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- Convenor:
-
Benson Mulemi
(The Catholic University of Eastern Africa)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- BS001
- Start time:
- 30 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Changing gender relations are more apparent in urban than rural areas in Eastern Africa. This panel will discuss the consequences of urban life, and gender arrangements and roles on urban socioeconomic development and societal wellbeing.
Long Abstract:
Discourse on changing gender roles and relations in Africa tend to corroborate the assumption that increasing socioeconomic empowerment and bargaining clout among women challenge traditional patriarchal structures. However, media reportage and social research analyses on urban gender relations in Eastern Africa demonstrate a transition from the typical male dominance over women and subsequent improvement of cooperation, and gender 'equality'. Increasing cases of gender-based violence, involving both male and female victims in urban areas underscore the emerging gender transition that urbanism tend to expedite. The basic premise of this panel is that traditional African gender roles and relations are undergoing rapid change due to urbanization and rural-urban influx witnessed in Eastern Africa. Second, the dynamics of masculinity vary with ethnic identities that shape new forms of gender relations, which are more visible in urban than rural areas. This panel intends to stimulate discussion on how urbanism in Eastern Africa reflect continuity and discontinuity in indigenous ethnic and gender identities and the effects of these phenomena on well-being in urban societies. Papers are invited to discuss how traditional and contemporary ethnic gender identities and relations influence well-being in towns and cities in Eastern Africa. Attention will also be directed to analyses of urban life and emerging social arrangements, transformations in masculinity, femininity, and gender roles and relations in urban areas. The ways in which the uptake of urban socioeconomic development interventions reflect transitions in ethnic gender identities in Eastern Africa will also be discussed.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Njoki E. Wamai (United States International University-Africa)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how urbanisation in Kenya is gradually shifting concepts of 'mutumia ngatha' among middle class and working class Gikuyu women as they negotiate patriarchal atitudes that have inhibited their advancement.
Paper long abstract:
Gikuyu womanhood has been in flux since the colonial encounter and the resulting colonisation of Central Kenyan highlands where most Kikuyu women lived as documented by Kanogo (2005). In contemporary urban centres in Kenya, the concept of the'ideal Gikuyu womanhood' is fluid and complex with competing notions of traditional domesticity and submissiveness as well as new forms of womanhood that support women's independence and economic self-sufficiency.The ideals of 'Mutumia ngatha' a complex notion of Christian and Gikuyu womanhood popularised by the Gikuyu gospel hit and the bible texts, continues to inform advice to young women during 'modern' Christian weddings with symbolic traditional gifts such as the kiondo and traditional pots given to women as a reminder about Gikuyu womanhood. In her seminal text on African womanhood Kanogo (2005) documented how Kenyan women negotiated social, cultural and economic changes 1900-1950 through individual concepts of personhood. This paper aims to develop this further by exploring how urbanisation is gradually shifting concepts of 'mutumia ngatha' among middle class and working class women as they negotiate patriarchal atitudes that have inhibited their advancement in the urban space. I argue that by taking advantage of opportunities urbanisation has presented that allow for self sufficiency,Gikuyu women are accomodating and contesting the idea of mutumia ngatha while adapting it to suit their personal concepts of womanhood.
Benson Mulemi (The Catholic University of Eastern Africa)
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores consequences of the emerging urban masculinity phenomenon for social relationships and sustainable livelihood in East African towns. It explores perspectives on the social value, identity and worth of urban men in quests for social health and society wellbeing.
Paper long abstract:
Urbanism is associated with new perspectives on manhood and womanhood and changing wellbeing experiences in Africa. Increasing violence and tension between urban men and women, where both are victims, embody the transient rural masculinity. This phenomenon both threaten and reinforce social health and livelihood security. Changing traditional African masculinity embedded practices of household control, bread-winning, dominance, and virilocal residence shape contemporary patterns of gender cooperation in socioeconomic production. Contradictions are emerging from rising women's empowerment and gender-based vulnerabilities that influence men's capability to perform their traditional household production roles. However, there is paucity of ethnography on continuities and discontinuities in traditional gender roles and their implications for wellbeing among urban East African societies. This paper draws on media reportage and rapid ethnographic analyses to examine the impact urban life and the changing notions of masculinity and femininity on socio-economic stability in key East African cities. It explores perspectives on transient social value, identity and worth of men in the face of increasing economic, social and political visibility of urban women. The paper argues that urbanism both enhance and threaten values of gender equity that underpin pursuits of societal wellbeing and livelihood resilience. Gender-based violence affecting both men and women in East African cities highlight the need for social and culture policy to mitigate negative consequences of urbanism on socioeconomic security and well-being, which trickle down to rural areas.
