scholarly journals ‘Youth are redrawing the map’: temporalities and terrains of the hustle economy in Mathare, Nairobi

Africa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Thieme
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Livelihood Strategies ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Place Making ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Wealth Redistribution ◽  
The City ◽  
Local Logics ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article examines the temporalities and terrains of the home-grown hustle economy of Mathare, one of the oldest and largest informal settlements in Nairobi. It builds on my previous work mobilizing the notion of ‘hustle’ to ground the narratives of struggle, opportunity and place-making expressed by youth whose livelihood strategies have centred around neighbourhood-based informal waste labour in order to assert claims to their local environment. Drawing on three ethnographic portraits and over a decade of longitudinal ethnographic research, the article shows how hustling connects to and evolves with particular generational and gendered identities, revealing the shifting demands on ‘older’ versus ‘younger’ youth. As everyday lives are mired in constant uncertainty, youth occupy a ‘precarious present’, caught in a state of suspension but also well versed in adapting to adversity and shaping local politics of provisioning in the absence of formal structures of support. The article sheds light on local logics of wealth redistribution among youth who belong to the same neighbourhood but whose claims to particular resources shift over time. The article demonstrates how hustling in Mathare sits at the nexus of agentive economic, environmental, political and social struggles, as youth on the urban periphery manage waste in their neighbourhoods to negotiate their place but also their time in the city.

The Interconnected Legacy of Migration, Drought, and Development in Santarém do Pará

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-455
Author(s):  
Timothy Vilgiate
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Port City ◽  
Economic Success ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Memory And Trauma ◽  
National Discourses ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Abstract During major droughts in 1951–1953 and 1958, families from the rural Northeast of Brazil migrated to Santarém do Pará, a port city on the Lower Amazon. Over time, migrants and their descendants developed a significant presence in commerce and local politics, while retaining a multifaceted and complicated identity rooted in the Northeast. This article considers the formation of North-eastern identity in Santarém through an intergenerational lens, examining the stories about migration told by migrants and their descendants, as well as locals. In the city, narratives about migration from the Northeast and North-eastern identities are shaped in response to local conversations about development, national discourses about regional identity, and by intrafamilial and personal responses to the memory and trauma of drought. For the most part, North-eastern migrants in Santarém have embraced their role in bringing development to the city, seeing their triumph over the circumstances of drought and their economic success in the city as a triumph over the prejudices and disadvantages faced by their ancestors.

Seasonal Variation of Suicide in the City of São Paulo, Brazil, 1996–2010

Crisis ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hideki Bando ◽  
Fernando Madalena Volpe
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Pattern ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Seasonal Patterns ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Health Statistics ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
June July ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Background: In light of the few reports from intertropical latitudes and their conflicting results, we aimed to replicate and update the investigation of seasonal patterns of suicide occurrences in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Methods: Data relating to male and female suicides were extracted from the Mortality Information Enhancement Program (PRO-AIM), the official health statistics of the municipality of São Paulo. Seasonality was assessed by studying distribution of suicides over time using cosinor analyses. Results: There were 6,916 registered suicides (76.7% men), with an average of 39.0 ± 7.0 observed suicides per month. For the total sample and for both sexes, cosinor analysis estimated a significant seasonal pattern. For the total sample and for males suicide peaked in November (late spring) with a trough in May–June (late autumn). For females, the estimated peak occurred in January, and the trough in June–July. Conclusions: A seasonal pattern of suicides was found for both males and females, peaking in spring/summer and dipping in fall/winter. The scarcity of reports from intertropical latitudes warrants promoting more studies in this area.

