I offer my heartfelt thanks to the three scholars who reviewed my book and the book review editors who included my book in this special issue on hustling in African cities. I will address the reviewers’ questions under the headlines below.
Methodology: I am an African woman. I live in Africa and have spent twenty-five years researching markets and small businesses. I buy most of my goods from markets in Kenya. I have relatives who are market traders. I witnessed how traders are humane and organized during the funeral mass of my cousin's husband who was a market trader. The questions at the centre of my discussion and implied in Alexis Malefakis's comments are: how do we get traders to speak truthfully to our research questions? What can we observe from our interaction with them? How should the questions we ask be framed in order to get accurate answers? Do we interact with traders to confirm our stereotypes or to learn from them? Unlike the traders with whom Malefakis worked in Dar es Salaam, my ethnographic research revealed connection and collaboration as key dynamics. There are many examples: market traders have religious gatherings for spiritual nourishment and goat-eating fundraisers to enable them to make business trips to China. One jua kali cluster was supporting a football club, a discovery I made when I attended the funeral mass of the chairman. The generosity of traders was revealed to me when I visited the market after being discharged from hospital, only to chance upon the chairman who offered me money to buy medicine. Why was he different from the university bureaucrats who delayed my release from hospital on the grounds of soliciting mandatory signatures? All of these experiences demonstrate solidarity among traders.
Language and transition: William Monteith asks: how have colonial and neoliberal norms and values interacted with utu-ubuntu values? Partly they are shaped in reaction to each other. When referring to ‘hustling’ in my Gikuyu language, someone will say nĩ ndĩrahang'a. Kũhang'a refers to the human spirit that demands that one works hard and is self-reliant. The colonial rendering of doing hard work, especially informally, is negative. For instance, according to the Collins English Dictionary, hustlers are people who try to earn money or gain an advantage from situations they are in by using dishonest or illegal methods. While hustling is cast in a positive light in the Gikuyu language as the virtue of enduring pain in order to gain in the end, using physical and mental energy to negotiate livelihoods, engaging in odd jobs to earn income or improve living standards, the English language gives it a negative connotation. That is why the most common punishment in school is being asked to sweep, dig or clean toilets. This has created a negative attitude towards hard work and menial jobs. Elites shudder at engaging in such types of work. They would prefer to work in an oval office and be served by others. This colonial hangover has caused the work done by traders and artisans to be despised and frowned upon. Planning for the majority who are traders, artisans and farmers would make a great difference in our cities. Planning for housing and cities where people can celebrate their cultural logics and norms would be ideal.
Driving the process: I am looking for collaborators to work on the project of implementing cultural villages. The conversation in this journal is a starting point. I seek to draw traders, planners, politicians and academics into the process. It is crucial to learn different cultural values and how they work, then incorporate these cultural aspects within physical and economic planning without necessarily imposing our models on them. Lynsey Farrell questions whether a process led by city leaders can lead to fruitful results, when attitudes about informality are so negative. My point, however, is to emphasize dialogue. It is time that economists, policymakers, investors and planners thought creatively about how to engage in productive dialogue with traders, artisans and peasants. Open dialogue between these groups may lead to the creation of models that respond to everyone's needs as opposed to ones that ostracize people. If Desmond Tutu is correct that ubuntu has the potential to serve as Africa's contribution to global sustainable development, African governments and city planners should borrow from it for inclusive and sustainable development.Footnote 13
Political will: It is true that there is no political will to address the historical injustices against hawkers and squatter settlements, as Farrell implies. In the eyes of the elite, they are non-human and an eyesore that should be done away with to create modern features and institutions. My cultural village planning concept is intended as a creative antidote to this, one that opens up space for political debate: it invokes the need to plan cities for everyone, cities that will accommodate peasants, traders, artisans and hawkers. Traders, artisans and peasants comprise the majority in Nairobi. Their representatives – market traders’ associations, hawkers’ associations and plot owners’ associations – must be included in the administrative structures of the city.
Survival of institutional arrangements: The British colonial and missionary education bashed and treated everything African as primitive and pagan. While some Africans bought into this, others did not forsake their cultural practices. They carried them into the city. Organized movements such as the Gikuyu Karinga movement fought for the preservation of culture. This movement spearheaded the construction of schools and other institutions that championed the good in African culture. There are many subtle and subliminal movements that have championed the preservation of cultural practices and institutions, but development studies have not paid attention to them. Most peasant cooperatives exhibit cultural principles in their daily activities. Githunguri Dairy Cooperative in Kenya is an example of a collective that espouses the principles of ubuntu. The cooperative was established by members inspired by the liberation struggle that aimed at enabling Africans to own the means of production and be self-reliant, instead of being servile workers in European settler firms and farms. The cooperative's mode of production combines African logic and norms. Survival of institutional arrangements is also evident in Osusu in Gambia, ‘partner box’ in the Caribbean, susu in Ghana,Footnote 14 and oju and inu in Nigeria.Footnote 15 It is the work of further research to seek out how they have survived and have articulated with capitalism.
Modernist and neoliberal development proponents cannot explain why the informal economy, African markets and peasant cooperatives continue to thrive in spite of continual onslaughts from the modernist development paradigms. Their survival is a statement that they are resilient, act in solidarity and have something to contribute towards the overall economy.
Electoral politics: While I did not explore the issue of electoral politics on solidarity entrepreneurialism, it is worth noting that traders, artisans and peasants form the majority of voters. Their level of political participation cannot be taken for granted. They mobilize politically although political elites perceive them as people who are easily manipulated. Deep inside their voting behaviour is a logic that they themselves understand very well.
Ubuntu model: The ubuntu model is an antidote to greed, cut-throat competition and inequality. Cross-fertilizing ubuntu into planning will stop the disastrous ‘survival of the fittest’ world view that breeds conflict. If my book celebrates the concept, this is because I wish to use the book to advocate for it in practice. Given the polarization and sectarianism evident in contemporary cities and states, ubuntu offers practical lessons on how self-regulating autonomous communities can work fairly and in harmony. Ubuntu is the missing link that the modern city needs to inextricably connect people to each other. It offers the city the tenet of inclusivity, self-reliance, solidarity, continuous learning, democratic governance, reciprocity, pooling of resources, redistribution of resources, gifting, the role of the divine, social protection, and individual and communal well-being. If we realized that we were inextricably connected, we would not engage in abrasive competition, extraction and exploitation, as has occurred during colonialism and neoliberalism.
