Mobility, Gender, and Shifting Paradigms of Work in Nairobi: A Conversation With Professors Meghan Ference and Tatiana Thieme

This event celebrates Assistant Professor of Anthropology Meghan Ference’s recent book, Matatu Work: Gender, Labor, and Mobility in Nairobi. It will center a conversation about the changing nature of informal work and the impacts on workers in Kenya between two urban ethnographers who have worked in Kenya for the past two decades and have recently published monographs on work and the hustle economy in Nairobi. They will discuss shifting regimes of labor regarding gender, the role of technology in transforming work, and the nature of the hustle economy in Africa and around the world.

Ference’s research interests explore the changing nature of work in urban Africa and the social impacts of urban infrastructure. Matatu Work: Gender, Labor, and Mobility in Nairobi focuses on how transportation technology has impacted labor practices in Nairobi, Kenya, and explores the working conditions of the men and women in Nairobi’s popular transportation sector.

Tatiana Thieme is an associate professor of human geography at University College London and author of Hustle Urbanism: Making Life Work in Nairobi. Thieme is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Association of American Geographers, Association of American Anthropologists, British Institute of East Africa, and Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique. She is a co-editor of Migration and Society and a contributing editor for Cityscapes Magazine.

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