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Abstract
This study explores poverty and community development in the slums of Nairobi. It theorises on the nature of slum-dwelling women's lived experiences of poverty within a patriarchal society, and highlights not only their lack of financial capacity to address household needs, but also their lack of capabilities in terms of social and economic rights. The study provides identification and analysis of the significant role that slum-dwelling women play in community development initiatives. It proposes that these women’s individual and collective experiences of poverty, within Kenyan patriarchal society, are the fundamental motivation for them to engage in community development within their communities.
Critical concepts and theories driving the study are poverty, gender and community development, contextualised within the Kenyan state and society. A qualitative methodology was used, employing a participatory action research framework. A number of qualitative methods were applied: focus groups, semi-structured in-depth individual interviews, and documentary analysis. Women from three women’s groups based in Nairobi slums participated and were co-researchers. Guided by the ‘voices’ of slum-dwelling women, this thesis changed its original orientation concerning the use of information technology to an exploration of slum-dwelling women’s lived experiences of poverty. It is argued that these experiences catapulted the women into ‘home-grown’ community development initiatives. Their lack of 'access' to fundamental resources and services is attributed, in large part, to the neo-colonial and patriarchal nature of Kenyan society that has perpetuated and compounded gender biases and inequality.
This study identifies a disconnection between formal definitions of poverty and any resulting ‘imposed’ community development initiatives, and the women’s analyses of their own priorities and needs. The women’s multi-level and intersectorial understanding of poverty, and their ‘home-grown’ community development initiatives offer a finely contextualised, responsive and capacity-building alternative approach to addressing the reality of their poverty. This thesis proposes that for slum-dwelling women in Nairobi to benefit from community development, such development must be based upon their contextualised, class- and gender-framed definitions of poverty. This can be understood as the next generation of community development that is neither imposed nor externally managed, but emerges from the people, in this case the women in the slums of Nairobi who are experiencing the poverty. This emerging community development is generated from and by the women’s analyses of the disconnection, corruption and failure of current development approaches.