View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Apollo PRE-PUBLICATION DRAFT Politics in everyday Kenyan street-life: the people’s parliament in Mombasa, Kenya Stephanie Diepeveen* Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Correspondence details: Jesus College, Cambridge CB5 8BL, Phone Number: +44 7596023167, Email:
[email protected] The Version of Record of this manuscript is published and available in the Journal of Eastern African Studies (June 2016) via www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2016.1187806 * Corresponding author. Email:
[email protected] 2 S. Diepeveen Politics in everyday Kenyan street-life: the people’s parliament in Mombasa, Kenya The presence of politics in everyday experiences is not new to the study of politics in Africa, located in popular arts, culture and dialogue. Yet, most often, attention to political possibilities in the everyday appears preoccupied with their relationship to rule and authority, making it difficult to imagine political significance outside of an influence on forms of dominance. Hannah Arendt’s early political thought provides an alternative way to imagine politics in everyday publics, separating politics from rule and locating it in public speech and action. Drawing on Arendt’s ideas around political significance of publics, this paper examines the nature and scope of political possibilities of a street parliament in Mombasa, Kenya. It reveals how possibilities for Arendtian political action are present in informal practices of public discussion, which are both contingent upon and compromised by competing interests, including elite and partisan competition.