Böcker av Dick Foeken

This book contains the papers of the first ten holders of the 'Prince Claus Chair' in 'development and equity', presented at a conference in November 2012, and three prize-winning essays written by Master's students at Dutch universities on the same theme.

This book is about urban agriculture as a source of livelihood for urban dwellers in Nakuru town, Kenya. Various aspects of the phenomenon are discussed, with particular emphasis on its importance for the urban poor.

At times of economic and political crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, urban dwellers display a large degree of creativity in their survival strategies by developing social networks and constructing imaginative and original practices and ideas. This volume views the urban neighbourhood from two different perspectives and explores the importance of these creative processes. The first approach considers the neighbourhood as a geographical domain in which people are engaged in a variety of activities to advance their material and immaterial well-being, making use of their 'wealth' of opportunities, assets and diverse forms of natural, physical, financial, human and social capital. The second angle sees the neighbourhood as not necessarily geographically located or bounded but as having been created and defined by human beings. These neighbourhoods may take on the form of self-help organizations, associations or churches, or be based on gender, generational, ethnic or occupational identities.