Causes of persistent rural poverty in Thika district of Kenya, c.1953-2000
- Authors: Kinyanjui, Felistus Kinuna
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Poverty -- Kenya -- History Rural poor -- Kenya -- History Agriculture -- Kenya -- History Kenya -- History Kenya -- Politics and government
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2547 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002399
- Description: This study investigates the causes of poverty among the residents of Thika District in Kenya over the period 1953-2000. Using the articulation of modes of production perspective, the study traces the dynamics of poverty to the geography, history and politics of Thika District. The thrust of the argument is that livelihoods in the district changed during the period under investigation, but not necessarily for the better. Landlessness, collapse of the coffee industry, intergenerational poverty, and the ravages of diseases (particularly of HIV/AIDS) are analysed. This leads to the conclusion that causes of poverty in Thika District during the period under examination were complex as one form of deprivation led to another. The study established that poverty in Thika District during the period under review was a product of a process of exclusion from the centre of political power and appropriation. While race was the basis for allocation of public resources in colonial Kenya, ethnicity has dominated the independence period. Consequently, one would have expected the residents of Thika District, the home of Kenya’s first president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, to have benefited inordinately from public resources during his rule. Kenyatta’s administration, however, mainly benefited the Kikuyu elite. The study therefore demonstrates that during the period under examination, the Kikuyu, like any other Kenyan community, were a heterogeneous group whose differences were accentuated by class relations. Subaltern groups in Thika District therefore benefited minimally from state patronage, just like similar groups elsewhere in rural Kenya. By the late 1970s, the level of deprivation in rural Kenya had been contained as a result of favourable prices for the country’s agricultural exports. But in the subsequent period, poverty increased under the pressures of world economic recession and slowdowns in trade. The situation was worse for Kikuyu peasants as the Second Republic of President Daniel Moi deliberately attempted undermine the Kikuyu economically. For the majority of Thika residents, this translated into further marginalisation as the Moi regime lumped them together with the Kikuyu elite who had benefitted inordinately from public resources during the Kenyatta era. This study demonstrates that no single factor can explain the prevalence of poverty in Thika District during the period under consideration. However, the poor in the district devised survival mechanisms that could be replicated elsewhere. Indeed, the dynamics of poverty in Thika District represent a microcosm not just for the broader Kenyan situation but also of rural livelihoods elsewhere in the world. The study recommends land reform and horticulture as possible ways of reducing poverty among rural communities. Further, for a successful global war on poverty there is an urgent need to have the West go beyond rhetoric and deliver on its promises to make poverty history.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kinyanjui, Felistus Kinuna
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Poverty -- Kenya -- History Rural poor -- Kenya -- History Agriculture -- Kenya -- History Kenya -- History Kenya -- Politics and government
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2547 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002399
- Description: This study investigates the causes of poverty among the residents of Thika District in Kenya over the period 1953-2000. Using the articulation of modes of production perspective, the study traces the dynamics of poverty to the geography, history and politics of Thika District. The thrust of the argument is that livelihoods in the district changed during the period under investigation, but not necessarily for the better. Landlessness, collapse of the coffee industry, intergenerational poverty, and the ravages of diseases (particularly of HIV/AIDS) are analysed. This leads to the conclusion that causes of poverty in Thika District during the period under examination were complex as one form of deprivation led to another. The study established that poverty in Thika District during the period under review was a product of a process of exclusion from the centre of political power and appropriation. While race was the basis for allocation of public resources in colonial Kenya, ethnicity has dominated the independence period. Consequently, one would have expected the residents of Thika District, the home of Kenya’s first president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, to have benefited inordinately from public resources during his rule. Kenyatta’s administration, however, mainly benefited the Kikuyu elite. The study therefore demonstrates that during the period under examination, the Kikuyu, like any other Kenyan community, were a heterogeneous group whose differences were accentuated by class relations. Subaltern groups in Thika District therefore benefited minimally from state patronage, just like similar groups elsewhere in rural Kenya. By the late 1970s, the level of deprivation in rural Kenya had been contained as a result of favourable prices for the country’s agricultural exports. But in the subsequent period, poverty increased under the pressures of world economic recession and slowdowns in trade. The situation was worse for Kikuyu peasants as the Second Republic of President Daniel Moi deliberately attempted undermine the Kikuyu economically. For the majority of Thika residents, this translated into further marginalisation as the Moi regime lumped them together with the Kikuyu elite who had benefitted inordinately from public resources during the Kenyatta era. This study demonstrates that no single factor can explain the prevalence of poverty in Thika District during the period under consideration. However, the poor in the district devised survival mechanisms that could be replicated elsewhere. Indeed, the dynamics of poverty in Thika District represent a microcosm not just for the broader Kenyan situation but also of rural livelihoods elsewhere in the world. The study recommends land reform and horticulture as possible ways of reducing poverty among rural communities. Further, for a successful global war on poverty there is an urgent need to have the West go beyond rhetoric and deliver on its promises to make poverty history.
