In 2009, I was interested in studying the phenomenon of M-Pesa as a legal scholar鈥攋ust a year after its launch and intense rollout. My standpoint enabled me to see the initial regulatory paradoxes that M-Pesa presented. In 2010, I began my PhD, exploring what a regulatory framework should look like. My analysis focused on the complexities presented by the storage and transfer of customer funds within mobile money systems. Central to were themes of financial regulation, consumer rights, financial stability, conceptualising 鈥榝inancial inclusion鈥�, and the meaning of 鈥榖anking the unbanked鈥�. At the time, the study was significant, in understanding the contractual tensions between mobile money users and Safaricom, a non-bank entity, which provided services akin to a traditional bank鈥檚 deposit system鈥攜et did not appear to be subject to the same regulatory restraints as conventional banks. Crucially, banks and financial institutions had historically dominated much of the financial system, through practices due to colonialism. Therefore, M-Pesa caused much upheaval to established banks, but simultaneously provided hope for the excluded. Various actors extended this new hope, in the 鈥榮uccess鈥� narrative of M-Pesa. Its beneficial use as a storage and transfer system was extolled as , and the restatement of its trajectory was and continues to be modelled across the developing world. The global development and digitalisation agenda have subsumed M-Pesa鈥檚 pervasive influence, both valorising the pathways to 鈥榙evelopment鈥� and 鈥榠nnovation鈥� through FinTech with a singular aim of 鈥榝inancial inclusion.鈥�
As a result, Kenya has become the site of contestation for overwhelming empirical research, interest, and knowledge production, particularly by Western scholars and institutions. A 鈥榞old rush鈥� has emerged, and the scramble for knowledge extraction has intensified across academic disciplines and across methodologies. Studies from Ghana, Senegal and Kenya dominate. The study of 鈥榙evelopment鈥� in all its iterations has gained a new development. However, much of the ways in which mobile money (M-Pesa) and FinTech are discussed and framed demonstrates a Western understanding of the everyday lives of the Kenyans who use it. Scholars, activists, and proponents often situate the premise of its use as being between two paradigms: advancing through the enhancement of global development aims, and its function as a tool that includes Kenyans in extractive cycles of financialisation. Both of these are true.
In August 2020, people all over the development world about water in Nairobi. There was a lot of anger, and some calls for sending people to the guillotine. The reason: the publication of (RCT), run by two American development economists, working together with the World Bank. In order to compel property owners in Kayole-Soweto鈥攁 relatively poor neighborhood in eastern Nairobi鈥攖o pay their water bills, this experiment disconnected the water supply at randomly selected low-income rental properties.
There鈥檚 no doubt that water is a problem in Nairobi. As Elizabeth Wamuchiru , the water system in the city has a built-in spatial inequality inherited from the British colonial era. Visitors to the city can readily see the differences between the cool, leafy, green neighborhoods of Kilimani and Lavington鈥攕egregated white neighborhoods under colonialism, now home to rich Kenyans, foreigners, and NGOs鈥攁nd the gray and dusty tin-roof neighborhoods of Mathare, Kibera, Mukuru, and Kayole, home to the lower-income Kenyans excluded from Nairobi鈥檚 prosperity.
Today鈥檚 water system reflects this history of inequality. Nairobi鈥檚 water is harnessed from a combination of surface and groundwater sources; however, the city鈥檚 groundwater is naturally salty and . Piped water systems, provided to upper- and middle-income housing estates, do not exist in the vast bulk of the city鈥檚 poorer neighborhoods, where people must instead buy water from vendors鈥攐ften salty water pumped from boreholes, or siphoned off from city pipes through rickety connections that are frequently contaminated with sewage. In the richer neighborhoods, Nairobi Water Company, a public utility, sells relatively clean piped surface water for a fraction of the price paid by poorer Nairobians鈥攁 disparity that to often be the case in other cities in the global South. , in poorer neighborhoods such as Kayole-Soweto, 鈥渨ater provision costs more, is less safe, and is less consistent than in other richer parts of the city.鈥�
Women are the reason why men have changed because women are hard on men. [鈥 The expectations they come with into a relationship, and generally how they have been brought up, or the life they live, that is what gives some men stress. [鈥 When someone is living with a woman in the house, you find that issues are many because money is little.
