“I am From Busia!”: Everyday Trading and Health Service Provision at the Kenya–Uganda Border as Place-Making Activities

Abstract

Critical researchers in anthropology, politics, and history have profited from the spatial turn, or the idea that spaces produced through practices and perceptions influence observable social action, in showing how people at borders derive specific economic and social benefits from their unique location. This is especially relevant in African border contexts where state presence is often modified or resisted by local agendas. However, less work examines how cross-border activities, locally-held perceptions, and geographic location interact to generate different versions of what it means to “be at” a border for border-crossers and residents themselves. This paper, in responding to calls for interdisciplinary and multiperspectival approaches to border studies, argues that theorizing border towns as dynamic “places” clarifies how individuals impact and construct different meanings at and across borders. It empirically develops this idea by examining two spheres of everyday activity occurring at the Kenya-Uganda border: cross-border trade and health service provision.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and JBS staff for their helpful comments. Also, many thanks to Oliver Bakewell, Jamie Goodwin-White, Stephanie Yorke, and Emily Braid who gave invaluable feedback on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1 Given that sensitive subjects, such as illicit trade, arose during interviews, names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of informants.

2 Two notable exceptions are Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau, both of whom influenced future constructivists. Lefebvre defined social space as an “outcome of a sequence and set of operations [that] permits fresh actions to occur, while suggesting others and prohibiting yet others” (Lefebvre 1991, 73). De Certeau (1984) argued that urban spaces like streets were subject to human usage and creativity on an everyday basis.

3 Yet, the term connotes particular conceptions of (il)legality: for some residents, especially those engaged in small-scale transportation of goods, their actions are not perceived as morally wrong. Rather, they generate needed income and fill a role in the immediate border trade economy.

4 Accurate as of August 1, 2010.