The London School of Economics and Political Science The Politics of Space: Negotiating Tenure Security in a Nairobi Slum Sheila Wanjiru Kamunyori A thesis submitted to the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, April 2016 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 73,678 words. I can confirm that my thesis was copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Sue Redgrave. 2 Abstract Slum upgrading is a planning intervention where the state, in the process of upgrading an informal space, is seen as delivering tenure security to the residents in that space. This dissertation investigates the making legible of an informal space in Nairobi by analysing the processes and outcomes of a slum upgrading project and the consequent impact on tenure security. Using a qualitative, case study approach, I begin by analysing the production of the Korogocho slum and the practices that contributed to the production of the informal space. Next I examine two processes within the slum upgrading intervention aimed at making legible the space and the people, processes that are distinctively grounded in modernist planning: preparing a physical plan and conducting enumeration. I show how during these processes different rationalities, or ways of knowing, are continually meeting, contesting and negotiating, leading to hybridized outcomes. While the planning intervention has made some aspects of the space legible, it has reduced the legitimacy of some use claims on the space, particularly those of sole structure owners. Further, only certain subpopulations are made legible; long-term tenants, particularly those that are youth born in the settlement, are pushed further into illegibility and tenure insecurity. Within this analysis, I discuss how residents in the settlement propose how the two processes could have been implemented to lead to legibility that matched their ways of knowing. My findings illustrate that planning interventions that are predicated on technocratic solutions need to be balanced with an understanding of the everyday dynamics, or rationalities, of residents in informal spaces. I argue that tenure security needs to be conceptualised as the outcome of negotiated practices between actors taking place in a particular type of space rather than the outcome of planning practices used by the state to guarantee tenure security or used by urban residents to contest or fight for it. In addition, I argue that slum upgrading needs to move attention beyond tenure regularization to other components of tenure security, including those for the various categories of tenants in order to match their needs. 3 Acknowledgements A dissertation is a group effort. While the document and all the errors it contains are my responsibility, I would not have gotten this far without the support, assistance and encouragement of very many kind and generous people and institutions: My advisor, Kate Meagher, for guiding me through this tough, but rewarding journey. Sai, Ellen and Kate, fellow planners and brilliant minds I hold in the highest regard. Thank you, thank you for reading my drafts, making comments and making me feel part of an academic planning community. Friends near and far who always seemed to know what to say to keep me going, thank you. To all the people I met in the field and to those with whom I continue to interact in our daily planning-in-reverse work in Kenya, I have learnt a lot from you. My research assistant, Mark, for your insights, commitment and passion during our fieldwork time together. The staff at LSE – in the Department and at the PhD Academy – for your important role in keeping us all going. Sue Redgrave for proof-reading extraordinaire! The British Institute of East Africa (BIEA) for providing the institutional support to set up the PhD Student Forum when I needed it most. And of course my biggest thanks to my family for supporting me through what must have seemed to you an eternally long, and sometimes too painful, PhD process. Funding for the program has been from a number of sources: my deepest appreciation to the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (FURS), the LSE Postgraduate Studentships and the Newton Grant in my early PhD years, and for the very generous first year of funding from the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship that got me started in the program. I dedicate this thesis to Judith Tendler without whom I would not be the academic or practitioner that I am today. Thank you for transforming my general over-curiosity with how things work in the world into some good use - a love for research. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Acronyms 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1.Tenure Security on the Global Mind 10 1.2. Whither Urban Housing? 