Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine how informal construction practices and neighbourhood management are producing new urban landscapes as well as new political identities among social housing residents in Nairobi.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will examine how practices of household maintenance and repair are producing a new urban landscape in Nairobi. Deep institutional neglect of Nairobi's public housing projects has led to neighbourhoods of severe infrastructural and material breakdown; places where tarmacked roads have crumbled to dust, water no longer runs in the pipes and streetlights are long gone. In such contexts, residents are increasingly compelled to take on responsibilities for home maintenance and estate management.

These DIY interventions not only help to stem the tide of neglect, but also reconfigure these neighbourhoods, producing new urban landscapes. Official tenancy regulations are turned inside out as residents build extensions for rent to new urban migrants, reforming the urban fabric through their informal construction practices. This paper will highlight how such practices, taking place over several decades and across several generations, have produced new identities among residents. Their 'performance of ownership' also has important political implications. Alternative narratives are emerging, contesting official notions of property, land ownership and what it means to be a 'stakeholder' in urban planning and regeneration.