Negotiating for livelihoods beyond the formal Mzuzu City, Malawi, by the urban poor: Informal settlements as spaces of income generating activities

This article is about how the urban poor in Mzuzu City, Malawi, redefine domestic spaces in their dwellings for supporting their livelihoods. More specifically, it argues that while street vendors negotiate for the use of public spaces within the ‘formal city’ for income generating activities, the urban poor in informal settlements negotiate for use of spaces in their dwellings for generating cash income. Spaces for income generating activities are as contested as spaces for vending in the ‘formal city.’ In this context, the urban poor become creative enough to overcome equally demanding domestic functions of their dwellings. Furthermore, power imbalance is also epitomised in home based enterprises where tenants have to negotiate with their landlords for use of dwellings for generating income and accumulation of assets. However, it is not only physical spaces whose use for income generating activities is negotiable. Rather gender relations in some households are also negotiated for and contested spaces. Despite their visibility in home based enterprises, women appear to lack control over resources which they help to generate. The paper further argues that labeling livelihood strategies of the urban poor as ‘marginal,’ ‘vulnerable,’ and ‘survival enterprises’ is problematic because the urban poor are not a homogeneous group. Since their perceptions, motivations, skills and knowledge differ; their livelihoods outcomes are also likely to be different. Thus, the accumulation of income and assets should not be the only variables used for measuring the success or failure of home based enterprises because their outcomes are also heavily embedded in informal social security networks.