12 1.2.1. Curious Urbanisation and Informality 12 1.2.2. Meeting Kenya’s Housing Needs? 14 1.3. Planning for Housing: The International Development Response 16 1.4. The Micro-Politics of Slum Upgrading 19 1.4.1. The Political Economy of Nairobi’s Slums 19 1.4.2. Formal Planning Tools and Their Limitations 21 1.4.3. Experiencing the Gap: Practicing Slum Upgrading in Kenya 23 1.5. Unpacking Slum Upgrading in Nairobi’s Commercialized Context 24 1.5.1. The Research Question 24 1.5.2. From the “Antis” to Possibilism 25 1.5.3. Why Nairobi: Context and History of Slum Upgrading 27 1.6. Introducing the Case Study: Korogocho and Its Slum Upgrading Project 29 1.6.1. The Korogocho Slum Upgrading Project (KSUP) 29 1.6.2. Small Towns Development Project (STDP) 31 1.6.3. Minimum Interventions Guidelines (MINA Guidelines) 32 1.6.4. The Institutions in the KSUP 33 1.6.5. Participatory Planning in Action 36 1.7. Structure of Dissertation and Main Arguments 37 Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.1. Introduction 40 2.2. What is Tenure Security? 40 2.2.1. Informal Housing as Tenure Security 40 2.2.2. State-Led Tenure Security 44 2.3. The Anti-Politics of Slum Upgrading 45 2.4. The Invisible Politics of Slum Upgrading 48 2.4.1. State Power and the Tyranny of Participation 48 2.4.2. Tenure Regularization as Politics 50 2.5. Bringing Politics Back In: Towards a Reconceptualisation of Tenure Security 53 2.5.1. Shifting the Formal-Informal Boundary 53 2.5.2. What’s in a Space? : Observing Formal-Informal Negotiations 58 2.6. Conclusion 60 5 Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1. Introduction 62 3.2. The Case Study as my Research Design 64 3.3. Choosing a Single Case Research Design 65 3.4. Developing my Research Strategy: Hidden in Plain Sight 67 3.4.1. Sampling strategy 67 3.4.2. How I gained access 70 3.4.3. Data Collection and Analysis 70 3.4.4 Triangulation 73 3.5. Reflecting on my Positionality 74 3.6. Limitations 75 Chapter 4: The Production of Korogocho Space 4.1. Introduction 77 4.2. Korogocho At First Glance 78 4.3. The Genesis and Growth of Three Villages 79 4.3.1. Grogan A 79 4.3.2. Korogocho B 82 4.3.3. Kisumu Ndogo 85 4.4. The De Facto Practice of Planning 89 4.5. The Security That Matters 92 4.6. The Role of Ethnicity 96 4.7. Muddying the Typology 99 4.8. Conclusion 101 Chapter 5: Who Counts? : Enumeration and its (Dis)Contents 5.1. Introduction 105 5.2. Enumeration and its Politics 105 5.2.1. What is Enumeration? 105 5.2.2. Constructing Intelligible Fields 109 5.3. Whose Knowledge, Whose Power? : Constructing Korogocho’s Population 110 5.3.1. Enumeration in Korogocho 110 5.3.2. Landlord/Structure Owner Types in Korogocho 112 5.3.3. Long-term Tenant Types in Korogocho 116 5.3.4. Categories as Power Relations 119 5.4. Youth: The Hidden Population 122 5.4.1. The Legibility of Youth 122 5.4.2. The Construction of Youth 123 5.4.3. Waithood for Korogocho Youth 125 5.4.4. The Connection Between Youth and Place 131 5.5. Enumeration: Negotiating Being Seen 133 6 Chapter 6: Searching for Tenure Innovation 6.1. Introduction 137 6.2. Sticky Legislation: Introducing Kenya’s Planning Legislation 137 6.3. The Potential for CLT Explored 140 6.4. The Demand for Individual Titles 141 6.5. The (In)Flexibility of Planning Regulations and Their Regulators 145 6.6. The Determination of Equity 148 6.7. Space Gone Wrong 150 6.8. Negotiating For Tenure Innovation 155 Postscript 159 Chapter 7: Conclusion 7.1. Introduction 161 7.2. Theoretical Implications 161 7.2.1. Tenure Security as Production of Space 162 7.2.2. Tenure Security as Negotiation 165 7.2.3. Negotiating the Formal-Informal Divide 167 7.2.4. Analysing Lived Space: Lefebvre in the Slums 169 7.3. Policy Implications 173 Bibliography 174 APPENDIX 1: List of Interviewees 192 APPENDIX 2: Structure of semi-structured sessions (questions focusing on four topics and link of each topic to slum upgrading) 194 APPENDIX 3: Example of map used to maximize geographic distribution of interviewees 195 APPENDIX 4: Photos of the three villages 196 7 Acronyms CCN City Council of Nairobi CLT Community Land Trust GoK Government of Kenya GTZ German Technical Cooperation Agency ITWG Inter-agency Technical Working Group KENSUP Kenya Slum Upgrading Project KISIP Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project KSUP Korogocho Slum Upgrading Programme MINA Minimum Interventions Guidelines MLHUD Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development MoLG Ministry of Local Government RC Residents’ Committee STDP Small Towns Development Programme WB World Bank 8 FIGURE 1: MAP OF KOROGOCHO 9 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1.