African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model

Front matter

AFRICAN MARKETS

AND THE UTU-BUNTU BUSINESS MODEL

A Perspective on Economic Informality in Nairobi

Contents

List of plates vi Acknowledgements vii Preface x

1 Introduction 1

PART ONE: TRADERS, ARTISANS AND URBAN PLANNING 2 Traders and artisans in global economic thinking 15

PART THREE: UTU-UBUNTU ENHANCING URBAN RESILIENCE 7 The utu-ubuntu business model 113 10 Cultural villages 159

Notes 172 References 176 About the author 185

List of plates

Plate 1 Nairobi: An African metropolis 136

Plate 2 A bird’s-eye view of the African metropolis 137

Plate 3 An example of a slum settlement 138

Plate 4 City council-controlled and -serviced urban space 139

Plate 5 Mixed trade and residential space in self-developed urban areas 140 Plate6 An area typical of the self-developed urban fringes 141

Plate 7 Traders, vehicles and pedestrians compete for space 142

Plate 8 Porters play a key role in transporting goods between the producers or wholesalers and the traders in the markets 143 Plate 9 A clothing market that sells both new and secondhand goods 144 Plate 10 Stalls selling wood, cosmetics, shoes and fresh produce 145

Plate 11 A trader selling wood, sand, bricks and other building materials from his yard 146

Plate 12 Selling sugar cane 147 Plate 13 Potable water for sale with fresh vegetables 148 Plate 14 Banana sellers outside an allocated market area 149

Plate 15 Scrap metal, secondhand tools and electrical equipment 150

Acknowledgements

I benefited from the generosity and care of many people while I was writing this book. I shared ideas with my Comparative Industrial Strategy class at the University of Nairobi’s Institute for Development Studies. Their critique challenged me to think more deeply about traders and artisans in Nairobi.

Fredrick Dawa, secretary of the Kamukunji Jua Kali Association in Nairobi, was a source of inspiration and ideas, probing me to delve into the experiences of traders and artisans. I held numerous fruitful discussions about the nature and organisation of markets with Pastor Kihara and Mrs Wakagiri of Uhuru Market. John Nganga, chairperson of the Uhuru Market Traders Association, was also a source of information on the role of markets.

Ignatius Gacheru and Philomena Njeri Mbari helped me understand and explain the Agikuyu business ethos. Gitu wa Kahengeri, the secretary-general of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association, gave me insights into the socio-economic expectations of Kenyas freedom struggle. Charles Rubia, Nairobi’s first mayor, provided information on efforts he made to transform Nairobi from a colonial outpost into an African city; Njogu Wanguu also provided historical information about Nairobi, while Deborah Kinuthia, Richard Gitau and Edith Muhindi shared the experiences of their families in Nairobi.

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Muraguri Neuyai, Mark Kamau, George Kamau, Francis Kinuthia, Martin Njoroge, Linet Muracha, Stephene Kingoina, Pauline Wambua, Perpetua Nganga and Rachel Waweru helped in gathering data in the markets. Sam Balongo helped with data management and analysis while Boniface Ngaruia and Josephat Juma read the draft manuscripts.

Dr Paul Kamau taught my classes when I went on two writing retreats for this book. I am grateful to Prof. Winnie Mitullah, Director of the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, and to the university itself for giving me leave to attend these retreats. I am also grateful to my former students, Victor Kibet, Pauline Wambua, David Mbuvi, Stephen King’oina and Francis Kinuthia, who offered valuable ideas during brainstorming sessions for the book, and to Fredrick Gitonga for taking photographs. Stephene Kariuki drove me around while Richard Ambani helped with archival materials.

My friends Anne Kamau, Joy Obando, Belta Makato, Lydia Kamau, Angela Kamau, Nguyai Mbari, Boniface Njenga, Marjory Kimani, Anne Kariuki, Lydia Gaitirira, Anne Njuguna, Faith Kimathi, Boniface Ngaruia, Reverend David Mwakiwiwi, Felix Kiruthu, Wanjiru Gichuhi, Eunice Wanjoya and Francis Kanyoni were a source of encouragement in many ways. Three of my former lecturers, Agnes Musyoki, Michael Darkoh and Celia Nyamweru, always show an interest in my writing for which I am most grateful. Josephat Juma has read several drafts of this work and given feedback. Emmanuel Gitau and his wife arranged and accompanied me to my interview with Gitu wa Kahengeri.

