ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the interaction of formal and informal players with a number of interest groups and individuals has led to the emergence, regulation and control of matatu as a self-organizing sector in Kenya and offers a deeper contextualization by employing Bourdieu's sociological theory of the logic of practice. Pierre Bourdieu was Professor of Sociology at the College de France. Central to Bourdieu's sociological work is the concept of logic of practice that underscores the importance of people and practices within the social world. The chapter discusses the matatu logic of practice in relation to the matatu conditions of existence, conditions that have contributed to the creation of this logic. The matatu sector as a fare-paying-passengers field within a larger field of fare-paying-passenger transport system and within the Kenyan wider political, economic and social context is at the centre of struggles and competition with and from different stakeholders and interest groups.
