Paper short abstract:

Migrants from Kenya are re-configuring the ‘economy of affection’ they carry with them as they migrate to the United Kingdom. In particular, I consider how they re-define the relationship between economy and intimacy in their transnational Pentecostal wedding practices.

Paper long abstract:

Historically, intimacy and economy have been intertwined in the imaginings and lived experiences of Kenyans, with lineage being understood as a 'court of claims, rather than a family tree' (Lonsdale 1992). While this understanding follows them as they migrate to the United Kingdom, I would suggest that migration, and particularly the discourses of African Pentecostal Christianity, offers Kenyan migrants opportunities to reconfigure the relationship between intimacy and economy.

Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in London and Nairobi, I argue that the emergent moral discourse among Pentecostal migrants from Kenya living in London rests on a reconfigured link between economy and intimacy. I first describe briefly how Pentecostalism is helping migrants from Kenya to negotiate their relations, which, ultimately, may enable them to limit their obligations to non-migrant kin. I move on to discuss how economy emerges anew in their intimate lives, using the example of what many Kenyan migrants refer to as 'community weddings', i.e., large-scale, multi-stage events in which significant sums of money are raised. The pre-wedding activities (including the negotiation of bridewealth), which require bridal couples to manage risks and anxiety about (perceived) abuses, provide a basis for considering how migrants from Kenya gauge each other's motives and intentions. For instance, 'come-we-stay' (cohabiting) couples, who decide to marry, must demonstrate their sincerity to preempt accusations of 'marrying for money', i.e., using their weddings as sources of capital accumulation. The discussion addresses a dynamic 'economy of affection' among migrants from Kenya.