Projects

Street vending in Thika

By Dr Nathan Mwangi and Dr Sylvain Racaud

Negotiating a place in town.

This article shows how, in a precarious and conflictual context, vendors negotiate their place in the city by appropriating streets. Shopping streets are the object of a power struggle between local authorities and vendors who legitimize their presence by relying on national laws. The piling up and discordance of texts characterizes public regulation and an ambiguous institutional framework, with contradictions between local and national texts. This ambiguity generates conflicts, which are also fuelled by discrepancies between texts and daily practices, particularly illustrated by petty corruption. These “informal” shopping streets illustrate the confrontation between two types of legitimacy: those of low-income actors and that of the promoters of a “global” urban modernity. Street vending is a way to build identities, a social life and a sense of belonging in the precarious environment of African cities.

Street vending, daily regulation, conflict, Kenya, Thika