Mobile Urbanity

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.

“Despite its theoretical understatement, the work develops significant ethnographic insights into the ways in which migrants and cities constantly remake each other in conjunction with the circulation of goods, discourses, and ideas. The volume’s focus on eastern Africa makes it a must-read for regionally focused urbanists. It also raises questions for further research on how eastern Africa’s mobile urbanity might be connecting in new ways to urban lives beyond Africa.” • JRAI“This book is a microcosm of the broader processes that reinforce urban mobilities at the local levels…[It] contributes to a better understanding of these dynamics and reveals the constant state of mobility within urban areas.” • City and Society“This book is a vital resource to Anthropologists, Historians, Tourists, Educators and Students, Economists and Business enthusiasts…Overall, a detailed story of Somali mobile urbanity in East Africa is well written and presented in a readable, scholarly, and entertaining style.” • Ethnic & Racial Studies“This is an important book and one that is sorely needed… it corrects a misperception that Somalis are mainly pastoralists, when in fact they have a long tradition of living in towns and engaging in non-pastoral livelihoods, such as commerce.” • Peter D. Little, Emory University

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsPART I: INTRODUCTIONSIntroduction: Mobile Urbanity: Somali Presence in Urban East AfricaTabea Scharrer and Neil CarrierInterlude: Being and Becoming MobileYusuf HassanPART II: URBANITYChapter 1. The Somali Factor in Urban Kenya: A HistoryHannah WhittakerChapter 2. The Port and the Island: Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Identity Constructions among Somali Women in Nairobi and JohannesburgNereida Ripero-MuñizChapter 3. Being Oromo in Nairobi’s ‘Little Mogadishu’: Superdiversity, Moral Community and the Open EconomyNeil Carrier and Hassan H. KochorePART III: ECONOMIC NETWORKSChapter 4. Demanding and Commanding Goods: The Eastleigh Transformation Told through the ‘Lives’ of Its CommoditiesNeil Carrier and Hannah ElliottChapter 5. Capital Mobilization among the Somali Refugee Business Community in Eastleigh, NairobiJohn Mwangi Githigaro and Kenneth OmejeChapter 6. Challenging the Status Quo from the Bottom Up? Gender and Enterprise in Somali Migrant Communities in Nairobi, KenyaHolly A. RitchieChapter 7. Reinventing Retail: ‘Somali’ Shopping Centres in KenyaTabea ScharrerPART IV: THE POLITICS OF SOMALI MOBILITYChapter 8. Perpetually in Transit: Somalian Refugees in a Context of Increasing HostilityLucy Lowe and Mark YarnellChapter 9. Framing the Swoop: A Comparative Analysis of Operation Usalama Watch in Muslim and Secular Print Media in KenyaJoseph Wandera and Halkano Abdi WarioChapter 10. Beyond Eastleigh: A New Little Mogadishu in Uganda?Gianluca IazzolinoAfterwordGünther SchleeGlossaryIndex