This article investigates the homegrown hustle economy in the largest informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya - Mathare. Using three ethnographic portraits and more than ten years of longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork, it reveals how the hustle economy mobilizes and recasts notions of 'hustle' and 'work' as localized, agentive struggles. It demonstrates how the hustle economy enables and shapes local environments and the gendered identities of 'youth' and 'older' youth.
Although the unrest that shook Baltimore in 2015 was largely racial, it reflects many other factors. According to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Lester K. Spence, the economic neoliberal model exacerbates the social unrest. However, while Spence's research is helpful in understanding the racial base of unrest in Baltimore, the question remains, what is the role of hustling?