Restructured Citizen–Government Relationship in Kenya's 2010 Constitution and the Right of Hawkers to the City in Nairobi
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Date
2021
Authors
Kimani, Esther Wangui
Gachigua, Sammy Gakero
Kariuki, George Mbugua
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
Abstract
This article interrogates how various actors in the Nairobi Central Business
District (CBD) space have made sense of the 2010 Constitution’s expansive
provisions on socio-political and economic rights to advance hawkers’ claims
to the right to the city. Using Lefebvre’s and human rights notions of the
‘right to the city’, the study finds that the Constitution has immense potential
to secure the hawkers’ right to the city. However, various challenges impede
efforts towards its realisation. Firstly, the 2007 no-hawking-in-the-CBD
bylaw exerts inordinate influence, in practice suppressing the Constitution’s
aspirations. Secondly, the City authorities’ efforts to facilitate the hawkers’
right to the city remain ambivalent or dependent on the whims of the
serving governor. Thirdly, initiatives by other actors remain elitist, topdown and opaque with only the superficial involvement of hawkers. On
their part, hawkers’ initiatives to claim their right to the city have suffered
from fragmented leadership and individualistic self-help micro-strategies.
Furthermore, hawkers have underutilised judicial activism as an avenue
for challenging the constitutionality of the city bylaws banning hawking
in the CBD. This strategy would potentially have provided a discursive
platform to make their claim to the city the moral-legal claim envisaged by
the Constitution
Description
A Research Article in the Africa Development
Keywords
Right to the City, Nairobi, Kenya's 2010 Constitution, Hawkers
Citation
Kimani, E. W., Gachigua, S. G., & Kariuki, G. M. (2021). Restructured Citizen–Government Relationship in Kenya's 2010 Constitution and the Right of Hawkers to the City in Nairobi. Africa Development/Afrique et Développement, 46(1), 117-140.