I am also heavily indebted to my family. They were always available to cheer me up when I was in doubt, exhausted and wondering whether I could complete a chapter. Mungai, Josephine and Shiru Kamiti responded to my emails and telephone calls with encouragement. Jane Wairimu and her family were always ready to run my errands and manage my affairs. Lydia Wairimu and Anastacia Gatherero, together with their families, supported me immensely. Josephine Muthoni and her family also provided useful support. My mother constantly reminded me to take care of my health and viii

Acknowledgements avoid sitting for long hours. My father always encouraged me to do my best and accept the fact that things will not always work in my favour. My brothers and their families are always a source of support. I am also grateful to Dr Pius Kigamwa for listening to my stories and reminding me to set realistic goals. My daughter Mercy Nyambura supported me in more ways than I can say.

The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) offered me two writing residencies. During the first, I wrote two chapters and presented some of my work at a seminar during which I received helpful comments from others. The second residency was unfortunately cut short due to personal circumstances. My thanks to Simon Bekker as well as Sandra and Maria Mouton, who offered me their friendship during my time at STIAS. I am also grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center for a month-long resident fellowship during which I wrote the concluding chapter and presented my work to other fellows who also made useful comments. The fellowships at STIAS and the Bellagio Center gave me the support and inspiration to really focus on writing.

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Preface

I wrote this book to try to resolve some of the contradictions I have experienced as a student, a practitioner and also a subject of economic informality, urbanisation and development. As a student of development in the 1980s and 1990s, I was exposed to Karl Polanyi’s idea that development involves a ‘great transformation’ of social, cultural and economic ways of life, and that this is brought about through the establishment of self-regulating markets, the entrenchment of a money culture and the adoption of a new religion and formal education. Apparently, in Africa, the first steps towards this transformation were taken during the colonial period and further progress is being made by postcolonial states via the neoliberal policies they have since adopted.

I also learned that African culture presents certain obstacles to this transformation process. Punitive attitudes towards gender apparently prevent women from participating fully in economic activities while the fact that individualism and competition are generally discouraged supposedly suppresses entrepreneurship and innovation. So, to benefit from the great transformation, Africans are often advised to adopt the individualist mindset that will allow them to embrace economic competition, self-regulating markets, as well as new farming methods.

In the early 1990s, while reading for my doctorate at the

Preface

University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, I realised that some of the prescriptions geared towards spurring economic growth in Africa — such as those directed at peasant farmers growing coffee in my village — were, in fact, perpetuating complex systems of exploitation. In 1997, in a bid to own a home in Nairobi, I began constructing a house in Kahawa Sukari on the outskirts of the city. This entailed hiring and sourcing materials from traders and artisans in the informal economy.

My transition from being a researcher on economic informality to being a consumer and participant in the informal economy gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of the complexities and intricacies of this world. My perception of traders and artisans as hapless individuals, lacking in capital and entrepreneurial skills, changed completely. I soon saw them as people who knew their business well and commanded strong networks. They shared their business experiences with me in ways that they would not have done had I been a mere researcher. Their stories helped me to begin to conceptualise economic informality as an alternative business model and led me to research and write about this as I have done over the past several years.

Since independence, Kenyas postcolonial governments have tried to play ‘catch-up’ by creating policies and institutions similar to those behind economic and development planning in Europe, North America and East Asia. In other words, the Kenyan government has been trying to replicate the great transformation that took place in Europe in the 19th century, which involved the establishment of so-called self-regulating markets and the growth of large corporations. Of course, such transformation has remained elusive in Africa, and Kenya is no exception. In my view, part of the reason why transformation has failed is because interventions by the state and corporations have either ignored the economic role and contribution of indigenous traders and artisans (who have accumulated capital and developed their own methods of doing business) or demanded that these groups abandon their own business strategies and adopt those acceptable to self-regulating markets instead. Traders and artisans have consistently resisted this.

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In the Kenyan context, one of the earliest forms of resistance to the great transformation was expressed in one of my paternal grandmother's favourite songs, Mbia ciokire (When money was introduced). The song decries the ways in which money alienates people from their humanity and undermines the values of solidarity, caring and nurturing in families, affecting relations between husbands and wives, mothers and sons. The song reflects the fact that prior to the colonial invasion, African communities placed the values of humanity and solidarity at the centre of production and exchange. These values served as the basis for mutual generosity and reciprocity. In contemporary Kenya, a similar view is expressed in another song, Shilingi yaua tena maua (A shilling is a beautiful flower but it kills), which challenges the entrenchment of neoliberalism, which values wealth above all.

