Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how migrant Asians negotiated for space within the rural and urban spaces of Ndere and Kisumu town despite the hostility they initially received from the host community. Moreso, it examines issues of Asian integration and contestations over urban spaces in Kisumu and Ndere

Paper long abstract:

Asians have been in contact with East African coast for at least 2000 years as merchants or traders. Moreover, Asians have played important roles in the social, political and economic history of East African from the late pre-colonial period up to the present (Mickleburg, 2004), a socio-economic engagement which cannot be ignored. However, these engagements have been fraught with resistance, violence, cooperation and hostility within the urban spaces which has raised the problem of the Asian question in Kenya. It is this problematique of the Asian immigrants that the paper intends to examine in light of the changing dynamics of the urban space and identity(ies) in both Ndere village and Kisumu town. The fundamental question which this paper raises is: How did the strangers (Indians) staying deep in the rural village of Ndere shape the growth of Kisumu (more than a hundred kilometres from Ndere) into an urban centre. Secondly, how did the Indians/foreigners' economic activity (re)shape their social and political relations with the Africans staying in these two areas of Kenya's Nyanza province. The paper thus explores how the migrant Indians have been able to negotiate for space and 'maintain' links with Africans within the rural and urban spaces of Ndere and Kisumu town respectively. It explores further the extent of integration of the foreigners into the wider African community with the view of trying to assess the existence of binaries such as foreigners vs locals especially among strangers who managed to acquire citizenship of their host nations.