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Many observers of Kenya’s complicated history see causes for concern, from the use of public office for private gain to a constitutional structure historically lopsided towards the executive branch. Yet efforts from critics and academics to diagnose the country’s problems do not often consider what these fiscal and political issues mean to ordinary Kenyans. How do Kenyans express their own political understanding, make sense of governance, and articulate what they expect from their leaders? In For Money and Elders, Robert W. Blunt addresses these questions by turning to the political, economic, and religious signs in circulation in Kenya today. He examines how Kenyans attempt to make sense of political instability caused by the uncertainty of authority behind everything from currency to title deeds. When the symbolic order of a society is up for grabs, he shows, violence may seem like an expedient way to enforce the authority of signs. Drawing on fertile concepts of sovereignty, elderhood, counterfeiting, acephaly, and more, Blunt explores phenomena as diverse as the destabilization of ritual “oaths,” public anxieties about Satanism with the advent of democratic reform, and mistrust of official signs. The result is a fascinating glimpse into Kenya’s past and present and a penetrating reflection on meanings of violence in African politics. (Provided by publisher)

#SBIB:39A73 --- #SBIB:39A11 --- Etnografie: Afrika --- Antropologie : socio-politieke structuren en relaties --- Kenya --- Cenia --- Chenia --- Colony and Protectorate of Kenya --- GOK --- Government of Kenya --- Jamhuri ya Kenya --- Kenia --- Kenii︠a︡ --- Kenniya --- Kenya Colony and Protectorate --- Ḳenyah --- Kīniyā --- Kīnyā --- Quênia --- Republic of Kenya --- Кения --- קניה --- كينيا --- ケニア --- 肯尼亚 --- East Africa Protectorate --- Politics and government --- Religion.

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"In Seeing Like a Citizen, Kara Moskowitz approaches Kenya's late colonial and early postcolonial eras as a single period of political, economic, and social transition. In focusing on rural Kenyans-the vast majority of the populace and the main targets of development interventions-as they actively sought access to aid, she offers new insights into the texture of political life in decolonizing Kenya and the early postcolonial world. Using multi-sited archival sources and oral histories focused on the western Rift Valley, Seeing Like a Citizen makes three fundamental contributions to our understanding of African and Kenyan history. First, it challenges the widely accepted idea of the gatekeeper state, revealing that state control remained limited and that the postcolonial state was an internally varied and often dissonant institution. Second, it transforms our understanding of postcolonial citizenship, showing that its balance of rights and duties was neither claimed nor imposed, but negotiated and differentiated. Third, it reorients Kenyan historiography away from central Kenya and elite postcolonial politics. The result is a powerful investigation of experiences of independence, of the meaning and form of development, and of how global political practices were composed and recomposed on the ground in local settings"--

Decolonization --- Economic development --- Development, Economic --- Economic growth --- Growth, Economic --- Economic policy --- Economics --- Statics and dynamics (Social sciences) --- Development economics --- Resource curse --- Sovereignty --- Autonomy and independence movements --- Colonization --- Postcolonialism --- Political aspects --- Kenya --- Cenia --- Chenia --- Colony and Protectorate of Kenya --- GOK --- Government of Kenya --- Jamhuri ya Kenya --- Kenia --- Kenii︠a︡ --- Kenniya --- Kenya Colony and Protectorate --- Ḳenyah --- Kīniyā --- Kīnyā --- Quênia --- Republic of Kenya --- Кения --- קניה --- كينيا --- ケニア --- 肯尼亚 --- East Africa Protectorate --- History --- Politics and government --- E-books --- Colonisation. Decolonisation --- History of Africa --- anno 1900-1999