Politics of the Womb
Politics of the Womb

Author: Lynn Thomas

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2003-08-20

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0520936647

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In more than a metaphorical sense, the womb has proven to be an important site of political struggle in and about Africa. By examining the political significance—and complex ramifications—of reproductive controversies in twentieth-century Kenya, this book explores why and how control of female initiation, abortion, childbirth, and premarital pregnancy have been crucial to the exercise of colonial and postcolonial power. This innovative book enriches the study of gender, reproduction, sexuality, and African history by revealing how reproductive controversies challenged long-standing social hierarchies and contributed to the construction of new ones that continue to influence the fraught politics of abortion, birth control, female genital cutting, and HIV/AIDS in Africa.

African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50
African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50

Author: Tabitha Kanogo

Publisher: James Currey (GB)

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780852554463

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This is the most interesting general Kenyan social history that I have had the pleasure to read for many years. It fills a large gap in the colonial history of Kenyan women as they negotiated changes in the most domestic areas of their experience. - John Lonsdale, Trinity College, Cambridge

African Philosophy and the Quest for Autonomy
African Philosophy and the Quest for Autonomy

Author: Leonhard Praeg

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-06-08

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 900445795X

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As academic subject African philosophy is predominantly concerned with epistemology. It aims at re-presenting a lost body of authentic African thought. This apparently austere a-historical concern is framed by a grand narrative of liberation that cannot but politicise the quest for epistemological autonomy. By “politicise” I mean that the desire to re-cover an authentic African epistemology in order to establish African philosophy as autonomous subject, ironically re-iterates Western, enlightenment notions of the autonomous subject. Here, in the pursuit of an autonomous subject the terms of historical oppression are necessarily duplicated in the terms of liberation. In this study I use the term disfigurement to refer to the double-bind - peculiar to post-coloniality - in which the African subject finds itself when it has to establish and affirm a sense of apartheid (in order to confirm the assumption of difference) by inventing its own autonomy in a way that ironically conflicts with an African conception of the autonomous subject. The transcendental concern with epistemological authenticity and autonomy - indicative of an oppressive desire for Western style autonomy - necessary as it may be in a post-colonial context, is placed in an ethical framework that seeks to remain faithful to the African dictum of identity and autonomy “I am because we are”. Whereas the first three chapters are concerned with the transcendental question ‘what is African philosophy?’, the fourth and last chapter situates the ethical framework within which this question arises in the context of the recently “completed” South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Challenges at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Kenya
Challenges at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Kenya

Author: Laura A. Young

Publisher: Minority Rights Group

Published: 2012-12-04

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13: 1907919325

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Minority and indigenous women in Kenya are discriminated against on multiple levels; they are targeted because of their identification with a minority or indigenous group, and as women – both by cultural practices within their own community and because of gender discrimination more widely. This report examines the challenges and the new opportunities that have emerged with the passing of the new Constitution in 2010. The goal of the report is to reflect the voices and experiences of women from diverse minority and indigenous communities in Kenya. For hunter-gatherer women, many of whom have been displaced and forced to become squatters, community land rights are a primary concern. They view their lack of opportunities, basic services and education for girls as a direct result of their displacement. For pastoralist women, insecurity and conflict in areas where they live has a disproportionate impact on them. Cultural practices that are harmful to girls, such as female genital mutilation and early marriage, reduce girls’ access to education and entrench women’s poverty. For fisher peoples, environmental degradation and collapsing fish stocks are major fears. Women from these communities expressed their frustration at traditional gender roles that place much of the responsibility for meeting the family’s basic needs on women. While there is strong leadership from individual women in many of the minority and indigenous communities described in this report, the majority of women face ongoing violations of their human rights. Trapped in a cycle of poverty that they attribute directly to decades of marginalization, they fear that they and their children will not be able to take advantage of gains in the new Constitution. This report highlights actions identified by minority and indigenous women that should be taken by the government and other actors to support women’s empowerment and participation in the decision-making processes that directly affect them.

Women's Human Rights
Women's Human Rights

Author: Susan Deller Ross

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-10-09

Total Pages: 702

ISBN-13: 0812200020

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According to Susan Deller Ross, many human rights advocates still do not see women's rights as human rights. Yet women in many countries suffer from laws, practices, customs, and cultural and religious norms that consign them to a deeply inferior status. Advocates might conceive of human rights as involving torture, extrajudicial killings, or cruel and degrading treatment—all clearly in violation of international human rights—and think those issues irrelevant to women. Yet is female genital mutilation, practiced on millions of young girls and even infants, not a gross violation of human rights? When a family decides to murder a daughter in the name of "honor," is that not an extrajudicial killing? When a husband rapes or savagely beats his wife, knowing the legal authorities will take no action on her behalf, is that not cruel and degrading treatment? Women's Human Rights is the first human rights casebook to focus specifically on women's human rights. Rich with interdisciplinary material, the book advances the study of the deprivation and violence women suffer due to discriminatory laws, religions, and customs that deny them their most fundamental freedoms. It also provides present and future lawyers the legal tools for change, demonstrating how human rights treaties can be used to obtain new laws and court decisions that protect women against discrimination with respect to employment, land ownership, inheritance, subordination in marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, polygamy, child marriage, and the denial of reproductive rights. Ross examines international and regional human rights treaties in depth, including treaty language and the jurisprudence and general interpretive guidelines developed by human rights bodies. By studying how international human rights law has been and can be implemented at the domestic level through local courts and legislatures, readers will understand how to call upon these newly articulated human rights to help bring about legislation, court decisions, and executive action that protect women from human rights violations.

Women, Livestock Ownership and Markets
Women, Livestock Ownership and Markets

Author: Jemimah Njuki

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-23

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1136186212

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This book provides empirical evidence from Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique and from different production systems of the importance of livestock as an asset to women and their participation in livestock and livestock product markets. It explores the issues of intra-household income management and economic benefits of livestock markets to women, focusing on how types of markets, the types of products and women’s participation in markets influence their access to livestock income. The book further analyses the role of livestock ownership, especially women’s ownership of livestock, in influencing household food security though increasing household dietary diversity and food adequacy. Additional issues addressed include access to resources, information and financial services to enable women more effectively to participate in livestock production and marketing, and some of the factors that influence this access. Practical strategies for increasing women’s market participation and access to information and services are discussed. The book ends with recommendations on how to mainstream gender in livestock research and development if livestock are to serve as a pathway out of poverty for the poor and especially for women.

Kenya
Kenya

Author: Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo

Publisher: Minority Rights Group

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13:

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Minorities and indigenous peoples in Kenya feel excluded from the economic and political life of the state. They are poorer than the rest of Kenya's population, their rights are not respected and they are rarely included in development of other participatory planning processes. This report discusses the abuse of ethnicity in Kenyan policies, arguing that ethnicity is a card all too often used by Kenyan politicians to favour certain communities over others in the share of the nation's wealth. Kenya: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Diversity exposes these concerns in detail via the analysis of budgetary expenditure in the poor Turkana region, which is dominated by the minority Turkana people, and in the richer Nyeri region, home of Kenya's current President. The author, Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo, calls for immediate action to address the inequalities and marginalization of communities, as a way of ensuring that Kenya remains free of major conflict. It calls for disaggregated data - by ethnicity and gender - and a new Constitution to devolve power away from the centre, so that minority and indigenous peoples stand to benefit from current and new development programmes.The report argues that Kenya's diversity should be its strength and need not be a threat to national unity. Suppressing and denying ethnic diversity is the quickest route to inter-ethnic conflict and claims of succession. The report calls for urgent action.