Review by Choice Review
Jua Kali Kenya extends King's earlier work published in The African Artisan (1977). King returned to Kenya more than ten years after his first research there to study changes in the informal sector of the economy. He was able to interview some of the same people as before to show how their positions and attitudes had changed. The result is a good volume on the informal sector. The author uses personal experiences along with governmental reports and numerous studies by others to shed light on the dynamics of the informal sector and its relationship to the economy as a whole. Formal schooling to different levels and in different types of schools, on-the-job training at small and large firms, and personal need and experimentation are explored as sources of technical knowledge of the "jua kali" (the term given to informal workers in Kenya). The role of government policy is considered, as is the difficulty of using government and nongovernment surveys in determining the size and character of this sector. King provides the reader with a sense of the possibilities and problems of this part of the economy in a lower/middle income country. The inclusion of photographs adds to the reader's knowledge of these workers and their working conditions. Chapter notes. Upper-division undergraduate and up. J. E. Weaver Drake University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review