Who Wants to Become a Role Model? Personal Narratives of Success and Internal Dynamics of Change in Nairobi’s Ghettos

Abstract This article contributes to an understanding of the internal dynamics of change in Nairobi’s ghettos (Kenya). Spaces of relegation for the urban poor, referred to by our interlocutors as “ghettos”, are often portrayed either as objects of international interventionism or as deprived areas neglected by national or metropolitan policies. We argue that social and material change in these spaces can be conceptualised at the interface between personal narratives of change and the structural urban dynamics at play. Using qualitative methods of individual narratives, we examine in particular how individuals identified as successful by those around them, born and raised in Nairobi’s marginalised neighbourhoods, construct their self trajectories as role models to invest themselves as vectors of change within their “ghetto”. Drawing on literature that focuses on the power of personal and collective narratives of social change, we explore how they perform their narrative and transform it into a “narrative capital”. This way, they contribute to the production of a narrative that is partially detached from external developmentalist imperatives, emphasising the importance of intergenerational links as a driving force for change, as well as the links that the ghetto maintains with its immediate urban environment.