Paper short abstract:

This paper examines race and gender in the culture of voluntarism in late colonial Kenya as part of an imperial politics of whiteness, and asks questions about continuities and ruptures for notions of citizenship and the participation of white women in civil society after independence.

Paper long abstract:

In 1957, a Convention of Women's Societies held in Nairobi, Kenya, brought together delegates from women's organizations across lines dividing European, Asian and African communities in the colony. Held towards the end of the Mau Mau Emergency, the convention promoted a vision of a co-operative multiracial future based on mutual public service by women outside of politics. Resulting in an annual women's conference—formalized on independence as the National Council of Women in Kenya—the convention was initially organized by the dominant European women's voluntary organization in Kenya, the East Africa Women's League (EAWL). As such, it formed part of a broader promotion of multiracialism by Kenya's European community in a bid to remain relevant within a changing political climate.

Historians have identified voluntary social service activities by white women across the British Empire as integral to the construction of imperial racial binaries. This paper will explore this culture of women's voluntary work at the end of formal empire in Kenya, addressing questions concerning the gendered dimensions of the politics of whiteness at the critical moment of decolonization. How was this vision of female citizenship through voluntary activity challenged by the first generation of African women in leadership? What remained for publicly active European women in independent Kenya? How have links between race and voluntary activity been both reconfigured and maintained in postcolonial daily life and collective memories of empire? Sources used for this study include the private archive of the EAWL, as well as official archives in Kenya and Britain.