Drive the streets of Nairobi and you are sure to see many matatus colorful minibuses that transport huge numbers of people around the city. Once ramshackle affairs held together with duct tape and wire, matatus today are name-brand vehicles maxed out with aftermarket detailing. They can be stately black or come in extravagant colors, sporting names, slogans, or entire tableaus, with airbrushed portraits of everyone from Kanye West to Barack Obama, of athletes, movie stars, or the most famous face of all: Jesus Christ. In this richly interdisciplinary book, Kenda Mutongi explores the history of the matatu from the 1960s to the present. As Mutongi shows, matatus offer a window onto many socioeconomic and political facets of late-twentieth-century Africa. In their diversity of idiosyncratic designs they express multiple and divergent aspects of Kenyan life including rapid urbanization, organized crime, entrepreneurship, social insecurity, the transition to democracy, chaos and congestion, popular culture, and many others at once embodying both Kenya's staggering social problems and the bright promises of its future. Offering a shining model of interdisciplinary analysis, Mutongi mixes historical, ethnographic, literary, linguistic, and economic approaches to tell the story of the matatu as a powerful expression of the entrepreneurial aesthetics of the postcolonial world.

This prize-winning study “takes a unique ethnographic approach to reconstructing the history of Nairobi’s privately owned urban transport” (Martin A. Klein Prize Committee, American Historical Association). Drive the streets of Nairobi, and you are sure to see many matatus—colorful minibuses that transport huge numbers of people around the city. Once ramshackle affairs held together with duct tape, matatus today are name-brand vehicles maxed out with aftermarket detailing. They can be stately black or extravagantly colored, sporting names, slogans, and airbrushed portraits of everyone from Kanye West to Barack Obama. In this richly interdisciplinary book, Kenda Mutongi explores the history of the matatu from the 1960s to the present. As Mutongi shows, matatus offer a window onto the socioeconomic and political conditions of late-twentieth-century Africa. In their diversity of idiosyncratic designs, they reflect divergent aspects of Kenyan life—from rapid urbanization and the transition to democracy to organized crime, entrepreneurship, social insecurity, and popular culture. Offering a shining model of interdisciplinary analysis, Mutongi mixes historical, ethnographic, literary, linguistic, and economic approaches to tell the story of the matatu and explore the entrepreneurial aesthetics of the postcolonial world.

Metropolises often evoke images of flashy high-rise buildings, permanent background noise, backed-up cars and people moving quickly in all directions in their masses. New York, Tokyo, London, Sao Paulo. But what about Cairo?

Out of the first series of public lectures titled (Re)membering Kenya organised by the Volume editors together with Twaweza Communications and supported by the Goethe Institut Kenya, The Ford Foundation and the Institute for International Education, and whose key outcome was the publication of Remembering Kenya Vol.1 (2010) grew a second round of lecture series. The second series took cognisance of the fact that the problems that bedevil Kenya as a nation go far beyond questions of culture and identity that Volume 1 dealt with. Thus, the second presentations revolved mainly around issues of economics, governance and power. The awareness of the role and/or lack of equity and social justice in causing Kenya's persistent problems informed all these presentations. Issues of how to bring marginalised groups into the mainstream were discussed. This Volume, in part, arises from the second presentations. The authors of chapters attempt to provide answers to the question: what entails (re)membering in post-conflict Kenya? From their work, it is clear that there is a lot to (re)member in Kenya, and many ways in which to reconfigure project Kenya. (Re)membering is re-thinking and reorganising our ways of doing things. It entails a juggling of priorities; between peace and reconciliation, peace and justice, and seeking justice and reconciliation without undermining peace, all of which are arduous exercises. Reconciling misconceptions about places, issues and people is part of this reconstitution too. New pathways require being embraced, past mistakes (individual and collective) acknowledged and giving earnest meaning to the vow 'never again!' Yet, as observed in this Volume, Kenyans must be vigilant against individuals and groups that have often resisted change. There are also material constraints to the achievement of the various economic activities that come with reconfiguring the Kenyan nation. Worse still there exist certain cultural underpinnings that continue to have a debilitating effect on efforts to forge a sustainable peace after conflict. These aspects require deep reflection and honest work. In part, the contributors to this Volume suggest how it can be done. There is a hint in these chapters that we need to find new organizing spaces and principles on which a 'new' Kenya can move forward. Equally, debating the very meanings of social justice and reconciliation against the background of potential conflict should be a project of this endeavor. Questioning and identifying where impunity begun is key to this process. In doing so, we begin liberating ourselves from Kenyan society's deep-rooted impunity. (Re)membering Kenya, after all, calls for a reconstruction of 'the journey to the conflict' in order to find the right balance between the right of remembrance and the duty of forgetfulness.

Social Issues in Transport Planning, Volume 8 in the Advances in Transport Policy and Planning series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters. Each chapter is written by an international board of authors. Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors Presents the latest release in the Advances in Transport Policy and Planning series

This collection of field-based case-studies examines the role and contributions of Africa’s informal public transport (also referred to as paratransit) to the production of city forms and urban economies, as well as the voices, experiences, and survival tactics of its poor and stigmatised workforce. With attention to the question of what a micro-level analysis of the organisation and politics of informal public transport in urbanizing Africa might tell us about the precarious existence and agency of its informal workforce, it explores the political and socio-economic conditions of contemporary African cities, spanning from Nairobi and Dar es Salaam to Harare, Cape Town, Kinshasa and Lagos. Mapping, analysing and comparing the everyday experiences of informal transport operators across the continent, this book sheds light on the multiple challenges facing Africa’s informal transport workers today, as they negotiate the contours of city life, expand their horizons of possibility and make the most of their time. It thus offers directions for more effective policy response to urban public transport, which is changing fundamentally and rapidly in light of neoliberal urban planning strategies and ‘World Class’ city ambitions.