Browsing by Author "Mugo, Muhia"

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    Characterization and Presentation of Capitalist Environmental Destruction: A Critical Reading of Austin Bukenya’s A Hole in the Sky (2013) and Okiya Omtatah’s Voice of the People (2007)
    (EANSO, 2023-12) Edwin, Kiplangat; Chetambe, Mark; Mugo, Muhia
    This paper investigates how playwrights employ characterization to illuminate acts of capitalist environmental destruction in Austin Bukenya’s A Hole in the Sky (2013) and Okiya Omtatah’s Voice of the People (2007). The central idea is to examine the presentation of environmental destruction and the critical responses as dramatized through character articulation. The paper is premised on Ecofeminist and Eco-Marxist theoretical frameworks. The proponents of Ecofeminist theory are Karen J. Warren, Vandana Shiva, Greta Gaard, Carolyn Merchant and Ynestra King, whereas those of the Eco-Marxist framework are John Bellamy Foster, Herbert Marcuse and Paul Burkett. Ecofeminists argue that there is a close interrelation between women and nature. The theorization is that there is an interconnection between women and nature, particularly regarding their nurturing abilities, exploitation, and liberation. The paper contends that the twin-exploitation aspect of ecofeminism portrays acts of domination wrought by patriarchy and capitalism. Eco-Marxists expound on the exploitation aspect by linking ecological destruction to unbridled capitalism. The article uses qualitative methodology whereby the plays were purposively sampled and thematic analysis was done to examine the articulation of characters in depicting environmental destruction. The study establishes that playwrights have appropriately used their characters to illuminate environmental degradation. The depiction of characters as either conservationists or agents and orchestrators of environmental destruction help
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    The subdued nature: reading Henry Ole Kulet’s Vanishing Herds through Eco-Marxist lenses
    (Taylor & Francis Group, 2020) Mugo, Muhia
    Modernity has come to be identified with industrialization and the changes that accompanied the then-emerging industrial societies. One major effect of modernity is the rise of the capitalist society on which Karl Marx’s matrix of economic theorization is founded. Building on Marx’s critique of the capitalist society, this article aims at critically reading the relationship that exists between the project of capitalism and the environment in the context of the Kenyan Maasai community. As Herbert Marcuse posits, capitalist production is inherently expansionist and therefore encroaches on natural space thereby subjecting nature to violence of exploitation and pollution. For him, ‘ecological struggle comes into conflict with the laws which govern the capitalist system’. The Maasai community has been affected greatly by agrarian capitalism that dates back to colonialism and which has been extended by subsequent postcolonial regimes. This article argues that the tragic journey across the Maasai plains undertaken by the two main protagonists in Henry Ole Kulet’s Vanishing Herds is representative of the effect that capitalist modernity has had on the Maasai ecosystems. Henry Ole Kulet tells a tragic story of the loss of Maasai land to commercial agricultural practices, tourism and settlements, all of which have profoundly eroded his people’s indigenous identity and culture.