Mathare Valley

A Political Economy of Slum Spaces: Mathare Valley Jens C. Andvig and Tiberius Barasa NUPI Working Paper 838 Department of International Economics Publisher: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Copyright: © Norwegian Institute of International Affairs 2014 Any views expressed in this publication are those of the author. They should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. The text may not be printed in part or in full without the permission of the author. Visiting address: C.J. Hambros plass 2d Address: P.O. Box 8159 Dep. NO-0033 Oslo, Norway Internet: www.nupi.no E-mail: [email protected] Fax: [+ 47] 22 99 40 50 Tel: [+ 47] 22 99 40 00 A Political Economy of Slum Spaces: Mathare Valley Jens C. Andvig and Tiberius Barasa Abstract The starting point of the paper is the spatial characteristics of slums when it seeks to explain why rulers tend to neglect the welfare of their dwellers: they don’t have to. Their economies are fairly closed. While located close to the centers of power, their high population density implies that they cover small space and are easy to cordon off in case of danger. The ease of control from the outside allows rulers to spend less attention to the control of their complex inside. Particularly when a slum is based on shack architecture, the high degree of mutual monitoring among dwellers may cause sharp shifts in the control regime of crime. The emphasis on spatial configurations motivates the focus on one specific slum: Mathare Valley. Paths back to colonial rule are outlined. The paper is stylistically unkempt. Published by Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Contents Part I: General aspects of slum control ………………………………………….. 5 1. Introduction ............................................................................... 5 2. Ruling from outside and within .................................................. 8 3. Mathare Valley area – a description ......................................... 16 4. Country-wide history shaping Mathare..................................... 29 5. Aspects of the history of Mathare Valley ................................... 44 6 Property rights, class structure and ruling from the outside ..... 53 7 Chiefs, landlords and tenants – the ruling of internal slum space ............................................................................... 58 Part II: Crime control and management of inner slum spac…………….. 63 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….63 2. Some thoughts on the distinction between victim and non victim crime and their history in Mathare Valley ............... 66 3. Police tasks – the Western bundle ............................................ 70 4. Policing slums and protecting elites ......................................... 71 5. The internal policing of slums and the role of their spatial and economic characteristics ....................................... 73 6. The policing system in Mathare Valley ..................................... 77 7. Short description of four neighboring villages in Mathare Valley ......................................................................... 82 8. Crime and crime control in Mathare Valley: victimization crimes ................................................................. 84 9. Village variations in crime and policing patterns: random variation or hidden structures? ................................................. 89 10. The gang(s) in 3C: do they and their history explain the variation? .................................................................................. 92 11. Crime perpetration and crime prevention as two linked collective action games ............................................................. 98 12. Policing high and low crime rate slum villages when the police are and are not corrupt ........................................... 102 13. Concluding observations to part II .......................................... 104 References ......................................................................................... 106 Appendix: Maps and other visual guides to Mathare Valley space .... 114 Part I: General aspects of slum control 1. Introduction1 Rapid urbanization takes place in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya is no exception. Population growth in Nairobi has stayed above four percent for decades, according to common estimates, although slightly declining (UN Habitat, 2014: 149). Missing ability or willingness to prioritize the development of urban infrastructure has resulted in a massive increase in urban slum populations. In a few countries, such as Senegal, the share of urban population who resides in slums has substantially decreased, however; but not so in Kenya. More than half of the population in Nairobi has been living in a slum for decades.2 Moreover, both the building standards and public infrastructures connected to them are worse than most.3 1 We would like to thank Research Council Norway, NORGLOBAL for economic support and to NUPI and Stein Sundstøl Eriksen heading the project ‘Slums, states and citizens’ in particular for allowing Andvig to spend more than the assigned time on it. We will also like to thank our research assistants Marrion Mackani Injete, Peter Kimani, Linda Obuya, Jack Okello, Mwiti Taa Robinson and Muema Wambua who in addition to perform the assigned interviewing with care, shared with us their observations from the field in separate field reports. Without the research coordinator, Fridah Kinya Kithinji, the research and observations reported here, would never have taken place. 2 According to UN-Habitat (2013: 148) around seventy percent of the urban population lived in slums in Senegal in 1990 while only forty percent did so in 2009, a substantial decline. In Kenya on the other hand the share had stayed around fifty five percent during the two decades. This does not mean that the share of slum population is exceptionally high. The sub-Saharan Africa average was above sixty percent in 2010, but the share in Kenya appears exceptionally stable with no signs of decline. The numbers referred to above are the ones codified in most UN publications, but are quite uncertain and rely on somewhat arbitrary definitions that lead, for example, slum population shares in small towns tending to become higher than in large cities, although it is the waste number of people congregated in densely packed neighborhoods in large cities most have in mind as slums. In the case of Nairobi the estimates vary and estimates as high as seventy percent are often in use. 3 In a number of studies Gulyani et al (2008, 2010, 2012) have compared slums in Nairobi and Dakar trying to explain the puzzle of the low quality housing of slum housing in Nairobi. 6 Jens C. Andvig and Tiberius Barasa Slums are perceived as dangerous places. Not only are they lacking public infrastructure, which combined with their high population densities make them dangerous to health. In Kenya the high area density of crime and violence adds to the insecurity of their residents. In slums dominated by shack architecture, as the ones studied in this paper, the flimsiness of their housing combined with high poverty rates add to the feeling of vulnerability. We have chosen to focus on only one large slum area, Mathare and within that area mainly a set of villages, Mathare Valley,4 that all are within walking distance to each other. An understanding of slum governance relies on specific interacting spatial mechanisms that we could more efficiently uncover by the study of a specific geographical area. Mathare is a populous slum area a few kilometers north east of Nairobi’s central business district. Its core, Mathare Valley, has been recognized as a slum for more than forty years (Etherton, 1971). Its recent population growth rates appear to have been modest. 1.1 Visual impressions and some naïve question Throughout its history Mathare Valley has held a reputation for lawlessness where economic and politically motivated violence frequently occurred. Most of its inhabitants have remained poor and its public infrastructure remains appalling. The visual impact of visible poverty, the labyrinths of densely packed shacks, the smell of partly open sewage and warnings about the dangers of being exposed to violent crime when entering the area, make strong impressions of any outsider. An urge to change this kind of the social space from the bottom arises spontaneously in any visitor as it has done at least the last forty years. While changes have occurred, a key question that arises is how can this pocket of Nairobi remain so stable in terms of its poverty and many of its modes of social and economic interactions? Does its shack architecture have any consequences for the kind of interactions taking place and for how the slum is ruled? 1.2 Sequence and characteristics of the paper The sequence of the paper is as follows: After a brief presentation of some of the theoretical aspects of slum ruling or policing issues and how they may contribute to lasting poverty of most residents, we present a descriptive and fairly broad overview of the Mathare Valley slum, with its major villages indicating the characteristics of their geographical and population features 4 The use of the geographical names ‘Mathare’ and ‘Mathare Valley’ varies. Sometimes ‘Mathare Valley’ designates the larger area that embraces areas like Mlango Kubwa, Huruma, Mathare North, etc. that we here denote as ‘Mathare’. A Political Economy of Slum Spaces: Mathare Valley 7 This will be followed

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