'Youth are redrawing the map': Temporalities and terrains of the hustle economy in Mathare, Nairobi

Abstract

This article examines the temporalities and terrains of the home-grown hustle economy of Mathare, one of the oldest and largest informal settlements in Nairobi. It builds on my previous work mobilizing the notion of 'hustle' to ground the narratives of struggle, opportunity and place-making expressed by youth whose livelihood strategies have centred around neighbourhood-based informal waste labour in order to assert claims to their local environment. Drawing on three ethnographic portraits and over a decade of longitudinal ethnographic research, the article shows how hustling connects to and evolves with particular generational and gendered identities, revealing the shifting demands on 'older' versus 'younger' youth. As everyday lives are mired in constant uncertainty, youth occupy a 'precarious present', caught in a state of suspension but also well versed in adapting to adversity and shaping local politics of provisioning in the absence of formal structures of support. The article sheds light on local logics of wealth redistribution among youth who belong to the same neighbourhood but whose claims to particular resources shift over time. The article demonstrates how hustling in Mathare sits at the nexus of agentive economic, environmental, political and social struggles, as youth on the urban periphery manage waste in their neighbourhoods to negotiate their place but also their time in the city.