Migrants and Masculinity in High-Rise Nairobi

Front matter

MARIO SCHMIDT

THE PRESSURE OF BEING A MAN IN AN

AFRICAN CITY

Part 2: Evading Pressure

. Lifting Weights and the Performance of Brotherhood 111 . Masculinity Consultants and the Threat of Men’s Expendability 128

Conclusion: Pipeline to Nowhere 147 Bibliography 154 Index 170

This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Funding Body: The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS 1. Southwestern Kenya. Drawn by Robin von Gestern 13 2. Piny Luo (Dholuo, ‘Luo land’). Drawn by Robin von Gestern 15 3. Pipeline. Drawn by Robin von Gestern 29 4. Nairobi’s east. Drawn by Robin von Gestern 31 FIGURES 1. Milele Flats. Photo: author 10 2. Patrilocal homestead in Kaleko. Photo: author 16

3. One of Pipeline’s many bypasses connecting the estate’s main streets, ensuring that high-rise blocks can be constructed next to each other without wasting space. Photo: author 26 Muddy road in Kware ward. Photo: author 33

Kenya Pipeline Company housing estate next to Outer Ring Road, established at the end of the twentieth century. Photo: author 34

6. Spared mabati structure. Photo: author 35 7. View into one of Pipeline’s main streets. Photo: author 100 8. Campaign posters at a makeshift dumpsite, Kware. Photo: author 106 9. Sign giving direction to the Phenomenal Gym. Cartoonish figure

with emphasized arm, chest and abdominal muscles, the so-called

‘Johnny Bravo look’. Photo: author 118 10. Self-help literature sold in a bookshop in Nairobi’s central

business district. Photo: author 129

The author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listed for permission to reproduce the materials to which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Funding Body: The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Before I started writing Migrants and Masculinity in High-Rise Nairobi: The Pressure of Being a Man in an African City, I had spent more than five years trying to write a book about the struggles of the inhabitants of Kaleko, a small marketplace in Homa Bay County. Progress was slow and revolved around some half-baked ideas that unconvincingly linked the various articles I had written about food, money, and politics. Had I been involved with the place for too long, I asked myself. Was I just lacking that one idea holding together the hundreds of observations made during my visits between 2009 and 2019? I hope that one day I will fulfil my promise to write a book about life in Kaleko. In the meantime, may this one about Pipeline act as its placeholder.

Without Esao Omolo Mwalo, Josphat Mwalo (late), Atanasio Mwalo Mainga (late), Philister Aoko Mainga, Mikal Judith Mwalo (late), Herrytone Onyango, Hemstone Owaga, Corazon Aquino Otieno, Benson Joe Awere, Marion Akinyi Omollo, Patrick Ouma Achila, Judith Osumba, Kevin Mainga, Bill Mainga, Collins Mainga, Herine Otieno, Osborn Otieno, Donna Mainga, and Rose Atieno Omollo, I could have never established the connections I did with the Luo community in Pipeline, Nairobi. Erokamano maduong’.

This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Funding Body: The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Vincent Oluoch, Habshi Hassan (Mnati), Polycarp Kakungu, Barack Okello, Ivar, Jacob Aliet, Chomba Njoka, Stella Mwangi and Leyla, Andrew Thiga Nyambura, Richard Oluoko, as well as all the waitresses in Trace Sahara, Black Rhino, Amazon, Spinners, Oblivion, Emirates, Icon, and the other bars and liquor stores in Nairobi and Pipeline. Special thanks to Diana, who always secured a nice spot for jo-pap.

Beyond two anonymous reviewers, I am indebted to Parker Shipton, Paul Wenzel Geissler, Hadas Weiss, Kai Koddenbrock, Peter Lockwood, Judith Kibuye, Martin Fotta, my colleagues from the University of Cologne (Christoph Lange, Martin Zillinger, Johannes Schick, Phillip Steinkrüger, Anna Krämer, Ole Reichardt, Phillip Grimberg), as well as Clemens Greiner, Michael Bollig, Thomas Widlok, Uroš Kovač, Detlef Müller-Mahn, Léa Lacan, Joachim Knab, Anna Lisa Ramella, and Gideon Tups all of whom I worked with at the Global South Studies Center (University of Cologne) and the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Future Rural Africa’ (University of Bonn and University of Cologne). Particular thanks to my colleagues Eric Kioko, Emmanuel Nshakira Rukundo and Christiane Stephan, with whom I worked on the project ‘Contending with COVID-19 shock in selected African countries: micro-level evidence from Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Namibia’. I am also grateful to my colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Biao Xiang, Andrew Haxby, Ghassan Hage, Christoph Brumann, Samuel Williams, Iain Walker, Jeremy Rayner, Jing Jing Liu, Wanjing Chen), to the members of the ‘Pressure in the city’ research group (Catherine Dolan, Jörg Wiegratz, Elizabeth Dessie, Wangui Kimari), and to those friends and colleagues who read the whole or parts of my manuscript (Laura Emmerling, Bettina Ng’ weno, Elizabeth Saleh, Marie Huchzermeyer, and Isabella Achieng Oluoko). I would also like to thank Sarah Helen Taylor, who copyedited the manuscript prior to its submission, Robin von Gestern, who drew the maps for this book, Jaqueline Mitchell and Megan Milan from James Currey, and Adam Masava, the artist who painted the cover image. My research was funded by the German Research Foundation and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, which also paid for the pre-submission edit and publishing of the book under the terms of the open access Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND, with additional support from the German Research Foundation.

Special thanks go to my friends Franziska Fay, Nadine Junge, Johanna Merbach, and Sebastian Schellhaas, to my family, especially to my father Gerd, with whom I lived during the COVID-19 pandemic (though I would have probably not chosen this voluntarily), and to the round-headed boy who spent a lot of time with me during his first six months on earth (though he too would have probably not chosen it voluntarily). Above all, this book is

This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Funding Body: The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX dedicated to my mother, Ulrike, and my aunt Ingrid, who both passed on while I was visiting my family for Christmas in 2019, and my grandmother Anita, who passed on in the spring of 2021.

This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Funding Body: The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

CBD JKIA KCSE KDF KSh NGO

ABBREVIATIONS

Central Business District

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Kenya Defence Forces

Kenyan Shillings

Non-Governmental Organization

This title is available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Funding Body: The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.