The Peer Group’s Agency in a Brazilian School

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Cinthia Torres Toledo ◽  
Marília Pinto de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
School Engagement ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Brazilian Literature ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Educational Trajectories ◽  
Schooling Process ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban State

Black working-class boys are the group with the most significant difficulties in their schooling process. In dialogue with Raewyn Connell, we seek to analyze how the collective conceptions of peer groups have influenced the school engagement of Brazilian boys. We conducted an ethnographic research with students around the age of 14 at an urban state school in the periphery of the city of São Paulo. We analyzed the hierarchization process between two groups of boys, demonstrating the existence of a collective notion of masculinity that works against engagement with the school. Well-known to the Anglophone academic literature, this association is rather uncommon in the Brazilian literature. We have therefore attempted to describe and analyze here the challenges faced by Black working-class Brazilian boys to establish more positive educational trajectories.

scholarly journals The prevalence of underweight in 9–10-year-old schoolchildren in Liverpool: 1998–2006

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 953-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne M Boddy ◽  
Allan F Hackett ◽  
Gareth Stratton
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrum ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
The Body ◽  
Fitness Testing ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Substantial Problem ◽  
Prevalence Of Obesity ◽  
Grade 3 ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

AbstractObjectiveTo estimate the prevalence of underweight between 1998 and 2006 in Liverpool schoolchildren aged 9–10 years using recently published underweight cut-off points.Design and settingStature and body mass data collected at the LiverpoolSportsLinx project’s fitness testing sessions were used to calculate BMI.SubjectsData were available on 26 782 (n13 637 boys, 13 145 girls) participants.ResultsOverall underweight declined in boys from 10·3 % in 1998–1999 to 6·9 % in 2005–2006, and all sub-classifications of underweight declined, in particular grade 3 underweight, with the most recent prevalence being 0·1 %. In girls, the prevalence of underweight declined from 10·8 % in 1998–1999 to 7·5 % in 2005–2006. The prevalence of all grades of underweight was higher in girls than in boys. Underweight showed a fluctuating pattern across all grades over time for boys and girls, and overall prevalence in 2005–2006 represents over 200 children across the city.ConclusionsUnderweight may have reduced slightly from baseline, but remains a substantial problem in Liverpool, with the prevalence of overall underweight being relatively similar to the prevalence of obesity. The present study highlights the requirement for policy makers and funders to consider both ends of the body mass spectrum when fixing priorities in child health.

scholarly journals Between field and home: notes from the balcony

2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110205
Author(s):  
Shruti Ragavan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Dairy Farms ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban Village ◽  
The City

Balconies, windows and terraces have come to be identified as spaces with newfound meaning over the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdowns. There was not only a marked increase in the use of these spaces, but more importantly a difference in the very nature of this use since March 2020. It is keeping this latter point in mind, that I make an attempt to understand the spatial mobilities afforded by the balcony in the area of ethnographic research. The street overlooking my balcony, situated amidst an urban village in the city of Delhi – one of my field sites, is composed of middle and lower-middle class residents, dairy farms and farmers, bovines and other nonhumans. In this note, through ethnographic observations, I reflect upon the balcony as constituting that liminal space between ‘field’ and ‘home’, as well as, as a spatial framing device which conditions and affects our observations and interactions. This is explored by examining two elements – the gendered nature of the space, and the notion of ‘distance and proximity’, through personal narratives of engaging-with the field, and subjects-objects of study in the city.

A Tower of Tangled Histories: The Upper Silesia Tower in Poznań and the Making of an Unromantic Poland, 1911–1955

Slavic Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-590
Author(s):  
Patryk Babiracki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Material Structure ◽  
World War ◽  
Upper Silesia ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Engaging with regional, international, and spatial histories, this article proposes a new reading of the twentieth-century Polish past by exploring the vicissitudes of a building known as the Upper Silesia Tower. Renowned German architect Hans Poelzig designed the Tower for the 1911 Ostdeutsche Ausstellung in Posen, an ethnically Polish city under Prussian rule. After Poland regained its independence following World War I, the pavilion, standing centrally on the grounds of Poznań’s International Trade Fair, became the fair's symbol, and over time, also evolved into visual shorthand for the city itself. I argue that the Tower's significance extends beyond Posen/Poznań, however. As an embodiment of the conflicts and contradictions of Polish-German historical entanglements, the building, in its changing forms, also concretized various efforts to redefine the dominant Polish national identity away from Romantic ideals toward values such as order, industriousness, and hard work. I also suggest that eventually, as a material structure harnessed into the service of socialism, the Tower, with its complicated past, also brings into relief questions about the regional dimensions of the clashes over the meaning of modernity during the Cold War.

