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Abstract
This article intends to build a bridge between the anthropological study of rumour and development studies. By analyzing the case study of an upgrading project in Mahali, an (anonymized) informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, the importance of rumour for development in practice is revealed. That importance is two-fold: first of all, it is a tool to fulfil personal interests in the interfactional negotiation over project resources, e.g. land, and the related power struggles. Second, it is a tool of sense-making and expression of agency in the uncertain context of a development project. Current literature notably describes development as a process of assemblage rife with gaps and with a tendency to exclude (local/supralocal) political–economic processes from its plans. In such a context, limited access to reliable information pushes people towards the alternative source of information that is rumour. The article looks into the factors contributing to rumour, specifically residents' experience of past events, interfactional conflicts over power and contextual uncertainty. It also discusses the combined effects of rumour on the slum upgrading intervention. Rumour has a definite effect on power struggles between factions as well as the livelihoods of other, less powerful, residents (for instance through displacement). It decreases the trust residents have in a development project as well as their willingness to invest time and effort in that project. Instead, it instigates conflict and occasionally even violence. However, rumour may also be considered a form of agency of weaker groups faced with a development intervention they do not agree with.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Dr Lee Seymour, Prof. Dr Bert Suykens and Prof. Dr Anne Walraet for their comments on earlier drafts. I also want to thank the anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine, 270; see Li, Will to Improve.
2.Olivier d Olivier de Sardan, Anthropology and Development, 144.
3. Li, Will to Improve, 270.
4. Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine, 275.
5. Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine, 275.
6. Moore, “The Crucible,” 674.
7. Moore, “The Crucible,” 656.
8. Li, Will to Improve, 391.
9. Olivier de Sardan, Anthropology and Development, 6.
10. DiFonzo and Bordia, “Rumour, Gossip, Urban Legends,” 28. We use this as a working definition.
11. DiFonzo and Bordia, “Rumour, Gossip, Urban Legends”; Greenhill and Oppenheim, “Rumour Adoption and Diffusion.”
12. Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip; Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images.
13. DiFonzo and Bordia, “Rumour, Gossip, Urban Legends.”
14. Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip.
15. White, “Between Gluckman and Foucault.”
16. Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images, 252; Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 282.
17. Fine and Ellis, Global Grapevine, 199; Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip.
18. For instance, Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip, x–xi.
19. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 282. Scott also writes about gossip (see FootnoteNote 13 above).
20. Paine, “What Is gossip about?” 283.
21. Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip, x–xi.
22. Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip, x–xi.
23. For witchcraft and rumour in Kenya, see Smith, Bewitching Development; See White, Speaking with Vampires; Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip; Geschiere and Roitman, The Modernity of Witchcraft.
24. Espeland, “Autochthony, Rumour Dynamics”; Osborn, “Fuelling the Flames”; Das, Life and Words; Das, “Official Narratives, Rumour”; Jacobs, Nairobi Burning.
25. Osborn, “Fuelling the Flames.”
26. Osborn, “Fuelling the Flames.”, 323.
27. Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip, ix; See Paine, “What Is Gossip about?”
28. Espeland, “Autochthony, Rumour Dynamics,”18; Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip, ix; See Paine, “What Is Gossip about?”, 30.
29. See for instance, Festinger and Cartwright, “A Study of a Rumour” on a housing project in the USA; Turner, “Big Nation, Refugees, Rumour” on rumour in a Tanzanian refugee camp). Other articles have illustrated the effect of a rumour on a development context without taking rumour as a starting point for analysis, see for instance Weru, “Community Federations and Upgrading.”
30. On HIV/AIDS, see for instance Smith et al., “Rumour and Gossip, HIV AIDS”; Stadler, “Rumour, Gossip and Blame.” On vaccination, see Feldman-Savelsberg et al., “Sterilizing Vaccines.” On sterility, see Kaler, “Health Interventions and the Persistence of Rumour.”
31. Lund and Juul, Negotiating Property in Africa.
32. Paine’s work (1967, 278) on gossip mentions that it is ‘a device intended to forward and protect individual interests’. Paine, “What is gossip about?” 278.
33. Brumfiel and Fox, Factional Competition, 3.
34. Greenhill and Oppenheim, “Rumour Adoption and Diffusion,” 2; see DiFonzo and Bordia, “Rumour, Gossip, Urban Legends.”
