Expatriate Nairobi: Migration categories and the making of urban privilege

This talk by Dr Sarah Kunz, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Essex, discusses how migration categories are implicated in urban inequality and the production of spatialised enclaves of privilege.

It takes the example of the category ‘expatriate’ and explores how this social category (re)produces colonial and postcolonial forms of socio-economic and racialised inequality in Nairobi, Kenya.

By shaping the urban movements of privileged newcomers, long-term residents and citizens, the category aids the city’s uneven integration into transnational geographies of power and privilege and shapes everyday urban geography and experience.

The talk further suggests that (migration) categories are a powerful methodological and analytical gateway to explore dynamics of urban wealth inequality.

Join the online talk for free here (meeting link will be live only at the time of the event)