Nairobi

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Carrier
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Cold Water ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Current Form ◽  
International Media ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
Provincial Capital ◽  
A Site ◽  
Nairobi National Park

Nairobi is one of the largest metropolises of Africa, with a current population of almost four million, and much larger with the wider metropolitan area taken into account. Its great contemporary size is hard to reconcile with its humble origins over a century ago as a campsite on a marshy plain, formed when building the Uganda Railway in the 1890s. This campsite grew quickly as a railway depot, taking its name from the Maasai enkare Nairobi, meaning “place of cold water,” and it was soon chosen as a provincial capital. It became a municipality in 1919, then designated a city in 1950. Despite initially being planned as a European town, Nairobi soon became highly cosmopolitan, with a large Indian population, many Africans from near and far, and others from as far afield as Somaliland and the Seychelles. Nairobi’s history is bound up with the wider story of colonial Kenya and East Africa, being a site of many of the tensions and contradictions of colonial rule, and this past still influences its current form. However, since Independence the city has grown into a vibrant political, commercial, touristic, artistic, and academic hub of East Africa. It hosts many international media and humanitarian organizations, as well as various branches of the United Nations. It is a city of great contrasts, with numerous slum settlements juxtaposed with estates of great wealth, and with its busy and often congested roads and streets contrasting with the nearby Nairobi National Park. Like many other cities in Africa, Nairobi faces great challenges in an era of rapid urbanization, and much of the academic literature reflects this, with work focusing on topics such as failing infrastructure, corruption, and violence. However, it is also a place where challenges are overcome, where much innovation takes place, and where many see brighter futures for themselves. In short, it is a compelling city that speaks to many of the ambiguities of contemporary urban life, and one deeply fascinating to scholars from a range of disciplines interested in urbanization in the 21st Century.

scholarly journals Large-Scale Road Network Congestion Pattern Analysis and Prediction Using Deep Convolutional Autoencoder

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5108
Author(s):  
Navin Ranjan ◽  
Sovit Bhandari ◽  
Pervez Khan ◽  
Youn-Sik Hong ◽  
Hoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Road Network ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Image Data ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Prediction Algorithm ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Convolutional Autoencoder

The transportation system, especially the road network, is the backbone of any modern economy. However, with rapid urbanization, the congestion level has surged drastically, causing a direct effect on the quality of urban life, the environment, and the economy. In this paper, we propose (i) an inexpensive and efficient Traffic Congestion Pattern Analysis algorithm based on Image Processing, which identifies the group of roads in a network that suffers from reoccurring congestion; (ii) deep neural network architecture, formed from Convolutional Autoencoder, which learns both spatial and temporal relationships from the sequence of image data to predict the city-wide grid congestion index. Our experiment shows that both algorithms are efficient because the pattern analysis is based on the basic operations of arithmetic, whereas the prediction algorithm outperforms two other deep neural networks (Convolutional Recurrent Autoencoder and ConvLSTM) in terms of large-scale traffic network prediction performance. A case study was conducted on the dataset from Seoul city.

Accidental communities: Chance operations in urban life and field research

Ethnography ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Urban India ◽  
Social Visibility ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City

This article explores themes of chance and contingency in relation to field research I carried out in a network of outdoor newspaper libraries in Pune, India. Appearing amid the city’s transformation into a major regional hub linking western Maharashtra into the global economy, the vernacular institution of the footpath library emerges as a lens for bringing a range of issues related to social change in urban India into clearer focus. I show that the street library is not just a quiet place to sit and read but a site of social visibility and cultural assertion for Marathi-speaking migrants in the city.

scholarly journals E-scaping apartheid: Digital ventures of Zionist settler colonialism

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277862110557
Author(s):  
Ivana Bevilacqua
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Massive Data ◽  
Data Traffic ◽  
International Media ◽  
Terra Nullius ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
A Site ◽  
Geospatial Mapping