Although resistance to the veneration of money is well-enough embedded in local culture that songs are regularly composed about it, this is seldom mentioned in analyses of African economies. Nevertheless, many Africans have resisted the great transformation. Rotating credit or savings associations such as susu in West Africa, chama in Kenya and stokvels in South Africa are one example of this resistance. Another key example, that is explored and examined in depth in this book is the efforts of traders and artisans to sustain the institution of African markets.

Despite enduring more than a century of disruption, first by colonial conquest and now by globalisation, African markets persist as complex and autonomous communities of exchange and production. They are spaces in which communities harness their agency to sustain and renew a network of households, some of which traverse the urban-—rural divide, and which rely on flows of skills and resources that are largely independent of the formal economy.

Another popular song, Mucibi wa marigiti (The market belt), depicts markets in Nairobi as spaces in which traders have the power to survive and then thrive. In the song, the composer pays tribute to his mother who, by trading at the market, raises enough money to educate her son. He later acquires a job and reciprocates by building her a house. The composer acknowledges he was xii

Preface once ashamed that his mother was not more affluent but now can appreciate how much his own success relied on what she was able to achieve as a trader. The song substantiates the notion that African markets empower people to harness their agency to perform the dual roles of economic production and domestic reproduction. In this process, the markets sustain traders’ sense of their own power as well as that of their families and communities. The tightening of the market belt can be seen as symbolic of a business model that entails resilience, hope, education, solidarity generosity, and reciprocity.

I call this mode of transaction the utu-ubuntu business model. Utu is a Swahili word meaning ‘humanness’ and ubuntu is a Zulu word for ‘solidarity’. As a philosophy, utu-ubuntu serves many purposes in the social and economic realms of many communities in Africa. It rests on the principle that all human beings are interconnected and interdependent. It refutes and resists Western culture’s exaltation of individualism and its veneration of wealth and technology as solutions to human problems. Instead, it affirms African culture by advocating and perpetuating the values of communality and reciprocity. For this reason, utu-ubuntu has been described as offering a workable model for restoring social and economic justice (Tutu 1999).

Asa business model, utu-ubuntu acknowledges that all economic transactions are embedded in social relations. From this perspective, the main purpose of doing business is to build and sustain the autonomous and self-regulating networks that one belongs to. For example, traders and artisans in Nairobi share operational costs related to transport, security and space. They also share their knowledge through exchanging stories about their experiences. ‘They engage in a kind of ‘crowd-funding’ — pooling their income to pay for capital investments or social insurance. Most of this activity is based on principles of reciprocity and sharing that weave individuals into a net of shared personal, social and religious ties. The model is inclusive and seldom leaves traders in debt.

Using this utu-ubuntu model to understand the activities of traders and artisans, I explore how, despite being consistently xiii excluded and disadvantaged, they have shaped urban spaces in and around Nairobi and contributed to the development of the city as a whole. With immense resilience, and without discarding their own socio-cultural or economic values, they have formed a territorial complex that I refer to as the African metropolis.

For me, the term ‘African metropolis’ refers to those parts of many African cities that have been established on the basis of African logic and according to the norms of self-sufficiency and selfdetermination. In these areas, places have African names, the work of traders and artisans is often the dominant mode of production, and individuals are closely connected to their neighbours and to the broader community via a range of kinship and other ties. In (villages), and they are substantially different to Nairobi’s more affluent neighbourhoods (which bear English names), such as Westlands, Parklands and Lavington. In my view, if this utu-ubuntu way of doing business were to be mainstreamed and used to inform national economic and urban planning, inclusive and sustainable urban development might stand a chance. I therefore conclude the book with a brief discussion of how such villages could be enhanced and extended.

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Chapter 1

Traders and artisans are a popular feature of Africa’s city streets and marketplaces. To an outsider, they may appear haphazard and constantly changing. However, sustained observation quickly reveals that this impression is far from valid, and prompts many questions. What motivates traders and artisans to go into business? How do they relate to one another? Why do they congregate? How do they handle conflict? Do they make a profit? How do they spend their earnings? How is the market managed? Which transactions are carried out openly and which are private? Do traders have any collective power and, if so, how do they use it? What philosophies, ideologies and social formations prevail in the marketplaces?

