Author : Constance Smith
Publisher : James Currey
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 41,62 MB
Release : 2022-06-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781847013262
Examines the making and remaking of Nairobi, one of Africa's most fragmented, vibrant cities, contributing to debates on urban anthropology, the politics of the past and postcolonial materialities.
Author : Anders Ese
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 40,22 MB
Release : 2020-07-21
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1000096777
The City Makers of Nairobi re-examines the history of the urban development of Nairobi in the colonial period. Although Nairobi was a colonial construct with lasting negative repercussions, the African population’s impact on its history and development is often overlooked. This book shows how Africans took an active part in making use of the city and creating it, and how they were far from being subjects in the development of a European colonial city. This re-interpretation of Nairobi’s history suggests that the post-colonial city is the result of more than unjust and segregative colonial planning. Merging historical documentation with extensive contemporary urban theory, this book provides in-depth knowledge of the key historical roles played by locals in the development of their city. It argues that the idea of agency, a popular inroad to urban development today, is not a current phenomenon but one that has always existed with its many social, spatial, and physical ramifications. This is an ideal read for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students studying the history of urban development and theories, providing an in-depth case study for reference. The City Makers of Nairobi broaches interdisciplinary themes important to urban planners, social scientists, historians, and those working with popular settlements in cities across the world.
Author : Prince K. Guma
Publisher : Eburon Uitgeverij B.V.
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 37,13 MB
Release : 2021-01-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9463013253
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.
Author : Bitange Ndemo
Publisher : Springer
Page : 518 pages
File Size : 34,64 MB
Release : 2016-11-18
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1137578785
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Presenting rigorous and original research, this volume offers key insights into the historical, cultural, social, economic and political forces at play in the creation of world-class ICT innovations in Kenya. Following the arrival of fiber-optic cables in 2009, Digital Kenya examines why the initial entrepreneurial spirit and digital revolution has begun to falter despite support from motivated entrepreneurs, international investors, policy experts and others. Written by engaged scholars and professionals in the field, the book offers 15 eye-opening chapters and 14 one-on-one conversations with entrepreneurs and investors to ask why establishing ICT start-ups on a continental and global scale remains a challenge on the “Silicon Savannah”. The authors present evidence-based recommendations to help Kenya to continue producing globally impactful ICT innovations that improve the lives of those still waiting on the side-lines, and to inspire other nations to do the same.
Author : Kenda Mutongi
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 44,94 MB
Release : 2017-06-26
Category : History
ISBN : 022647139X
Drive the streets of Nairobi and you are sure to see many matatus colorful minibuses that transport huge numbers of people around the city. Once ramshackle affairs held together with duct tape and wire, matatus today are name-brand vehicles maxed out with aftermarket detailing. They can be stately black or come in extravagant colors, sporting names, slogans, or entire tableaus, with airbrushed portraits of everyone from Kanye West to Barack Obama, of athletes, movie stars, or the most famous face of all: Jesus Christ. In this richly interdisciplinary book, Kenda Mutongi explores the history of the matatu from the 1960s to the present. As Mutongi shows, matatus offer a window onto many socioeconomic and political facets of late-twentieth-century Africa. In their diversity of idiosyncratic designs they express multiple and divergent aspects of Kenyan life including rapid urbanization, organized crime, entrepreneurship, social insecurity, the transition to democracy, chaos and congestion, popular culture, and many others at once embodying both Kenya's staggering social problems and the bright promises of its future. Offering a shining model of interdisciplinary analysis, Mutongi mixes historical, ethnographic, literary, linguistic, and economic approaches to tell the story of the matatu as a powerful expression of the entrepreneurial aesthetics of the postcolonial world.
Author : Charles O. Oyaya
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 19,37 MB
Release : 2018-05-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1317161734
Kenya, like the rest of Africa, has gone through three sets of constitutional crises. The first related to the trauma of colonialism and struggle for independence. The second a period of constitutional dictatorship and the clamor for reform. The third, most recent crisis, being one of identity, legitimacy and the inability of the state to discharge its functions which has resulted in civil unrest, violent ethnic conflicts, poverty, social exclusion and inequality. The Making of the Constitution of Kenya examines the processes, issues and challenges of constitution making, governance and legitimacy in that country and the lessons that can be learned for others on the continent. Equipping the reader with a sound historical perspective on constitutional developments and the crisis of constitutional legitimacy in Kenya it gives an invaluable insight into the normative and political complexities involved in evolving a truly democratic and widely acceptable constitutional order in Africa.
