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The increased presence of Somalis has brought much change to East African towns and cities in recent decades, change that has met with ambivalence and suspicion, especially within Kenya. This volume demystifies Somali residence and mobility in urban East Africa, showing its historical depth, and exploring the social, cultural and political underpinnings of Somali-led urban transformation. In so doing, it offers a vivid case study of the transformative power of (forced) migration on urban centres, and the intertwining of urbanity and mobility. The volume will be of interest for readers working in the broader field of migration, as well as anthropology and urban studies.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
PART I: INTRODUCTIONS Introduction: Mobile Urbanity: Somali Presence in Urban East Africa
Tabea Scharrer and Neil Carrier Interlude: Being and Becoming Mobile
Yusuf Hassan PART II: URBANITY Chapter 1. The Somali Factor in Urban Kenya: A History
Hannah Whittaker Chapter 2. The Port and the Island: Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Identity Constructions among Somali Women in Nairobi and Johannesburg
Nereida Ripero-Muñiz Chapter 3. Being Oromo in Nairobi's 'Little Mogadishu': Superdiversity, Moral Community and the Open Economy
Neil Carrier and Hassan H. Kochore PART III: ECONOMIC NETWORKS Chapter 4. Demanding and Commanding Goods: The Eastleigh Transformation Told through the 'Lives' of Its Commodities
Neil Carrier and Hannah Elliott Chapter 5. Capital Mobilization among the Somali Refugee Business Community in Eastleigh, Nairobi
John Mwangi Githigaro and Kenneth Omeje Chapter 6. Challenging the Status Quo from the Bottom Up? Gender and Enterprise in Somali Migrant Communities in Nairobi, Kenya
Holly A. Ritchie Chapter 7. Reinventing Retail: 'Somali' Shopping Centres in Kenya
Tabea Scharrer PART IV: THE POLITICS OF SOMALI MOBILITY Chapter 8. Perpetually in Transit: Somalian Refugees in a Context of Increasing Hostility
Lucy Lowe and Mark Yarnell Chapter 9. Framing the Swoop: A Comparative Analysis of Operation Usalama Watch in Muslim and Secular Print Media in Kenya
Joseph Wandera and Halkano Abdi Wario Chapter 10. Beyond Eastleigh: A New Little Mogadishu in Uganda?
Gianluca Iazzolino Afterword Günther Schlee Glossary
Index
About the author
Neil Carrier is an Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Bristol. He has worked on a number of themes related to transnational trade and commodities, and to the impact of migration on East Africa. His most recent book is an ethnography of Nairobi’s Eastleigh estate, home to a large proportion of Kenya’s urban Somali population.
Tabea Scharrer is currently working at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Germany), doing research with Somali migrants in Kenyan urban centres and in Europe. She wrote her dissertation on Muslim Missionary Movements and Conversion to Islam at the Free University in Berlin.