Wellington Ochieng, 36-year old labor migrant from western Kenya
During almost three years of ethnographic fieldwork among male migrants in , I heard complaints like Wellington鈥檚 almost daily. Migrant men, in my case predominantly Luo from western Kenya who came to Nairobi with high expectations of a better future, bemoaned a life full of pressure caused by the romantic, sexual, and economic expectations of their girlfriends, wives, and rural kin. The blame often lay on 鈥榗ity girls鈥� who were portrayed as materialistic 鈥榮lay queens鈥檞ho 鈥榝inish鈥� men by leaving them bankrupt only to suck away the after grabbing him with their 鈥楤eelzebub nails鈥� as Wellington called the colorful nails sported by many Nairobi women. Soon, so a fear expressed repeatedly by my interlocutors, most men would no longer be needed at all and Kenya鈥檚 economy would be ruled by economically powerful women who raise chaotic boys brought up . Such fears of male expendability also manifested in imaginations about a future in which more and more men and women would live in or 鈥榗ontract marriages鈥� that replace trust and love with contractual agreements. When my flat mate Samuel, a student of economics divorced from the mother of his baby son, returned to our apartment after passing the neighbor鈥檚 house where a group of women celebrated a birthday, for instance, he just shook his head and sighed: 鈥榃e live like animals in the jungle. Women and men separately. We only meet for mating and making babies. Maybe that鈥檚 where we鈥檙e heading to.鈥� Overwhelmed by their wives鈥� and girlfriends鈥� expectations, many migrant men who spoke to me in Pipeline decided to spend as little time as possible in their marital houses. Instead, they evaded pressure by lifting weights in gyms, , , gulping down a cold beer in a Wines & Spirits, playing the videogame FIFA, or catcalling 鈥榖rown-skinned鈥� Kamba women on the roads. Some men who could no longer cope took even more drastic measures involving murder and . One man, for instance, cut the throat of his girlfriend only to try to kill himself, while another tried to poison himself, later quoting the wife鈥檚 actions and character as the cause. Anything appeared better than spending time with the 鈥榙aughters of Jezebel鈥� who were waiting for them in the cramped houses of Pipeline, sometimes demanding migrant men to engage in romantic and sexual practices they were unfamiliar with as expounded upon by Wellington:
When you come to Nairobi, our girls want that you hold her hand when you are going to buy chips, you hug her when you are going to the house, I hear there is something called cuddling, she wants that you cuddle, at what time will you cuddle and tomorrow you want to go to work early?[鈥 you don鈥檛 go to meet your friends so that you show her you love her, you just sleep on the sofa and caress her hair, to me, this is nonsense because that is not romantic love, I think that romantic love, so long as I provide the things I provide, and we sire children, I think that鈥檚 enough romance. [鈥 Another girl told me to lick her, and I asked her 鈥榃hy do you want me to lick you?鈥� She said that she wanted me to lick her private parts. Are those places licked? [鈥 Those things are things that people see on TV, let us leave them to the people on TV.
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�
Digital and mobile finance applications have boomed in Kenya over the last decade. Mobile money, Vodafone鈥檚 M-Pesa system in particular, is ubiquitous. Kenyan banks and smaller start-ups have led the adoption of a wider range of mobile and digital financial applications.
For promoters of fintech as a tool for development, Kenya is a paradigm case. from Tavneet Suri and William Jack 鈥� suggesting that the advent of M-Pesa had directly moved 194 000 households, equivalent to 2 percent of the country, out of extreme poverty 鈥� have been triumphantly cited across a wide range of and policy documents. The rapid adoption of mobile and digital finance, according to advocates, has allowed Kenya to 鈥樷�� the developmental constraints of its existing financial system. In the words of : 鈥榥ew technologies solve problems arising from weak institutional infrastructure and the cost structure of conventional banking鈥�.
There are good reasons to question this rosy narrative, as recent critics have demonstrated compellingly. Among others, raise a number of important methodological and other objections to Suri and Jack鈥檚 claims, and shows how narratives of 鈥榠nclusion鈥� mask the perpetuation of gendered patterns of exclusion and inequality. Wider applications of fintech in Kenya have come in for critique as well. highlight emerging patterns of digitally-enabled over-indebtedness. trace the emergence of monopolistic corporate power enacted through the extension of digital platforms (including for finance) in Kenyan agriculture. show the emergence of new forms of racialized dispossession and exploitation through efforts to extend fintech applications to refugees in Kenya.
On a more basic level, 鈥榣eapfrogging鈥� narratives have to contend with the fact that the geography of Kenyan fintech looks a lot like that of the financial system more generally. The fintech boom is predominantly an urban phenomenon, and especially concentrated in Mombasa and in and around Nairobi. Data from the 2019 national 鈥樷�� survey shows that 6.6 percent of respondents currently or had previously used of mobile lending services, and 6.4 percent reported the same of digital lending apps. The corresponding figures among urban residents were 17.2 and 11.4 percent. The proportion of residents in Nairobi Metropolitan Area and Mombasa using mobile money services (25 percent) and digital lending apps (18.2 percent) is more than double the respective use rates of mobile (12.3 percent) and digital borrowing (7.1 percent) among urban residents elsewhere.
