Download or read book Authority in a Nairobi Slum written by Michelle Osborn and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ethnography focuses on the contemporary existence of chiefs'in Kenya as situated in the longue duree of colonial and post-colonial history, tracing how sl)ifting Kenyan rule has contributed to chiefs' changing authority. Kenya's chiefs offer a unique lens for exploring urban govemance and the establishment and negotiation of local authority and legitimacy. Chiefs form the foundation of Kenya's Provincial Administration, which has remained the comerstone of the Kenya state and local govemance since its colonial inception. However, . chiefs' sovereignty has become increasingly fragmented over the last twenty years, particularly within urban areas, through the reintroduction of multi-party politics, the politicized mobilization of militant youth, and policy amendments related to chiefs' authority. This study is set in Kibera, which is one of the oldest and largest urban settlements in Nairobi, and where Kenya's flourishing political pluralism is particularly evident. Historical and political forces converge in Kibera to reveal changing and negotiated interactions between state and local actors. Chiefs struggle to negotiate authority and legitimacy; nevertheless they remain crucial to contemporary urban govemance at the local level. Providing a study of the Kenyan state in practice, this dissertation accounts for the creation of chiefs as well as their changing role within the evolution of the Provincial Administration. This study also enhances understanding of govemance within informal settlements through its examination of the history of local authority in Kibera, and in particular the way local authority has been contested and continues to change. The contemporary role of chiefs in Kibera is ultimately that of petty bureaucrats. How this role is conducted and its limitations are examined through case studies that range from the banality of bureaucracy to violence and civil unrest. As the first historically situated, ethnographic account of Kenya's urban chiefs, this study contributes to our understanding of governance in practice and reveals how the colonial imprint remains visible within the postcolonial state.
Download or read book Parish Transformation in Urban Slums written by Christine Bodewes and published by Paulines Publications Africa. This book was released on 2005 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The poverty of people living in urban slums in Kenya and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the greatest scandals of our time. Much has been written about the causes of poverty, yet there seems to be little improvement. One reason for this failure is that many programmes are focused on "doing something for the poor but not with the poor." Through a two-year process of social analysis and theological reflection, the parishioners of Christ the King Catholic Church in Kibera slum examined the many injustices facing them in their daily lives. The aim of the parish was to better understand the reality of life in Kibera so that it could people improve their lives in a more responsive and holistic way. This book is a summary of the parish's findings. In their own words, parishioners describe their history, living conditions, socio-economic problems, parish life and African culture that are particular to Kibera. It is a unique perspective because parishioners evaluated these problems in the light of their faith. As a Christian community, parishioners made a plan and have begun their own initiatives to resolve the most serious injustices facing them. This is an important resource for people working in slums."--p. 4 of cover.
Download or read book A Study of Crime in Urban Slums in Kenya written by Kyalo Musoi and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nairobi Urban Sector Profile written by United Nations Human Settlements Programme and published by UN-HABITAT. This book was released on 2006 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ethnicity Democracy and Citizenship in Africa written by Samantha Balaton-Chrimes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an ethnic minority the Nubians of Kenya are struggling for equal citizenship by asserting themselves as indigenous and autochthonous to Kibera, one of Nairobi’s most notorious slums. Having settled there after being brought by the British colonial authorities from Sudan as soldiers, this appears a peculiar claim to make. It is a claim that illuminates the hierarchical nature of Kenya’s ethnicised citizenship regime and the multi-faceted nature of citizenship itself. This book explores two kinds of citizenship deficits; those experienced by the Nubians in Kenya and, more centrally, those which represent the limits of citizenship theories. The author argues for an understanding of citizenship as made up of multiple component parts: status, rights and membership, which are often disaggregated through time, across geographic spaces and amongst different people. This departure from a unitary language of citizenship allows a novel analysis of the central role of ethnicity in the recognition of political membership and distribution of political goods in Kenya. Such an analysis generates important insights into the risks and possibilities of a relationship between ethnicity and democracy that is of broad, global relevance.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics written by Nic Cheeseman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenya is one of the most politically dynamic and influential countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, it is known in equal measure as a country that has experienced great highs and tragic lows. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kenya was seen as a ''success story" of development in the periphery, and also led the way in terms of democratic breakthroughs in 2010 when a new constitution devolved power and placed new constraints on the president. However, the country has also made international headlines for the kind of political instability that occurs when electoral violence is expressed along ethnic lines, such as during the "Kenya crisis" of 2007/08 when over 1,000 people lost their lives and almost 700,000 were displaced. The Oxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics explains these developments and many more, drawing together 50 specially commissioned chapters by leading researchers. The chapters they have contributed address a range of essential topics including the legacy of colonial rule, ethnicity, land politics, devolution, the constitution, elections, democracy, foreign aid, the informal economy, civil society, human rights, the International Criminal Court, the growing influence of China, economic policy, electoral violence, and the impact of mobile phone technology. In addition to covering some of the most important debates about Kenyan politics, the volume provides an insightful overview of Kenyan history from 1930 to the present day and features a set of chapters that review the impact of devolution on regional politics in every part of the country.
Download or read book Slum Health written by Jason Corburn and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban slum dwellers—especially in emerging-economy countries—are often poor, live in squalor, and suffer unnecessarily from disease, disability, premature death, and reduced life expectancy. Yet living in a city can and should be healthy. Slum Health exposes how and why slums can be unhealthy; reveals that not all slums are equal in terms of the hazards and health issues faced by residents; and suggests how slum dwellers, scientists, and social movements can come together to make slum life safer, more just, and healthier. Editors Jason Corburn and Lee Riley argue that valuing both new biologic and “street” science—professional and lay knowledge—is crucial for improving the well-being of the millions of urban poor living in slums.
