Negotiating the city: Urban planning and dwelling amidst China-built infrastructure in Nairobi, Kenya
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Geography - SoGE
Abstract
China-led infrastructural projects have fostered the rapid urbanisation of Sub-Saharan Africa, yet the development of African cities remains contested. In Nairobi, Kenya, China's massive financing of housing and connective infrastructure is radically propelling new ways of planning and dwelling in the city, often at the expense of the urban poor. These mega projects involve slum clearance, urban relocation, and new forms of habitation - high-rise living and gated communities - which are transforming the social fabric of the city and furthering existing social inequality. To theorise these urban transformations the project ethnographically investigates the interplay of new practices of planning and dwelling in Nairobi.
The aims of the study are twofold: 1) Assessing how Chinese infrastructural projects and expertise are producing new models of urban governance in Nairobi. 2) Showing how city dwellers are espousing, appropriating, or rather contesting these models according to their dwelling practices, future aspirations, and visions of development, while assessing emerging possibilities of mobilisation. To achieve these objectives, I will conduct a total of 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in two phases. I will first conduct semistructured interviews with the institutional 'producers' of infrastructure: Chinese funders, developers, contractors, construction workers, and planners in the local government; second, I will conduct participant observation and interviews among the 'users' of infrastructure: city dwellers who have been affected by development projects at the grassroots. By dialectically investigating the negotiations of the city across scales of analysis, this interdisciplinary, ethnographic study contributes to urban geography and the anthropology of infrastructure. Outcomes from this research include two articles in top peer-reviewed journals, a monograph, and a short documentary, which will extend my outreach to a non-academic audience.
The aims of the study are twofold: 1) Assessing how Chinese infrastructural projects and expertise are producing new models of urban governance in Nairobi. 2) Showing how city dwellers are espousing, appropriating, or rather contesting these models according to their dwelling practices, future aspirations, and visions of development, while assessing emerging possibilities of mobilisation. To achieve these objectives, I will conduct a total of 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in two phases. I will first conduct semistructured interviews with the institutional 'producers' of infrastructure: Chinese funders, developers, contractors, construction workers, and planners in the local government; second, I will conduct participant observation and interviews among the 'users' of infrastructure: city dwellers who have been affected by development projects at the grassroots. By dialectically investigating the negotiations of the city across scales of analysis, this interdisciplinary, ethnographic study contributes to urban geography and the anthropology of infrastructure. Outcomes from this research include two articles in top peer-reviewed journals, a monograph, and a short documentary, which will extend my outreach to a non-academic audience.