Paper short abstract:

This article explores how the dense living conditions of Pipeline, a high-rise residential settlement in Nairobi, create gendered forms of pressure and constraint on tenant lives and everyday realities, affecting their social interactions and relationships.

Paper long abstract:

This article explores how the dense living conditions of Pipeline, a high-rise residential settlement in Nairobi, create particular forms of pressure and constraint on tenant lives and everyday realities, affecting their social interactions and relationships. The cramped, high-rise residential district comprises dense rows of multistorey private rental flats, and is predominantly inhabited by young and primarily migrant individuals and families. Many of these tenants are unemployed, or employed in the low-wage industrial areas. Of special pertinence is the question of how the neighborhood’s spatial conditions shape gender relations, and how they influence the ways in which women organize their private and professional lives. Based upon 24 months of fieldwork, dozens of qualitative interviews with female migrants (wives, single mothers, business women, students), and a deep understanding of Nairobi’s housing policies and history, the article zooms in on physical and social spaces occupied by women, such as apartments, corridors, balconies, and chamas - economic self-help groups - to explore women’s strategies to reduce social, economic, and romantic pressure. These are contrasted with male spaces and forms of “depressuring”.