Impatient Accumulation, Immediate Consumption: Problems with Money and Hope in Central Kenya

Contemporary anthropological accounts of economic uncertainty often use the concept of hope as a means of recovering human agency in relation to broader socio-economic structures. At times, however, the emphasis anthropologists place on hope can appear too generically existential. This article argues for a more specific emphasis on the object of hope—an appreciation of more concrete desires held by marginal persons, orienting their economic activity. In the case I unfold from peri-urban central Kenya, low-status male youth are shown to lack the money they require to unlock pleasurable experiences of drinking, a sign of having wealth and the living of a good life. Rendered hopeless, young men turn to crime as an alternative means of realizing their desires for consumption in the short term.