On the 21st of November 2020, Mumbi Seraki – a YouTuber – uploads a new 鈥榩rophetic update鈥� titled . Her YouTube shows are followed by more than 60 000 followers across Sub Saharan Africa and deal with, what she refers to as, the ills of society, the struggles of African nations and ideas for a better Africa. She opens her 鈥榩rophetic update鈥� with the following statement:
鈥淚 really do pray that you are well in all your ways and that you are moving into living life truly on your own terms and out of the 鈥榤atrix鈥�, so that you can be free and you won鈥檛 have to become one of these mask wearing zombies walking around. Really, get out of the big cities, if you can, don鈥檛 wait till the last minute.鈥�
Seraki鈥檚 statements should be interpreted against the background of the Covid-19 havoc that raises questions about how safe it is to live in major cities such as Nairobi where most Covid-19 cases are being reported. Nonetheless, the image of cities populated by 鈥榸ombies鈥� affirms questions about the (in)habitability of Kenyan cities increasingly beleaguered by the pressures and absurdities of late capitalism that were already relevant way before the pandemic. Her advice to liberate oneself from the 鈥榤atrix鈥� of life in the capital by moving upcountry is particularly intriguing and will be further unpacked hereinafter.
In this blogpost, I shed light on life 鈥榰nder pressure鈥� from the perspective of Nakuru, a vibrant secondary Kenyan city of approximately 500, 000 inhabitants situated 160 km Northwest of Nairobi, where I conducted more than 18 months of ethnographic research. My fieldwork shed light on how people in Nakuru made sense of their urban lifeworlds, yet did so with 鈥榟eat鈥�, a leitmotiv illuminating different 鈥榗onfrontations鈥� about a variety of opposing or cohesive uses, ideas and/or meanings of technologies, symbols, and substances that flow through the highland city.
By Mario Schmidt,听Christiane Stephan, Kawikya Judith Musa听补苍诲 Eric M. Kioko听
Panic! Rush! Empty sacks! Women running! Big cars passing by! Boom! All women stare at the same spot on the road: a car passing by. Within seconds, many of them rush towards it. One who was selling roasted maize, water and a few more goods leaves her place of work opposite the road and runs towards the vehicle as well. Panic and competition are in the air. Within a few minutes, the women come back, discouragement and lack of morale palpable in their bodies and faces. 鈥淲hat happened?鈥�, one of those left seated asks. 鈥淭he driver didn鈥檛 think we were this many, so he closed the car麓s door and left!鈥�
This scene gives insight into dynamic moments taking place along the roadsides of Nairobi鈥檚 affluent suburbs since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. It displays the intensified competition characterizing the job market for informal house helps looking for work and financial or material assistance. Suburbs like Kileleshwa or Kilimani present an unusual picture to those accustomed to see African cities through photographs of slums and shantytowns. Yet, here we have elegant residential areas mushroomed in leafy environments, roads with pedestrian walkways for cycling and jogging, cosmopolitan coffee joints, posh malls, and police patrols.
By Mario Schmidt, Eric Kioko, Evelyn Atieno Owino and Christiane Stephan
Everyday economic life in Nairobi has been transformed following the COVID-19 containment measures installed by the Kenyan government. In the immediate aftermath of Kenya鈥檚 first case reported on 13th March 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta shut down air travel, introduced a nationwide curfew for the night hours, introduced a mask requirement, reduced passenger numbers in public transport, closed schools and institutions of higher learning and restricted social gathering. These measures set in motion transformations that span across various networks and scales of the urban. In order to analyze the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on urban households, we have teamed up with five Kenyan colleagues who conducted over two hundred qualitative interviews in different locales of Nairobi and Nakuru. In Nairobi, our assistants, who made sure that measures of COVID-19 containment and personal safety were respected, worked in the informal settlement Kibera, the low-income tenement settlement Pipeline (Embakasi), and Kileleshwa, home to richer Nairobians and expats. Our research assistants interviewed Nairobians from the age of twenty to over eighty years. Among the respondents were migrants and people born in Nairobi, casual, unemployed and laid-off workers, maids, housewives, Uber drivers, white collar workers, shop owners, club bouncers, artists, daycare owners, tailors who found a new job producing face masks, waiters, chefs as well as people employed by NGOs.
黑料社区 