The Reproduction of Urban Capitalism
Street Food and the Working Day in Colonial Mombasa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8976217 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Devin Smart (0000-0003-3490-2048, West Virginia University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 80-95 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0021853723000063 |
| OpenAlex | W4321493006 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 25 |
This article argues that street food was an essential part of the social reproduction of Mombasa's working class during the colonial period. Like in other expanding capitalist cities, as Mombasa grew, urban workers lived further from their place of employment, which meant they could not return home for their midday meal. Street-food vendors provided them lunch at low prices in convenient locations, and therefore reproduced the working day by provisioning the calories that bridged morning to afternoon. However, postwar municipal authorities also wanted to create a particular kind of urban society in which the ‘informal’ activities of street-food vendors did not fit, and tried to expel them from the city's streets. As these campaigns unfolded, an unresolved contradiction emerged between this elite view of Mombasa, and the reality that the services vendors provided were necessary for the reproduction of the city's economy
Archaeology · Capitalism · Colonialism · Contradiction · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Elite · Geography · Political science · Politics · Reproduction · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Working class · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Ecology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law
The Comforts of Home
Sweetness and power
Class and economic change in Kenya
On the African waterfront
A Workman Is Worthy of His Meat
Women and the Informal Economy in Urban Africa
Decolonization and African Society
Gender and Social Reproduction
How the Other Half Ate
Provisioning the Posho
Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda
African Underclass
Workers' time for cooking and eating in nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century Western Europe
Casting aluminium cooking pots
Restoring Order'? Operation Murambatsvina and the Urban Crisis in Zimbabwe
Housing the Urban Poor in Africa
Working with Gender
In a cup of tea
Developing the racial city
Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |