The Right to Idle: Social construction of “chill-spots” – modes of sociability in African informal settlements

The paper investigates the process of placemaking in Kibera, one of the largest informal settlements in Nairobi. It approaches the placemaking as being shaped by two distinct forces – the normative urban planning and the production of lived-spaces by the residents themselves. The key unit of the research is chill-spot, a mode of sociability spontaneously produced by the residents themselves. The inhabitants refer to the chill-spots as the drivers of the local development where one can come and get the support from other members of the community. The production of chill-spots is, however, strictly tied to the spontaneous character of informal public space. In the ethnographic research I focus on the role of chill-spots and their transformation during the massive construction of new roads in 2022 in Kibera. While the formal infrastructures bring such values as accessibility, it also creates a pressure on the lived-spaces of the residents. The construction of formal infrastructures inevitably creates a formalised public space that is tied to many regulations and challenges the spontaneous function of informality. The emphasis on the chill-spots thus sheds more light on the processes taking place between the formal and informal parts within the postcolonial city. It also navigates our attention closer to the organic needs of the residents of the informality. As a result, the fieldwork interprets chill-spots as not only drivers of community development, but also as facilitators of community identity that should not be neglected in the formal city planning.