The WM sector in Nairobi is a failure.
Collection rates are deplorable,
regulations go unenforced and the
municipal landfill is desecrating the
environment and killing neighbouring
slum dwellers. This paper focuses on the
exclusion and marginalization of the
slums adjacent to Nairobi's landfill,
Korogocho and Dandora, and uses a
post-structuralist theoretical framework
to conceptualize a just response to
these exclusions and theorize an
inclusive approach to waste policy in
Nairobi. Building on the work of Jacques
Derrida, I present a 'deconstructive
ethic' for development that is dedicated
to mitigating and overcoming the
production of alterity, and
reintegrating excluded communities and
knowledges into the sites of knowledge
and policy creation. This ethic is used
to formulate a five-part response to the
conditions of exclusion experienced in
Korogocho and Dandora, and to engage
these populations in finding
participatory solutions to the city's
waste problem.