Making Noise: Sex Worker-led Organising and Knowledge Politics in Development Partnerships in Nairobi, Kenya

This ethnographic research examines the politics of knowledge within the framework of official development aid (ODA). The study focuses on a queer male sex worker-led organization (SLO) located in Nairobi, Kenya. The primary objective of this research is to explore the ways in which this organization, deeply entrenched in development partnerships within the ODA system, navigates and engages with the intricate politics of knowledge that directly impacts it. It does by answering the following central question: How do SLOs embedded in development partnerships in the ODA system participate in and negotiate the politics of knowledges that affect them? In addition to an in-depth portrayal of the research setting, introducing the organization's staff, members, activities, goals, and the socio-political context it operates within, the introduction chapter explores the theory surrounding the politics of knowledges, and extends this to the context of the ODA system and its implications. Key concepts, such as epistemic injustice and epistemicide, are introduced to illustrate the constraints on incorporating subaltern voices and perspectives within this system. The chapter links these dynamics surrounding politics of knowledges to the enduring structures of colonialism, underlining the resulting hierarchies of race and place. After discussing the methodology, five empirical chapters analyse the politics of knowledges in the ODA system from the perspective of the SLO, as well as how SLOs participate negotiate these and to what end. The empirical chapters analyse the politics of knowledges from five different epistemic relations. The build-up of chapters represents the hierarchical set-up of aid chains that Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) are part of, and thus discusses the politics of knowledges from the top of the aid chain downwards. More specifically, each chapter explores hegemonic ways of knowing African sex workers and their organisations in a specific domain. Drawing from sex workers’ knowledge paradigms demonstrates how SLOs negotiate and respond to hegemonic ways of knowing and with what effects. The concluding chapter joins together the different dimensions of the politics of knowledges discussed to show how they function together in keeping the power hierarchies inherent in development partnerships in place. It concludes that the contemporary ODA system, including hierarchies of knowledges fails to take into account certain forms of sex workers’ knowledge, causing epistemic injustice. It proposes that in order to make the politics of knowledges in the ODA system more epistemically just, there is need for methods and modes that can disrupt and explore alternatives to hegemonic accounts of sex workers, that aim at recentring knowledges from the margins that provide an alternative to neoliberal epistemes that maintain institutions and universities as centres of knowledge production, and that provide directions for doing so. While this chapter highlights the need for systemic changes and the potential reimagining of the ODA system to achieve epistemic justice, it also acknowledges that such changes may take time and may not directly benefit sex workers and other marginalized communities involved in development partnerships. Hence, it outlines the future directions policies and practices should take to ensure the inclusive participation of SLOs and CBOs in the ODA system, with less conditionalities. The Epilogue gives a concluding reflection, shedding light on the present challenges queer male sex workers in Nairobi face. It offers a tentative outlook on the future of sex work and sex worker-led organizations in Nairobi and wider Kenya while underscoring the need for alternative ways of working in the ODA system.