A colonial state and an African petty bourgeoisie: prostitution, property and class struggle in Nairobi, 1936-1940

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Book chapter

Title:	A colonial state and an African petty bourgeoisie: prostitution, property and class struggle in Nairobi, 1936-1940
Author:	White, L.
Book title:	Struggle for the City: Migrant labor, capital, and the state in urban Africa
Year:	1983
Pages:	167-194
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Kenya United Kingdom
Subjects:	middle class colonialism real property prostitution
Abstract:	Housing policy was the means by which the state tried to determine African rights within the city. The events related in this paper, namely, the demolition of one illegal African village and the development of a new form of prostitution in the official African location of Punwami, point to the most basic questions about a city in flux: Would the state or an African petty bourgeoisie - a class largely of Muslims, half of whom were women, and prostitutes - restore a male labour force each day? Would that petty bourgeoisie be allowed to accumulate capital and pass property to heirs, thereby developing a partly autonomous economic base? Notes, ref.