Paper short abstract:

The argument developed in the paper will explore pressures at two levels – national and personal – to show how the effort to release systemic pressures at the national scale result in pressures surrounding personal and professional lives of community workers.

Paper long abstract:

Kenyan Constitution of 2010 introduced a new set of mechanisms under the umbrella of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) that allows communities to mediate, negotiate, arbitrate and settle minor cases that are petty and non-criminal in their nature. ADR came about in attempt to remove some pressures from already over-burdened Kenyan legal system and facilitate people’s access to justice at the community level. This paper is interested in exploring the gendered labour, depletion and pressures that de-pressuring Kenyan legal system resulted in among Kenyan sex worker paralegals using ADR. The article will draw on data collected in June 2022 when working with sex worker organisations in Nairobi. The argument developed in the paper will explore pressures at two levels – national and personal – to show how the effort to release systemic pressures at the national scale result in pressures surrounding personal and professional lives of community workers. It will do so referring to feminist scholarship on social reproduction, triple burdens of women in communities and depletion to illuminate the gendered dimensions of pressure in today’s Nairobi.