“Shit Wages” and Side Hustles: Ordinary Working Lives in Nairobi, London and Berlin

This chapter examines how people make a living in conditions of protracted uncertainty, and the ways in which the labour involved in ‘making do’ comprises a diversity of social and economic forms that are too often over-looked in debates on work. Through three ethnographic portraits in three cities, the chapter explores the relationship between the insecure wage that serves to render a person legible to certain formal institutions and authorities, and the ‘side hustle’ that serves as a crucial but less visible form of investment and return. The chapter seeks to deepen our understanding of how diverse economic activities are organised and narrated through the ordinary working lives of individuals in different regions of the world.