Inside the System, Outside the Law: Operating the Matatu Sector in Nairobi

Rasmussen, Jacob

doi:10.1007/s12132-012-9171-z

Cited by 43 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…). There is a wide degree of variation in how states regulate paratransit, but it is common for tensions to exist between states and private transportation providers (Rasmussen ; Rizzo ; Tripp ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing three-wheeled motorcycle taxis in urban Ethiopia: States, markets, and moral discourses of infrastructure

Mains

Kinfu

2017

American Ethnologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Taxi drivers in Hawassa, Ethiopia, have come into conflict with government administrators over the strict regulation of their three‐wheeled motorcycle taxis, known as Bajaj. Their conflict with the government is best conceptualized not through a state‐market binary but in relation to competing moral discourses concerning modernity, reciprocity, and the right to a livelihood. Such discourses are mediated by the particular characteristics of the Bajaj, an inexpensive, flexible, and labor‐dependent transportation technology. These discourses have emerged in a context in which urban Ethiopians and their social networks act as the infrastructure that enables cities to function. The encounter between these social networks and vital technologies such as the Bajaj is fundamental to the politics of infrastructure.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing three-wheeled motorcycle taxis in urban Ethiopia: States, markets, and moral discourses of infrastructure

Mains

Kinfu

2017

American Ethnologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Mungiki, meaning 'mass' in the Kikuyu language (Wamue 2001), has been defined as an 'ethnically homogenous Kikuyu group, characterized both by rural religious tenets and urban political activity', but in 2001 they were also responsible for deadly turf wars over control of large portions of Nairobi's matatu sector (Anderson 2002: 538). The group is said to have emerged as followers of the 'Tent of the Living God' religious sect in 1987 (Wamue 2001: 455), but in the 1990s, and for the next decade, they were a common and violent feature of Nairobi's matatu routes as they battled with local neighbourhood groups over control of matatu stops (Rasmussen 2012;Anderson 2002). 13 Many drivers and conductors I interviewed would not even mention the name Mungiki; they simply referred to those individuals involved as 'members' and were very afraid of their wrath.…”

Section: Dangerous Negotiations In the Hustle Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘You will build me’: fiscal disobedience, reciprocity and the dangerous negotiations of redistribution on Nairobi'smatatu

Ference¹

2021

Africa

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Those who populate the productive frontiers of capitalism are often targets of violence by groups and institutions aiming to poach, control and regulate their economic practices. This article draws on years of ethnographic research conducted with informal transport operators in Nairobi who drive, conduct and own the minibus taxis called matatu. In order to navigate the city, this workforce engages in a coordinated but tense economic dance along the dangerous and shifting lines between illegality, work and reciprocity. The article aims to situate the more dangerous and morally ambiguous aspects of the ‘hustle economy’ ethnographically, within the generative and ultimately mobile location of urban transportation infrastructures of the matatu sector. Building on the conceptualizations of social infrastructure of AbdouMaliq Simone and Janet Roitman's study of fiscal disobedience, whereby the legitimacy of regulatory authority is questioned and undermined, matatu workers as infrastructure challenge multiple levels of state and non-state regulation through a variety of practices that blend danger, violence and control with solidarity, reciprocity and redistribution. This article evaluates and analyses distinctive features of ‘hustling’ in Nairobi through the ethnographic lens of matatu transportation operators as they navigate dangerous negotiations with the state, the police and vigilante gangs.

show abstract

“…Harrison's story reveals the unexpected coupling of ride‐sharing and migrant labour in Cape Town. In his plan to move back to Zimbabwe and become an entrepreneur, Uber was a temporary springboard to the minibus business, a usually unregulated system of transportation at work in many African cities (see Rasmussen, ). Against De Soto's understanding (2000), entrepreneurial opportunities may move in the opposite direction, from the formal to the informal.…”

Section: Marginal Gains Of Ride‐sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forefronts of the Sharing Economy: Uber in Cape Town

Pollio¹

2019

Int J Urban Regional Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The sharing economy, often phrased as 'platform capitalism', enables firms such as Uber and Airbnb to monetize, through specific technologies of mediation, the networks, the assets and the precarious labour of those who are described as 'the entrepreneurs of sharing'. This article explores the urban geographies of ride-sharing in the marketization of Uber in Cape Town, South Africa. I use empirical evidence collected during the first phase of its operations in the city, between 2013 and 2015, to show how Uber relied upon the developmental entrepreneurialism of Cape Town to embed its ride-sharing market locally, and how the drivers enacted multiple technical, economic and ethical regimes within and without the constraints of the software platform. The research presented in this article thus contributes to understanding how the discourses of millennial development, with its promises of entrepreneurial empowerment, are adopted by global sharing-economy firms to enact their markets in the global South. It also reveals how a different genealogy of Uber's urban transactions offers an alternative perspective on the normative rationalities of the sharing economy and on the diverse economies that exist in relation to platform capitalism in the global South.

show abstract

Inside the System, Outside the Law: Operating the Matatu Sector in Nairobi

Cited by 43 publications

References 22 publications

Governing three-wheeled motorcycle taxis in urban Ethiopia: States, markets, and moral discourses of infrastructure

Governing three-wheeled motorcycle taxis in urban Ethiopia: States, markets, and moral discourses of infrastructure

‘You will build me’: fiscal disobedience, reciprocity and the dangerous negotiations of redistribution on Nairobi'smatatu

Forefronts of the Sharing Economy: Uber in Cape Town

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About