Giving all power to the beast! Violent authority and collective action by ‘second-class’ citizens in Nairobi

This article focuses on the relationship between young, male citizens and the state at the urban margins of Nairobi; a relationship framed by violent encounters and police brutality. My aim is to explore young people's notions of citizenship at these urban margins through two interconnected emic concepts: the notion of living with ‘the beast’ – as an intimate, violent presence of the state in the form of the police, and the idea of being a ‘second-class citizen’. My research highlights the characteristics of being young and male by focusing on concrete interactions and relationships between authority and particularly situated citizens. Social position – including legal and economic status – is a third aspect that influences the encounters and relationships with authority. Violence, state practices and intersectionality constitute a fourth area explored in the article, as I argue that violence becomes a repertoire of action for what the young people refer to as ‘second-class citizenship’. This notion of ‘second-class citizenship’ applied by young people at the urban margins, and analysed in the article, contributes to a nuanced and ambiguous conceptualization of and relationship with the Kenyan state. The state is not merely seen as an outsider, operating on the informal settlement from the outside, as it were, but also as a locally entangled urban authority, always present in the informal settlement through intimate and intricate relationships. Lastly, I attempt to show that this form of ‘second-class citizenship’ is not associated with rebellion or pride, but with resignation with a form of citizenship whereby young Kenyans at the urban margins only feel heard in the context of potentially violent demonstrations.