BC-School of Humanities and Social Science

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Browsing BC-School of Humanities and Social Science by Subject "1895 To 2013"

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    Gender and the Politics of Nairobi, 1895 To 2013
    (Kenyatta University, 2023) Kilonzo, Ondere Philip; Edward Waswa Kisiang'ani; Gordon Omenya Onyango
    This study analyzes the gender dimensions of politics in Nairobi from 1895 to 2013. This is attributed to the fact that gender discourse in the postcolonial spaces has received inadequate scholarly attention. A background chapter to this study examines the evolution and development of a multiplicity of gender identities in Kenya‟s capital city, Nairobi. This was in the view that the colonial apparatuses patterned gender inequalities in Nairobi. On the basis of this assumption, it is argued that the social, economic and political conditions of the colonial state characterized the post-independent dispensation. Consequently, the study explored gender dimensions during the era of the founding President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. Based on documented evidence on politics in Kenya, this study highlights the inadequacy in addressing gender as one of the most outstanding identity makers that influenced sound cleavages in the country. Further, the study interrogates politics and gender configurations during President Moi‟s era and examines the status of gender and politics in Nairobi under Mwai Kibaki‟s era. It demonstrates that gender inequalities in the city were amplified during President Moi‟s era. Subsequently, despite the endeavor by President Mwai Kibaki to guarantee effective representation and equal participation of women and men in the politics of Nairobi, gender inequalities were persistently witnessed. Apparently, the scenario was not new but one which was (re)constructed and (re)evaluated in the city. This study utilized the post-colonial theoretical variants of plurality and hybridity. The post-colonial theory is a deliberate effort to question European cultural values in formally colonized spaces. The theory was therefore used in this study to question how the postcolonial subalterns learnt to politically bargain within the political spaces of Nairobi regardless of their sexes. The theory not only enables us to understand a plethora of gender inequalities in the post-colonial city of Nairobi, but also gives an intellectual platform to interrogate gender discourses authored and authorized by the West. The study has established that Nairobi‟s post-colonial space was a deliberate cultural, political as well as economic construction of the colonial legacy. This is based on the assumption that men and women voices and values as mediated in identity politics within Nairobi were produced and propagated by colonialism and the post-colonial state in their formal and informal variants. Secondly, the study challenges pre-colonial African value systems on gender relations and provides avenues for (re)thinking and understanding gender dimensions in an urban set up. Purposive sampling and snow-balling techniques have been used to sample one hundred and eighty nine informants within Nairobi whilst keeping into consideration of gender balance. Only ten of the possible seventeen Nairobi constituencies were sampled due to the qualitative nature of the study. Structured questionnaires were used as research instruments for data collection. In addition, archival and secondary data were useful during the analysis of this work within the broader qualitative research design. The study concludes that, as a social identity, gender in politics unravels debilitating effects on national consciousness. The study recommends a re-examination of Western institutions and forms of knowledge in order to dismantle and formulate more structural and institutional regulations needed to achieve gender parity.