Security beyond the men: Women and their everyday security apparatus in Mathare, Nairobi

Security issues imbricate a wide range of fears and agendas in cities of the global North and South. Everyday life experiences in informal settlements reflect, however, not only residents’ urgent need for enhanced security but that the state is unable (and often unwilling) to provide it. Because approaches are dominated overwhelmingly by a focus on young men, our article foregrounds the unseen yet important aspect of security provision: the everyday security apparatus that is constituted by women. The principle argument is that women in Mathare, one of Nairobi’s oldest informal settlements, provide security through a variety of practices that highlight the taken for granted and invisibilised emotional, reproductive and socio-economic gendered labours of women. Informed by an ethnographic study, this article contextualises this women-led security provision, which is overwhelmingly invisible since it does not include the most taken for granted security functions, for example patrolling formations, equipment and the threat of violence. We begin by detailing the major security challenges as expressed by women in Mathare, before discussing the range of actions they engage in to enhance safety for all and the major constraints to doing so. Leading from immediate security challenges, our research identifies the everyday security efforts women engage in for community protection, and demonstrates the inter-related social-spatial issues constraining woman’s efforts for safety, which policy security interventions should take into consideration. We suggest that perhaps it is prevailing notions of ‘security’ that are too narrow, which, as a result, fail to see women’s contributions.