The ongoing “Intifada of Unity” against Israel's settler colonialism has resuscitated discussions about the liberatory potential of digital emancipation due to the massive data traffic circulation through its international media coverage. In fact, in a process that has intensified since the outbreak of the global pandemic at the very least, social media platforms and geospatial mapping tools have been subverted from more mundane uses, developing into new forums for organizing, imagining, and practicing more just futures. Yet, the centrality of infrastructure both as a means of digital extractivism and as a site for rupture and resistance demonstrates that the path toward new trajectories of e-scaping cannot be conceived as a virtual venture directed at designing alternative volatile geographies alone, but should always involve facing and challenging power in its everyday forms. By investigating the materiality of cyber colonialism, this paper explores the entanglement between imperial cartography and digital map-making which has reduced Palestinians and their space to a pixelated terra nullius, sanitized from the paradigmatic sites of the occupation and overwritten by a pseudo-biblical narrative that aims to legitimize the re-indigenization of the Zionist settlers . At the same time, it unpacks online processes of hyper-visibility through which Palestine suddenly materializes as a signifier for its dangerous nature, yet fragmented and enclaved by an intangible and discretional regime of im/mobility enforced through the neglect of permits and visas, as well as by the material constraints posed by apartheid roads, barriers, checkpoints, gates, and walls. Finally, it retraces the rationality of Israeli violence diluted through the technical means of built environment, infrastructure, machines and algorithms which, on one hand, contributes to the de-development of Palestine and the censorship of its people, and on the other, normalizes Israel’s position in the region due to its perceived technological superiority vis-à-vis its neighboring counterparts.

scholarly journals An Architectural Dialogue with the Eleatic Stranger

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Christian Jacob Squire
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Architectural Form ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Eleatic Stranger ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theory Of Forms

<p>Reports throughout New Zealand have highlighted a chronic and growing problem in our urban centres – the effects of alcohol abuse and binge drinking leave our youth vulnerable and unprotected. The results can sometimes be catastrophic. Makeshift paramedic tents have recently been erected in Wellington to provide aid and retreat, but these are temporary structures and only available two nights per week. The vulnerability of New Zealand’s youth occurs not only on nights with too much alcohol, but also in response to the daily stresses brought on by contemporary urban life. New Zealand youth suicide rates are the highest out of 30 OECD nations and more than twice the OECD average (Chapman). Likewise the secularization of contemporary urban society has resulted in the loss of spiritual retreats previously found within churches and religious centres. This thesis examines the need for a permanent urban retreat for all those who are temporarily vulnerable. The thesis investigates how architectural form can provide a new approach to urban retreat by critically engaging analogous theories found in the writings of Plato and Louis Kahn. Both Plato’s theory of Forms (discussed in Plato’s “Dialogues”) and Louis Kahn’s 1961 essay “Form and Design” are centred on the idea of achieving an enlightened state of mind, freeing the mind from the physical realm. Plato’s theory of Forms posits that the universe is separated into two realms: an intelligible realm and a sensible realm. All objects that exist in the sensible realm – perceivable to us by our senses – are merely imperfect shadows of their essences or Forms. By understanding this, we can free our minds from the distractions of life which so often lead to stress and despair. Plato’s theory of Forms has many parallels with the architectural theory of Louis Kahn, as evidenced in Kahn’s “Form and Design”. Kahn describes the ‘measurable’ and ‘immeasurable’ realms, which are analogous to Plato’s sensible and intelligible realms. This thesis critically engages these analogous theories of Plato and Kahn – achieving an enlightened state of mind, freeing the mind from the physical realm – to establish how architectural form can provide urban retreat for those who are temporarily vulnerable. The site for the design research investigation is the nameless alleyway in the Courtenay Place precinct which separates Wellington’s historic St James Theatre from The Mermaid bar and brothel – a site which symbolizes the conflicting stimuli to which our urban residents are now continually exposed.</p>

scholarly journals Patriarchal Masculinity in Recent Swahili-language Muslim Sermons

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 158-186
Author(s):  
Felicitas Becker
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Recent Discussion ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
Regional History ◽  
A Site ◽  
And Control

This paper offers a close examination of statements on patriarchal masculinity from three widely traded sermon recordings produced in Zanzibar, Tanzania. It sets them in the context of Islamic reform, Muslim political discontent, and the consumption of sermon recordings in East Africa. Despite similar assertions on the need for men to protect and control women, in close reading the three preachers offer quite divergent characterisations of the patriarch’s methods, obligations, and entitlements within the household. The sermons show that Islamic reform in Zanzibar cannot be reduced to political discontent, and that it hearkens back to longstanding regional history. They also suggest that the concept of patriarchy is more relevant to the understanding of asymmetrical gender relations than recent discussion of Western gender relations has allowed, and highlight the centrality of bearing and rearing children as a site for both assertion and failure of patriarchal control. Lastly, they indicate the failure of sermon preachers and listeners to coalesce into a coherent counterpublic.

scholarly journals Connection: an architecture of support

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chung Ngai Nicholas Wong
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Economic Gain ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The World ◽  
Rural Migrant Workers

