Paper short abstract

The recycling economy of rubble and earth in Nairobi, Kenya interrupts sedimentary processes in the ground and challenges sociocultural dynamics of the city. Materials from wealthy areas are used for flood defences and home improvements in poor areas creating a material proximity between two poles.

Paper long abstract

Nairobi, Kenya is a polarized city. Wealthy business elites, political dynasties and an international community of consultants move in cars and elevators cleaned by those on low incomes living in unofficial settlements, often in riverine locations susceptible to flooding. The entanglement of these economically disparate groups is also bound up with the earth of the city, and surrounding area. When constructing new high-rise buildings in affluent areas, the walls of old bungalows and the earth from excavations enter a recycling economy that sees those materials put to use in flood defences and self-directed housing improvement projects in low-income communities. Periodic government evictions and floods bring down the recycled structures and the enfolding continues - if not into new construction then “waste” earth fills the quarries from which some of it first came. This movement of earth, and rock and sand (in the form of concrete) is altering the stratigraphy of the city.

In this paper I explore how the crises of rapid urbanisation and climate breakdown (manifest here in flooding) are altering Nairobi in new, material ways. I suggest that these are the actions of the Anthropocene, the movement of earth and rubble each time in new configurations, creating a “palimpsestuous landscape” (Ly, 2020). The Anthropocene is marked not a single layer but an ever-changing layering and re-layering of materials. Reading them offers a new perspective on this moment in time.