scholarly journals Spreading of Food Deserts in Time and Space: The Case of the City of Nitra (Slovakia)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7138
Author(s):  
Miroslava Trembošová ◽  
Imrich Jakab
Keyword(s):  
Planning Process ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Food Deserts ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Food Desert ◽  
Hierarchical Level ◽  
Grocery Stores ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
Time Availability ◽  
The City

The aim of the article is to evaluate the time availability of food stores for the population permanently residing in the city of Nitra (Slovakia). Parts of the city where poor accessibility has been identified can be described as “food deserts”. In the last two decades, there have been dramatic changes in the retail network in Nitra, as well as extensive housing construction and an aging change in the demographic structure. Therefore, we evaluated the years 2008 and 2019 separately. This made it possible to evaluate the changes in time availability and the number of inhabitants located in individual zones. During the years 2008–2019, the residential zones of the city of Nitra increased by 43.86%, the area of food desert increased by up to 68.78%, and the number of inhabitants endangered by the food desert increased by 1100 residents, i.e., 23.9%. In 2008, 5.51% of Nitra’s residents lived in the food deserts, in approximately twelve years this percentage increased to 7.45% of the population (2019). The proximity to the nearest grocery was in Nitra in 2008 median 504 m, while in 2019 median 623 m. Evaluating the time availability of grocery stores and identifying so-called “food deserts” can be interesting for both the city’s residents and the business community, especially for potential developers. It can also be used effectively in the spatial planning process and in the rational management of complex territorial development, as well as in local politics. Given the character of the city of Nitra, it can be assumed that the acquired knowledge can be extrapolated to other post-socialist cities of a similar size and hierarchical level.

“What Else Should I Do?” Cultural Influences on the Drug Trade of Migrants in Germany

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 673-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra M. Bucerius
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Young Male ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Drug Dealing ◽  
Frankfurt Am Main ◽  
Distinct Concept ◽  
Purity And Impurity ◽  
Over Time

The article is based on ethnographic research in Frankfurt am Main/Germany with young male migrants who are involved in drug dealing. The aim is to give an account of the mechanisms, values, and self-constructions that influence the dealers, e.g., in their choice of substances dealt, their display of violence, how they neutralize contradicting values, etc. Moreover, changes in the studied milieu that have occurred over time will be examined. Most interesting seems the fact that the subjects' cultural background has a greater impact on their business than economic rationality, the “seductions of crime” or the “search of respect.” Their distinct concept of purity and impurity, honor and dishonor, and their morality regarding the choice of substances seem particularly interesting and influence their behavior in the market.

Narrating The City: spaces Of Urban Change, South London

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
Suzanne M. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Inner City ◽  
The Other ◽  
Urban Change ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The City ◽  
North And South ◽  
Official Data ◽  
Over Time

This paper explores the documentation of social and spatial transformation in the Walworth area, South London. Spatial narratives are the entry point for my exploration, where official and ‘unofficial’ representations of history are aligned to capture the nature of urban change. Looking at the city from street level provides a worldly view of social encounter and spaces that are expressive of how citizens experience and shape the city. A more distanced view of the city accessed from official data reveals different constructs. In overlaying near and far views and data and experience, correlations and contestations emerge. As a method of research, the narrative is the potential palimpsest, incorporating fragments of the immediate and historic without representing a comprehensive whole. In this paper Walworth is documented as a local and Inner City context where remnants and insertions are juxtaposed, where white working class culture and diverse ethnicities experience difference and change. A primary aim is to consider the diverse experiences of groups and individuals over time, through their relationship with their street, neighbourhood and city. In relating the Walworth area to London I use three spatial narratives to articulate the contemporary and historic relationship of people to place: the other side examines the physical discrimination between north and south London, the other half looks at distinctions of class and race and other histories explores the histories displaced from official accounts.

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