Author : Mukoma Wa Ngugi
Publisher : Melville House
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 39,56 MB
Release : 2011-09-13
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1612190073
A cop from Wisconsin pursues a killer through the terrifying slums of Nairobi and the memories of genocide IN MADISON, WISCONSIN, it’s a big deal when African peace activist Joshua Hakizimana—who saved hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide—accepts a position at the university to teach about “genocide and testimony.” Then a young woman is found murdered on his doorstep. Local police Detective Ishmael—an African-American in an “extremely white” town—suspects the crime is racially motivated; the Ku Klux Klan still holds rallies there, after all. But then he gets a mysterious phone call: “If you want the truth, you must go to its source. The truth is in the past. Come to Nairobi.” It’s the beginning of a journey that will take him to a place still vibrating from the genocide that happened around its borders, where violence is a part of everyday life, where big-oil money rules and where the local cops shoot first and ask questions later—a place, in short, where knowing the truth about history can get you killed.
Author : Waceke Nduati Omanga
Publisher :
Page : 130 pages
File Size : 39,72 MB
Release : 2020-01-27
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9789966690340
Like so many of us, Waceke learned some of her most valuable lessons through mistakes she made and the failures she survived. Making Cents is based on these lessons coupled with stories from other real people's experiences, failures, lessons learned, and their eventual success with personal finances.
Author : Anne-Marie Deisser
Publisher : UCL Press
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 25,35 MB
Release : 2016-10-07
Category : Art
ISBN : 1910634824
In Kenya, cultural and natural heritage has a particular value. Its pre-historic heritage not only tells the story of man's origin and evolution but has also contributed to the understanding of the earth's history: fossils and artefacts spanning over 27 million years have been discovered and conserved by the National Museums of Kenya (NMK). Alongside this, the steady rise in the market value of African art has also affected Kenya. Demand for African tribal art has surpassed that for antiquities of Roman, Byzantine, and Egyptian origin, and in African countries currently experiencing conflicts, this activity invariably attracts looters, traffickers and criminal networks. This book brings together essays by heritage experts from different backgrounds, including conservation, heritage management, museum studies, archaeology, environment and social sciences, architecture and landscape, geography, philosophy and economics to explore three key themes: the underlying ethics, practices and legal issues of heritage conservation; the exploration of architectural and urban heritage of Nairobi; and the natural heritage, landscapes and sacred sites in relation to local Kenyan communities and tourism. It thus provides an overview of conservation practices in Kenya from 2000 to 2015 and highlights the role of natural and cultural heritage as a key factor of social-economic development, and as a potential instrument for conflict resolution
Author : Megan A. Styles
Publisher : University of Washington Press
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 49,69 MB
Release : 2019-12-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0295746521
Honorable Mention for the Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW) Book prize The potential of floriculture grows at Lake Naivasha Kenya supplies more than 35 percent of the fresh-cut roses and other flowers sold annually in the European Union. This industry—which employs at least 90,000 workers, most of whom are women—is lucrative but enduringly controversial. More than half the flowers are grown near the shores of Lake Naivasha, a freshwater lake northwest of Nairobi recognized as a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance. Critics decry the environmental side effects of floriculture, and human rights activists demand better wages and living conditions for workers. In this rich portrait of Kenyan floriculture, Megan Styles presents the point of view of local workers and investigates how the industry shapes Kenyan livelihoods, landscapes, and politics. She investigates the experiences and perspectives of low-wage farmworkers and the more elite actors whose lives revolve around floriculture, including farm managers and owners, Kenyan officials, and the human rights and environmental activists advocating for reform. By exploring these perspectives together, Styles reveals the complex and contradictory ways that rose farming shapes contemporary Kenya. She also shows how the rose industry connects Kenya to the world, and how Kenyan actors perceive these connections. As a key space of encounter, Lake Naivasha is a synergistic center where many actors seek to solve broader Kenyan social and environmental problems using the global flows of people, information, and money generated by floriculture.