Download or read book Nairobi Today written by Helene Charton-Bigot and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite being a large capital city in Africa in terms of size and its regional role, Nairobi is an unrecognised entity. For the majority of its inhabitants, the capital of Kenya is a transit point rather than a dwelling place. Since its origins, Nairobi has been a city of migrants, more predisposed to their rural roots than to their current city status. It is a non-conforming town, which conceals its urbanity more than it claims it, and whose identity remains evasive. Nairobi presents itself as a mosaic of residential areas which bring to mind the citys history. The racial segregation that stratified the development of the colonial city has today disappeared, but it has given way to a form of social segregation. One must, therefore, not seek a unique identity in Nairobi, but rather, several identitiesthose of different communities that comprise the city and whose dynamics are seen at village and residential estate level. However, Nairobi is also a city that is contradictory. This East African capital city is often associated with slums and crime, and their increase and growth stigmatises the failure of urban policies. Therefore, it is at these cracks and fringes of the city that we should seek out the identities and dynamics that have shaped the city for a century. Nairobi is a fragmented city that can be understood in steps. The 13 contributory articles in Nairobi Today thus reveal the city. This multidisciplinary collective work invites us to gain entry into certain areas of the city, to visit its communities and to familiarise ourselves with its formal and informal institutions. This is a requirement in order to fully understand what makes Nairobi what it is today.
Download or read book Kenya Urban Sector Profile written by Fernando da Cruz and published by UN-HABITAT. This book was released on 2005 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Building Urban Safety Through Slum Upgrading written by and published by Un-Habitat. This book was released on 2011 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Excluded from the city's opportunities, physically, politically and economically marginalized, slum dwellers are particularly vulnerable to crime and violence. They face an acute risk of becoming victims or offenders and live in a state of constant insecurity. Only a few cities have incorporated a coherent component to prevent crime and mitigate violence in their urban development agendas. Impact on urban safety has occurred somewhat unexpectedly. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the pages of this book: urban policy integration."--pub. desc.
Download or read book The Challenge of Slums written by United Nations Human Settlements Programme and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-23 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. Using a newly formulated operational definition of slums, it presents estimates of the number of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors at all level, from local to global, that underlie the formation of slums as well as their social, spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It goes on to evaluate the principal policy responses to the slum challenge of the last few decades. From this assessment, the immensity of the challenges that slums pose is clear. Almost 1 billion people live in slums, the majority in the developing world where over 40 per cent of the urban population are slum dwellers. The number is growing and will continue to increase unless there is serious and concerted action by municipal authorities, governments, civil society and the international community. This report points the way forward and identifies the most promising approaches to achieving the United Nations Millennium Declaration targets for improving the lives of slum dwellers by scaling up participatory slum upgrading and poverty reduction programmes. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. Written in clear language and supported by informative graphics, case studies and extensive statistical data, it will be an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, planners, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world.
Download or read book History and Theory of Urban Poverty in Nairobi written by Roger M. A. Van Zwanenberg and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Challenges Facing Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme in the Realizing the International Elements of the Right to Housing A Special Focus on Kibera Slum in Nairobi Kenya written by Peter Mwaura Karari and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rethinking Smart Urbanism written by Prince K. Guma and published by Eburon Uitgeverij B.V.. This book was released on 2021-01-03 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking Smart Urbanism is an empirical exploration of the multiple ways in which cities and infrastructures are constructed and reconstructed through ICT innovation and appropriation. Drawing on the case of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the study explains existing infrastructure constellations through countervailing processes and rationalities in the context of splintered urbanism. In doing so, the study examines the relationship between urban plans and digital infrastructure development, place-based contexts that shape digital infrastructures, and the extent to which these infrastructures facilitate utility companies’ ambitions of extending centralized networks to new territories. It draws on the theoretical and empirical base of urban and infrastructure studies, particularly in the fields of smart urbanism, postcolonial urbanism, and Science and Technology Studies. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative research design and presents in-depth case studies that combine ethnographic methods with a thorough investigation of written sources. Ultimately, it is hoped to enhance our understanding of urban and digital possibilities, and add new insights to debates on technology and urbanity in Africa and beyond.
Download or read book Urban Livelihoods Institutions and Inclusive Governance in Nairobi written by Bob Hendriks and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study formulates conditions for sustainable impacts of inclusive and responsive governance through 'invited spaces' offered by the government and 'claimed spaces' created by the poor. The study questions how increased contributions to poverty reduction and improvement of quality of life for Nairobi citizens can be realised in an equitable and responsible way, while contributing to development of the city and country. To adequately address this two-sided objective of economic growth and poverty reduction in the contemporary context, the study analyses both processes and impacts; moreover it examines impacts in terms of quality of life as well as influence and political rights. The study explores the individually claimed spaces of households in Nairobi's slums, the collectively claimed spaces of hybrid mechanisms for access to peri-urban land and tenure, and the invited spaces of city-wide governance networks.
Download or read book Cash Transfers in Nairobi s Slums written by Harvey, Claire and published by Oxfam. This book was released on with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book No Business Like Slum Business The Political Economy of the Continued Existence of Slums written by Florence Dafe and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the political economy of the continued existence of slums in Nairobi. Compared to the rest of the city's population Nairobi's slum dwellers are excluded from formal delivery systems in the land, housing and services sector. Research on inequality in Kenya identifies ethnic fragmentation as a key reason for unequal access to these resources on the national level. Using a political economy approach this paper challenges this notion. It argues that in the case of Nairobi's slums class as opposed to ethnicity has relatively greater explanatory power. This argument is based on secondary empirical evidence on the nature of political patronage, rent-seeking and collective action problems in the land, housing and services sector in Nairobi's slums.