“We need a base to set down our Being and realize our possibilities (potential). A here from which to discover the world and a there to which we can return to.” (Relph, Edward. Geographical Experiences, Dwelling, Place and Environment, p.27) In China, architecture is currently employed with a focus towards rapid urbanization in the midst of globalization carried out to satisfy abstract economic goals rather than improving livelihood. This thesis asserts that architecture can serve as a support for rural migrants to aid their transition to urban life. The dynamics of urbanization is embodied in the journey of rural migrant workers who travel to cities and struggle with the disparity between rural and urban living. The lack of availability of services for migrant workers hinders them from reaching their potential. Architecture can transcend its role as merely a device for economic gain and stimulate social change. Architecture can serve as catalyst to create this here and there.

scholarly journals Dead Among the Living: Burning Bodies in Inner City Wellington

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Zoe Jaye Moller
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Central Business District ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Business District ◽  
A Site

<p>The architecture of cremation has struggled to embrace an identity; it has remained ambiguous in its architectural typology and religious association since it was first introduced into western society. Additionally, the absence of a ritual place for death in urban life is one manifestation of the contemporary idea that death does not belong in the modern living city. Death is seen as having no place in a society obsessed with youth and vigour; it has become an architectural taboo. The increased reluctance to physically address death as the inevitable consequence to life has resulted in death associated architecture eroding to the point where it has become absent in our everyday lives.   With the expansion of Wellington during the 1800’s, cemeteries formerly on the outskirts (Mount and Bolton Streets) became engulfed by the sprawling city. Overflowing with corpses by the 1900’s, these sites now remain dormant, eliminating any opportunity for the public to ‘see’ death daily. Situating a crematorium within a Wellington urban context will not only address this issue, but also successfully meet the demand for more burial spaces, as Makara Cemetery is nearing capacity, and Karori Cemetery is already full. A site located in the ‘dead centre’ of Wellington’s central business district becomes the testing ground for a new urban crematorium – one that aims to reduce the anxiety around death by inclusion of it within people’s everyday lives. It aims to provide mourners with a more meaningful experience, and the general public a cosmopolitan necropolis. The presence of an urban crematorium and columbarium provides continual opportunities for people to reflect on their own mortality, honour and remember the dead, and be reminded to live while they can.   A methodological approach of testing architectural sequences in relation to pattern language theory will allow for a thematic progression for mourners from sorrow to acceptance through the use of light, shadow, and sectional arrangements. This investigation into the meaningfulness of relationships between people and buildings, life and death, translates into spaces ready to be further invested with meaning by mourners.</p>

scholarly journals Post-flânerie: How do mobile devices shape the experience of the city?

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 01005
Author(s):  
Gorsev Argin ◽  
Burak Pak ◽  
Handan Turkoglu
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Mutual Relationship ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

In the last decade, the advances in mobile technologies and location-based applications reshaped our mutual relationship with the urban environment. These technologies, as both a mean and barrier to the engagement between humans and their environment, have transformed the urban experience in profound ways. Urban experience is a relatively new concept introduced with the rise of modern cities in the nineteenth century. Its loss due to the rapid urbanization has been a subject of debate since then. Among the discussions that take place in this debate, the figure of ‘flâneur’ plays an extensive role. The flâneur is a figure who wanders through and appropriates the metropolitan city in pursuit of urban experience and reaps aesthetic meaning from the spectacle of the teeming crowds. Flânerie, or the act of wandering, and its implications for our understanding of urban life have been profound. Today, mobile technologies create a new kind of urban wanderer which is described as “post-flâneur”. In this paper, by examining the altering concept of flânerie, we discuss the effects of mobile technologies on urban experience. Based on an informed study of a wide range of theories, we make reflections on the impact of mobile devices on the mutual relationship between humans and their environment, introduce key concepts for understanding the emergent phenomenon of post-flânerie and elaborate on its interconnections with the phenomena of cyber and hybrid-flânerie.

How can CDA unravel power relations in media representations of conflict in the Middle East?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 584-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samia Bazzi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
International Media ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Media ◽  
A Site

Abstract This study attempts to show the role of translation in giving meaning to conflicts whether by reproducing the dominant political beliefs of a particular media society or by resisting counter-ideologies that come from foreign sources of information. It utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis as an effective method for the analysis of power relations behind news reporting. The research uses a corpus from international media and their equivalent texts into Arabic between 2013 and 2017. The data covers events on conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, each article reporting issues about conflict and its impact on arenas of struggle. Through this case study of transediting, I will explore how textual analysis can unravel power relations and hegemonic orders of discourse. The study shows that translation is a site of conflict and has much to say about reasons for conflict and the complex relationship between language and power. The proposed tools of analysis in this study are based on functional language analysis and will show how language structuring, in particular transitivity analysis, articulates the logic created by the media outlet regarding reasons for conflict. The case study concludes that different media structure the current wars in the Middle East in different chains of causal dependence that can impact the reading positions of the readers.

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