Environmental Perceptions in an Urban Environment : Report from a Minor Field Study in Nairobi, Kenya, January-March 2007

Abstract: This thesis is an analysis of the modern phenomena and attributes of the city of Nairobi and its inhabitants. It has two purposes where the first is to account for the environmental perceptions of Nairobi citizens. The second purpose is to analyse how relevant the modern dichotomy of nature/culture is in Nairobi in relations to the environmental perceptions. This thesis has four main theoretical aspects which consist of: dichotomies and dualisms, three paradigms of human environmental relations, modernity, and the alleged links between poverty and environmental degradation. A State of the Environment report made by the Kenyan National Environment Management Authority is accounted for and analysed to give an insight to the official version of the Nairobi environmental problems. This is followed by the empirical material and an analysis of these in relations to the theories. The empirical material is divided into four themes which are; definitions on environment, nature and culture, opinions and description of the environment and its problems, religious and philosophical outlooks on human-environmental relations and a comparison between the rural and urban environments. The final discussions reach a conclusion which establishes that Nairobi's public authorities are guided by the modernity notion but quite unsuccessfully. Nairobi citizens do not embrace this modernity and its particular nature/culture dichotomy. Instead they point out the connections between culture and environment, perception and action. Nairobi inhabitants, especially the ones in the many slums, suffer from the failed modernity project and the author concludes that the environmental insight these people possess should serve as the guiding star to solve the environmental problems. The author further reaches the conclusions that religion, rurality, and environmental awareness and insight are key factors to proving the modern dichotomy of nature/culture to be irrelevant in the context of Nairobi citizens.