months of fieldwork conducted on the changing peri-urban peripheries of Nairobi,[1] this blog draws attention not only towards the city鈥檚 shifting landscape of urban inequality, but also desire 鈥� of aspirations for better lives, membership in a developing Kenya evoked by the visible presence of vast wealth, evident especially in the material lifestyles of the city鈥檚 nouveaux riches, whether wealthy business and political elites or the posh 鈥�mapunk鈥�, a pejorative Sheng term for those youth wealthy enough to have grown outside the ghetto. But for the Kenya鈥檚 aspirant youth, the city鈥檚 landscape of inequality is experienced not so much as a fixed condition but as a subjective and personal challenge to succeed, to 鈥榤ake it鈥� to a middle-class standard of living possessed by others. The failure to do so produces subjective experiences of stress, failure and disappointment, the product of comparison with the wealth of others. Rather than purely economic pressure, this blog seeks to foreground the mental pressures produced by this landscape of desire, and the pressure to succeed.
As the editors of this blog series write, 鈥榚conomic pressure and stress are not confined to the urban poor鈥�. Of Kenya鈥檚 鈥榟ustler masses鈥�, the 80 per cent of the country鈥檚 inhabitants who work in the informal economy. The figure of the 鈥榟ustler鈥� regularly evokes a young man, living in one of Nairobi鈥檚 informal settlements, struggling day-to-day for his immediate needs. And yet, as this brief portrait of Nairobi suggests, finer grain distinctions are possible that reveal more complex relationships with 鈥榚conomic pressure鈥� that do not simply amount to the short-term temporalities of day-to-day survival. Whilst short-term needs are hardly absent from Kenyans鈥� economic subjectivities and their careful modes of economisation, in the long-term Kenyans work hard to accumulate the wealth that affords participation in the New Kenya, and, not incidentally, status and recognition from others. Consider, for instance, the Kenyans pursuing success from such predicaments of economic uncertainty.
鈥�Lazima huu mwaka niwashangazi鈥�, sings Jaguar in his 2015 hit (This Year). 鈥楾his year I鈥檒l blow their minds!鈥�. Jaguar鈥檚 narrator is an aspirant Kenyan whose motivation is not simply self, but self in relation to others 鈥� a rural migrant who desires the status and recognition from his kinsmen and neighbours whence he returns from the city with the wealth he has won. 鈥楢 good job, a good house, a good wife鈥� (鈥�Kazi nzuri! Nyumba nzuri! Bibi nzuri!鈥�), he sings, imagining the future that lies ahead. 鈥業鈥檒l be a rich man like Sonko鈥�, he tells us, a play on words in reference to Nairobi鈥檚 now former Governor Michael Mbuvi Sonko, a man who has quite literally appropriated the term 鈥�sonko鈥�, meaning 鈥榬ich person鈥� (or sometimes 鈥榖oss鈥�). Regardless of the true origins of his wealth, his identity is one of a 鈥榟ustler鈥� who has 鈥榤ade it鈥� in life.
Such optimism recalls the now famous narrative that the African continent is 鈥榬ising鈥� 鈥� that economic growth is catapulting countries towards middle-income status, creating new middle classes able to live lives of conspicuous consumption. Since the end of Daniel arap Moi鈥檚 de facto one-party state, and the political and economic liberalisation ushered in under Kenya鈥檚 Rainbow Coalition (2002-2005), economic growth has shaped the intensification of desires for middle-class lifestyles and their material trappings.
At the same time, such narratives belie the immense economic pressure faced by Kenyans on their pathways towards prosperity. Indeed, the sheer discrepancy between piecemeal incomes (gleaned through irregular labour in Nairobi) and the pressure to succeed, gives rise to feelings of failure, shame, and distress. Such affective states readily evoke 鈥榩ressure鈥� rather than aspiration, as the authors of this series call it: 鈥榓 cognitive assessment of a real/imagined disbalance between real/imagined economic demands and the real/imagined ability to fulfil them.鈥�
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