35. Smith, Bewitching Development, 18.
36. Fine and Ellis, Global Grapevine, 199. See Shibutani, Improvised News, 174.
37. DiFonzo and Bordia, “Rumour, Gossip”; Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images; Rosnow, “Psychology of Rumour”; Rosnow and Esposito, “Belief in Rumour”; Shibutani, Improvised News; Festinger and Cartwright, “A Study of a Rumour.”
38. White, “Between Gluckman and Foucault.”
39. Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images, 263.
40. Respondents’ names are not made public for reasons of confidentiality, although they are specified as either ‘programme official’ (meaning a non-resident of Mahali connected to the programme) or ‘resident’. Quotes by residents are also followed by their affiliation to certain factions within Mahali, if any.
41. For the same reasons of confidentiality, these agencies will be not be specified further. Also, rather than ‘blaming’ a specific institution, this article intends to highlight certain processes at play within a development programme. These dynamics are not limited to a particular case, but rather inform development practice in general.
42. Marshall, “Sampling for Qualitative Research.”
43. In this article, the settlement’s name has been changed to Mahali (a Kiswahili word for ‘place’) because of issues of privacy, confidentiality and safety of those (in)directly involved in the research.
44. The CC ‘represents the community in the [slum upgrading] programme and sensitizes the community on various [programme activities]. The [CC] participates in all programme activities, gives feedback to the community and resolves disputes at the local level’ (programme official 2, workshop).
45. Simplifying the CC’s position with the programme officials, we can say that their relation is a certain form of ‘partnership’ on the ‘ladder of participation’ (Arnstein, “Ladder of Participation,” 217) ‘that enables [the CC] to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with’ those programme officials (from development agencies and government ministries). However, this ‘partnership’ does not extend to the residents the CC is intended to represent.
46. I am referring to aid flows that are not related to the SU, but are nevertheless channelled through the CC to the wider group of residents that is the actual beneficiary. Before the SU these flows would have passed through the provincial administration, represented by the chief in Mahali.
47. As I am talking about ‘the CC’ and ‘the LLG’ for purposes of clarifying the argument of the power struggle which stimulates the spread of rumour, I do not want to present these factions as homogenous entities in which each member has the same interest in spreading these rumours. Both CC and LLG are rather hierarchical organizations in which the central committee keeps a strong control over which information is even trickled down to the lower levels of the committees.
48. Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images, 252. According to Das that ‘failure of signature’ is what makes these statements so harmful. Das, Life and Words, 105.
49. Resident 9, former female resident.
50. Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, Gossip; Greenhill and Oppenheim, “Rumour Adoption and Diffusion”; Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images; Das, Life and Words.
51. Transparency International Kenya, Corruption Levels.
52. Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat; Klopp, “Pilfering the Public”; Murunga and Nasong’o, “Bent on Self-destruction.”
53. Joireman and Sweet, “In Search of Order.”
54. Rutten and Owuor, “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” 306.
55. Rutten and Owuor, “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” 306.
56. Klopp, “Pilfering the Public.”
57. Klopp, “Pilfering the Public.”
58. Muraya, “Failed Top-down Policies.”
59. KeGov, Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (Kensup), Vol. I, Implementation Strategy 2005–2020, n.d.
60. Muraya, “Failed Top-down Policies,” 123.
61. Médard, “City Planning in Nairobi,” 42–43.
62. See Greenhill and Oppenheim, “Rumour Adoption and Diffusion,” 5.
63. Programme official 2.
64. Moreover, the CC leadership gradually broadened the mandate that it was officially elected for, namely to coordinate the SU process in Mahali. Residents claim that, as time went by, the CC members took over certain activities previously handled by the Provincial Administration, such as the collection of parking fees in the area or channelling (non SU-related) aid funds from donors to residents.
65. Resident 3.
66. Festinger and Cartwright, “A Study of a Rumour”; Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images, 97.
67. Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images, 96.
68. Kapferer, Rumours, Uses, Interpretations, Images, 96.
69. Brass, “On the Study of Riots,” 4.
70. Resident 2, LLG member.
71. Resident 2, LLG member.
72. Programme official 2.
73. Resident 7.
74. Fine and Ellis, Global Grapevine, 204; see for instance, Turner, “Big Nations, Refugees, Rumours.”
75. Greenhill and Oppenheim, “Rumour Adoption and Diffusion,” 7.
76. Resident 9, former female resident.
77. Resident 17.
78. Resident 18.