Scholarly works on African markets by Grabski (2012), Harris (2014) and Ikioda (2013) offer diverse responses to some of these questions. Grabski describes African markets as spaces of creativity. Her study of Colobane Market in Dakar, Senegal, demonstrates how the market has affected the artistic imaginary of local artists. Ikioda describes markets in Lagos as communities of practice that create employment, prompt income generation and act as spaces that connect the rural and urban areas. Harris, however, describes markets as messy ‘agglomeration economies’ characterised by intense competition that jeopardises innovation and growth.

In this book, I traverse these perspectives and try to describe:

i) the nature of past and present social formations that have influenced marketplaces in Nairobi; ii) the logics and philosophies that underpinned and influenced their formation and which continue to do so; iii) the relationships between traders and artisans, including how they share knowledge and how rules and regulations are formed; and iv) how markets have shaped the city by attracting and sustaining a labour pool and via traders’ investment of their surplus income.

I show that the transactions, practices and notions of business that predominate in African markets intimate the presence of humanistic values, such as solidarity, humanity, endurance, trust and sharing. The textbook model of business, as necessarily involving aggression, competition, secrecy and self-individuation, does not seem to apply here. To survive, traders and artisans have evolved a business model that operates on the basis of humanity and solidarity, and that helps them harness their own agency through the sharing of experience and through self-regulation. This model assumes that business transactions between individuals are embedded in both a sense of community and an awareness of the divine. The utu-ubuntu approach holds that the main reason for the accumulation and deployment of surplus is to help families and communities to thrive. As a result, the markets sustain autonomous communities that have the resources to advance their own interests in ways that have shaped the evolution and sprawl of the metropolis itself.

For some, the idealistic and moralistic undertones inherent in the term ‘utu-ubuntu’ might be controversial. In the late 1960s, then-president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere attempted to promote the philosophy of utu through the policy of ujamaa but failed. The failure was occasioned by ujamaa’s association with socialism in the context of the Cold War. Nevertheless, utu remains at the heart of the organisation and distribution of resources in most African communities. Similarly, the Marikana massacre and the shockingly inadequate services often delivered by many of South Africas government departments have made the reality of ubuntu in that country highly questionable. Yet, the notion remains one that many South Africans hold dear and try to live up to.

While civil conflict, poor governance and state corruption challenge the usefulness of utu-ubuntu as a development strategy in Africa, these factors are, in my view, symptomatic less of the failure of utu-ubuntu and more of the unwillingness of African elites to embrace the values on which utu and ubuntu are based. The values of utu-ubuntu do not assume or suggest that African societies or communities are, or ever were, conflict free. The Rwandan genocide alone is sufficient proof of this. However, it can be argued that, by rejecting the values of sharing, community service, care, respect, honesty and trustworthiness, the African elite are entrenching bad governance and corruption, and ultimately fuelling conflict. Certainly, few members of the elite seem to have been socialised into the philosophy of utu-ubuntu. They appear ignorant of the benefits of connecting with ordinary people, of sharing resources, of resilience and the benefits of harnessing their agency for the good of others.

The role of traders and artisans in the evolution of cities tends to be disregarded and discounted by academics and policy-makers. Studied under the rubric of the informal sector, traders and artisans are perceived as barely subsisting in precarious conditions. According to Ferguson (2013: 231), ‘what goes on in the (misleadingly named) “informal economy’ is less about producing goods and services than it is about finding opportunities for...“distributive labour”. For such scholars, the existence of traders and artisans is evidence that African economies have failed to achieve what European historian and political economist Karl Polanyi (1944) famously describes as the great transformation that happened in Europe in the 19th century and more recently in East Asia with the rise of the market economy.

According to Polanyi, the changes that occurred in Europe, and which formed the foundation of today’s global economies, entailed the displacement and dislocation of peasants and artisans by firms and corporations. This gave rise to large-scale urbanisation, the emergence of a money culture and the so-called self-regulating market, which, in turn, generated a footloose labour force that is vulnerable to exploitation by large corporations.

In most of Africa, this kind of transformation has not occurred. Why most African countries failed to undergo a great transformation in the 19th century, or to embrace the economics of flexible specialisation in the 20th century, remain questions for some. As Mitra et al. (2017) observe, postcolonial capitalism is overwhelmingly dominated by informality. Peasants, artisans and traders dominate the economic landscape and accumulation occurs in non-conventional spaces, such as households, where enterprising and self-sufficient communities are nurtured. Added to this, a consistently negative discourse has left traders and artisans excluded from calculations of gross domestic product, from national statistics on employment and from allocations of state resources.

Despite neglect and exclusion from the dominant economic paradigm, traders and artisans epitomise resilience and resist domination as they endeavour to engage in business and earn a living. Their resilience is reflected in their ability to stay afloat in environments characterised by local and multinational corporate competition, and in which the political and economic elites use their influence to favour foreign direct investment via subsidies and policy biases. Their resistance is reflected in their efforts to preserve African logic, values and norms in their business practices. As Ndi (2007) observes, a major marker of postcolonial African cities was the emergence of what are often termed ‘informal economies’. In effect, informal economies are alternative modes of production, based on indigenous traditions, practices and notions of place. In many African cities, they have prevented the imperial idea of metropolitan areas (as shaped and dominated by corporate capitalism) from taking root (Ndi 2007).

Many have tried to analyse what makes freedom, autonomy and independence thrive. Classical urban theory, in both its liberal and Marxian forms, tends to view cities as spaces in which human freedom, autonomy and independent agency should prevail (see Lefebvre 1974/1991; Parker 2004; Simmel 1903/2002). Similarly, Scott (2011) suggests that by combining individual enterprise with free-market forces, industrial capitalism has been the magic wand behind the evolution of cities in Europe and North America. From this perspective, Africa is the only continent on which industrial capitalism has not been a motive force for urbanisation. As a result, African urbanisation is often classified as dysfunctional and seen as plagued by a dearth of formal economic activity. African cities are described as ‘stragglers or failures’ (Bekker & Fourchard 2013: 1). Yet, while some hope that Africa might provide yet another frontier for the growth of urban-based industrial capitalism (see Giugale 2014 for example), industrial capital is, in fact, in deep crisis as a result of environmental pillage and climate change.

In fact, traders, artisans and economic informality operating outside of the dominant modern economic paradigm continue to prevail in African cities. According to an International Labour Organization (ILO) report, titled Women and Men in the Informal Economy (ILO 2002), approximately 70% of people living in African cities work in the informal sector. A report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS 2014) notes that two-thirds of Nairobi’s three million inhabitants were employed in the informal sector, and that this sector was the largest creator of jobs nationally.

Can traders and artisans serve as alternative drivers for urban development? In my view, these groups have always been a major factor in the emergence and spatial development of many African cities. They have accomplished this using their utu-ubuntu business model, achieving very different results from those produced by factory floors, Fordist firms and the post-Fordist information economies that have shaped urbanisation in Europe, North America and East Asia.

I address four main questions in this book: i) Do African traders and artisans have a business model? ii) What contributes to the resilience of traders and artisans in African cities? iii) How have traders and artisans shaped the evolution of Africa’s cities? iv) Could the acknowledgement, acceptance and expansion of traders’ and of artisans’ business models have a positive impact on their livelihoods, and on the evolution of safer and healthier African cities in which resources are more equitably allocated?

Why am I concerned with what traders and artisans in marketplaces have to offer to Africa’s cities in this digital age, when the African middle class is growing and massive shopping malls are springing up like invasive alien vegetation? The answer is partly that many urban dwellers in Africa have yet to feel the impact of the great transformation through either their educational or work experience. In Nairobi, for example, few of the city’s more than two million traders and artisans are fully literate (Kinyanjui 2014). Yet, the marketplaces are key to the distribution of goods and services in the city, and a major source of employment. ‘They also form the bedrock of autonomous communities that function on the basis of learning, self-regulation and surplus deployment. The majority of women and recent migrants in Nairobi derive their livelihoods from marketplaces, and a large percentage of people living in the more affluent suburbs, in the villages on the urban peripheries, and in the rural areas, retain close links with traders and artisans in the city.

The African Development Bank observed that ‘from 1960 to 2011, the urban share of Africa’s population rose from 19-39% — equivalent to just above 416 million people in 2011’ (African Development Bank 2014: 7). The cities of Dar es Salaam and Kinshasa are among the fastest growing in the world, and the bank predicted that by 2014 half of Africa’s population would live in cities. This rate of urbanisation requires creative, sustainable, innovative and inclusive development. In my view, promoting the activities and sphere of influence of traders and artisans in indigenous African markets is among the most creative and wideranging solutions to this massive challenge.

