‘Jobless corner campus’: an institutionalised idleness in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article analyses the so-called institutional idleness observed taking place in Kibera, one of the largest informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. The study analyses the notion of idling – a stigmatic term that is internalised by the residents and follows the inhabitants’ reaction to the stigmatisation. Among the internalisation, another form of reaction to the stigmatisation has been identified, characterised by the involvement of the idleness in organisations formed by the residents. Such behaviour has been observed as being accompanied by a certain level of playfulness and irony resulting in what I term institutionalised idleness – a form of non-violent subversive resistance to the authoritative and disciplinary narratives of official institutions of the post-colonial state in Africa. Moreover, the study presents a spatial dimension of institutionalised idleness, allowing the residents of Kibera to secure their informal leisure spaces in the public space of the city, and to therefore challenge the normative thinking about urban living and perceptions of free time. The institutionalised idleness thus represents a strategy providing the inhabitants of informal settlements with wider recognition, however, without losing their safe space within the community.