Colonialism and the Repression of Nairobi African Women Street Traders in the 1940s
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Date
2022-06-30Author
Ngesa, P. O.
Kiruthu, F.
Ndeda, M. J.
Type
ArticleLanguage
en_USMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
By the 1940s, the Municipal Council of Nairobi had enacted a host of By-Laws to
control the presence of Africans, especially women, and had set up several
agencies to implement them. Consequently, women street vendors were not only
denied access to legal trade, but remained unwanted in the town except under very
special circumstances. Nonetheless, pushed by their adversity, a number of them
resorted to illegal hawking and demonstrated their resilience against the odds.
However, as the hawkers’ earnings subsidised the colonial low wage migrant
labour system, it became difficult for the colonial administration in Nairobi to
resolutely stamp out their activities, especially in Eastlands. Besides, by the end of
the 1940s, the Council’s fight against hawking had slackened owing to
unsustainable expenses.
This paper examines the effect of colonial repression of African women street
traders in Nairobi’s Eastlands area in the 1940s. Using the Gender and
Development (GAD) perspective along with data mainly from libraries, archives
and oral sources, it interrogates the women’s attractions to Nairobi and the logic
behind their street trading activities. It also examines the colonial dynamics that
exploited the attitudes and beliefs of African male elders to validate the colonial
government’s gender marginalisation policies against women, particularly the
hawkers. The paper concludes that the gender-based constraints against African
women traders notwithstanding, propelled by need, the women irrepressibly
struggled to find space in the prosperous economy of Nairobi in the 1940s.
URI
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/tp/article/view/230083http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/161447
Citation
Ngesa, P. O., Kiruthu, F., & Ndeda, M. J. (2022). Colonialism and the Repression of Nairobi African Women Street Traders in the 1940s. Thought and Practice, 8(1), 95-123.Publisher
PAK