Felix Kioli (South Eastern Kenya University)
Paper long abstract:
This paper is premised on the argument that there is a crisis on the socialization of the adolescents (boys and girls) in Kenyan urban centres due to collapse of traditional systems which espoused the gender perspective in socializing young people, especially on their sexuality. The collapse of traditional socialising systems engendered by the transition to urban social life in Kenya acts as the Achilles heel upon which contemporary adolescent sexuality is explained. Parents (Father and Mother) in urban canters have abdicated their complementary roles of socialization process within the family or offer confusing messages while boys and girls acquire fallacious sexuality knowledge from other sources which make them vulnerable on sexuality matters. Indeed, data abounds to the realization that contemporary adolescents engage in indiscriminate sexuality practices in Kenya due to socialization dilemma in the urban setup which is devoid of gender perspective , predisposing them to early pregnancies, STDS, HIV and AIDS, abortion, truancy, and early death. Modernization and Social Learning theories shall guide the discourse of this paper. Data for the paper shall be from secondary sources.
Mary Aswan (Maseno University)
Paper short abstract:
Crime and imprisonment as effects of rapid and unplanned urbanization. An analysis of how male prisoners in Kenya construct their masculinities in homosocial prison settings.
Paper long abstract:
Kenya is a rapidly urbanizing country and its cities are plagued by rising inequality, widespread urban poverty, and high crime and violence rates. Rural-urban migration is one of the main factors driving rapid urbanization in developing countries as rural populations move to cities in search of employment opportunities. Although the link between crime and poverty is controversial a disproportionate number of prisoners are drawn from the economically underprivileged sections of society and are more likely to be unemployed and to have low levels of education. Over 90% of Kenya's prison population are young men and the prison population trend has increased gradually from 40,100 in 2000 to 57,000 in 2016.
In many societies, men are structurally favored over women and often construct their masculinities in relation to women. Masculinity, however, is not limited to power relations between men and women but is also constructed in the context of men's relations with each other. Hegemonic masculinity is the ideal masculinity that men aspire to and it occupies a dominant position wherever it may be located. Prisoners may use crime to assert their masculinity and prisons provide a homosocial setting where men who may have been subordinated before imprisonment may attempt to construct hegemonic masculinity.
This paper will examine how male prisoners in four of Kenya's maximum security prisons construct their masculinities in homosocial environments where they are deprived of female company. This is deemed important since most prisoners are eventually released and the implications of their prison experiences could extend back into society.
Solomon Onyango (The Catholic University of Eastern Africa)
Paper short abstract:
There is a growing perception that urbanization in Africa deconstructs gender roles. This paper analyses the changing gender roles in urban households in Tororo, Eastern Uganda.
Paper long abstract:
Solomon Onyango
Urbanization and Gender Reconstruction in Tororo Municipality, Eastern Uganda
There is growing perception that urbanization is reconstructing gender roles due to weakening patriarchal structures, leading to increase in female headed households. This is advanced against three notions, (a) a popular view that high number of women seeking urban residence have dramatically lowered their demand for marriage or partner relationships with men, which increase unsanctioned marriages and cases of marital breakup, (b) the high male unemployment or low incomes is altering the power relations in households leading men to continuously abscond their roles as breadwinners and (c) the resulting increased feminization of labor in urban areas, accompanied with high informalisation of the labor sector mostly unregistered, poorly paid, lacking contracts and social protection. This paper questions whether these assertions constitute a web of Male Disempowerment and Women Empowerment in urban areas. The paper examines this problem by focusing on access to employment opportunities, the status of household care responsibilities, power, decision making and use of household earnings. It draws on a cross sectional survey in Tororo Municipality, Eastern Uganda, which has high population density and cosmopolitan settlements. The analysis is based on responses from study participants aged 20-49 years in five of the fifteen villages in the study area. The respondents were chosen because of their prime age, high rural-urban mobility and vulnerability to marital instability. Conclusively, the paper provides insurmountable insight about how urbanization impacts on gender roles in urban households.