Development planning discourse has largely ignored African indigenous markets. Considered archaic and irrelevant to contemporary development planning (Ikioda 2013), these markets are seen as spaces of disorder (Meagher 2007) and ‘uncreative destruction’ that are slow in absorbing technological innovation (Harris 2014; McCormick 1999; Schimdtz & Nadvi 1999). Viewed within the paradigm of economic informality, informal markets are depicted as part of a residual sector that remains unarticulated with large capital (Bromley 1978; Moser 1978), as harbouring criminal or illegal activities (De Soto 1989), and as ineffective in providing for the welfare of their participants (ILO 2000). Perceived in these ways, it is not surprising that the promotion and expansion of such markets is seldom encouraged. Indeed, a host of global bodies, such as the ILO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, see themselves as helping to rescue people who they consider ‘trapped’ in the informal sector.

In this context, it is important to affirm that traders and artisans are, in fact, part of organised and autonomous communities that have helped harness human agency for urbanisation in countless situations. Indeed, having survived continual marginalisation and exclusion imposed by colonialism, postcolonialism and neoliberalism, markets deserve recognition as offering a legitimate and resilient model for sound urban development.

In Nairobi, traders and artisans were relegated to the margins when they were designated as hawkers under the Metropolitan Act of 1928. When Kenya achieved independence in the mid- 1960s, traders and artisans enjoyed a brief reprieve as the city’s first African mayor, Charles Rubia, allocated them spaces in which to work. Contemporary Nairobi has 45 marketplaces designated by the city administration to house traders and artisans. Nevertheless, these remain a focus of controversy and are often threatened with demolition (Robertson 1993). They have been utterly neglected by urban planners as viable means of supporting urbanisation (Kinyanjui 2014).

The humanist solidarity promoted by the utu-ubuntu model creates possibilities for equitable (and therefore sustainable) urban development precisely because the model has evolved with so little formal support and so few resources. Nevertheless, it has enabled traders and artisans to harness their agency and claim the dignity, freedom and independence to operate in hostile and repressive urban spaces. This is why the business model should be seriously considered as offering an alternative model of urbanisation.

In some ways, the markets hark back to the traditional societies that Diamond (2012) suggests might offer solutions in today’s troubled world. As Diamond (2012: 32-33) observes:

Traditional societies represent thousands of millennia-long natural experiments in organizing human lives. We cannot repeat those experiments by redesigning thousands of societies today in order to wait decades and observe the outcomes; we have to learn from the societies that already ran the experiments.

African traders and artisans offer working examples of how sharing resources and working in solidarity can help individuals and communities to maintain their dignity, independence and freedom in a context of scarce resources. The values that they live and work by act to continually build and cement the family, friendship and ethnic ties. These ties create resilient and autonomous communities that learn from their experiences and follow rules about production and exchange. They generate surpluses which they use to build themselves and their communities. In other words, trader and artisan communities serve as nests for building agency, for evolving and sharing business skills, self-regulation strategies, technical innovations and wealth creation.

As an evolving city, Nairobi exhibits both global and local spatial and cultural forms as well as different business logics, values and norms. Global cultural forms are reflected in the business ethics of multinational corporations and elite African businesses. Socially and culturally, cathedrals, temples, churches, mosques, fitness centres and sports complexes, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and charity organisations reflect the impact of globalisation in the city — an impact that is mirrored in high-rise buildings, shopping malls, gated communities, highways and superhighways.

My focus is on the spatial and cultural forms that I see as constituting the African metropolis. Spatially, the African metropolis is manifested in Nairobi’s indigenous markets in urbanised villages (such as Kikuyu, Riruta, Dagoretti, Kangemi, Kabete, Kinoo and Uthiru) and in mwananchi (citizen-developed spaces) such as Githurai, Wendani, Kasarani, Mwiki, Zimmermann, Ngumba and Kahawa. Most of the urbanised villages existed long before colonialism, while the mwananchi are part of a phenomenon that began in the late 1970s, intensified in the late 1990s and persisted into the first two decades of the new millennium. They are places where individuals obtain serviced plots and build their own homes. ‘These areas are characterised by a variety of different coloured, shaped and sized structures and the use of a wide range of building materials.