- Full Text:
Segregated housing and contested identities: the case of the King William's Town coloured community, 1895 - 1946
- Authors: Victor, Stephanie Emilia
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Colored people (South Africa) -- Race identity Colored people (South Africa) -- Political activity South Africa -- Race relations Colored people (South Africa) -- Housing Housing -- South Africa -- King William's Town Colored people (South Africa) -- Relocation Colored people (South Africa) -- South Africa -- King William's Town
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2568 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002421
- Description: This thesis is a case study of the dynamics of coloured housing in King William's Town between 1895 and 1946. The impact of spatial segregation on pre-apartheid coloured settlements in the Eastern Cape has largely been ignored up to the present. This needs to be rectified as the lack of in-depth enquiry can lead to misinterpretations that may influence contemporary politics and identity formation. Through research based on primary sources, it has become apparent that segregation in King William's Town was safeguarded and rationalized through the discourses of sanitation and civilization, and the practices of relocation and removal. The existing slum cond itions were used as a convenient excuse to implement municipal control. Segregation compounded the problem of poverty, inequitable access to housing and the provision of basic services. As a result, local coloured housing was increasingly characterised by a shortage of decent accommodation and basic services, decreasing home ownership and increasing municipal tenancy. In addition, through the implementation of the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act and the 1934 Slums Act, high sanitation standards were set, but the Council itself provided inferior services. Ironically, conditions in the relocated municipal settlements were also not on par with the provisions stipulated in the Slums Act that were used to effect removal in the first place. The implementation of racially exclusive housing was, therefore, not driven by a single role player. It was pioneered by the local authorities, legalised by national government and supported by the coloured elite, when needed, in an attempt to access decent housing. This occurred mainly through the political manoeuvring of the coloured elite, and specifically the African Political (later People's) Organisation (APO), the Afrikaanse Nasionale Bond (AN B) and the locally constituted Coloured Welfare Association (CWA) in King William 's Town. These organisations attempted to procure access to housing within the narrow boundaries of a prescribed identity. Segregated housing therefore fostered and sustained coloured identity. It consolidated feelings of separateness and division and provided impetus for the construction of race and even racial tension. Coloured identity attempted to serve as a rallying point to overcome differences in religion, family and social networks and place of residence in order to procure access to housing. It was not, however, able to overcome the occasional division between settlements, caused by well-developed placeidentities, which still inform the contemporary housing milieu. The coloured elite initially did not question the legitimacy of coloured identity. Only in 1939, under threats of increased residential segregation, combined with the resulting opposition in coloured protest politics, was the legitimacy of coloured identity publicly contested . By 1943, with the creation of the Coloured Advisory Council (CAC), local coloured unity proved to be insufficient. A division within the ranks of the local coloured elite was evident. As a result, the expression of coloured identity still remains contested in contemporary King William's Town.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Victor, Stephanie Emilia
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Colored people (South Africa) -- Race identity Colored people (South Africa) -- Political activity South Africa -- Race relations Colored people (South Africa) -- Housing Housing -- South Africa -- King William's Town Colored people (South Africa) -- Relocation Colored people (South Africa) -- South Africa -- King William's Town
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2568 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002421
- Description: This thesis is a case study of the dynamics of coloured housing in King William's Town between 1895 and 1946. The impact of spatial segregation on pre-apartheid coloured settlements in the Eastern Cape has largely been ignored up to the present. This needs to be rectified as the lack of in-depth enquiry can lead to misinterpretations that may influence contemporary politics and identity formation. Through research based on primary sources, it has become apparent that segregation in King William's Town was safeguarded and rationalized through the discourses of sanitation and civilization, and the practices of relocation and removal. The existing slum cond itions were used as a convenient excuse to implement municipal control. Segregation compounded the problem of poverty, inequitable access to housing and the provision of basic services. As a result, local coloured housing was increasingly characterised by a shortage of decent accommodation and basic services, decreasing home ownership and increasing municipal tenancy. In addition, through the implementation of the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act and the 1934 Slums Act, high sanitation standards were set, but the Council itself provided inferior services. Ironically, conditions in the relocated municipal settlements were also not on par with the provisions stipulated in the Slums Act that were used to effect removal in the first place. The implementation of racially exclusive housing was, therefore, not driven by a single role player. It was pioneered by the local authorities, legalised by national government and supported by the coloured elite, when needed, in an attempt to access decent housing. This occurred mainly through the political manoeuvring of the coloured elite, and specifically the African Political (later People's) Organisation (APO), the Afrikaanse Nasionale Bond (AN B) and the locally constituted Coloured Welfare Association (CWA) in King William 's Town. These organisations attempted to procure access to housing within the narrow boundaries of a prescribed identity. Segregated housing therefore fostered and sustained coloured identity. It consolidated feelings of separateness and division and provided impetus for the construction of race and even racial tension. Coloured identity attempted to serve as a rallying point to overcome differences in religion, family and social networks and place of residence in order to procure access to housing. It was not, however, able to overcome the occasional division between settlements, caused by well-developed placeidentities, which still inform the contemporary housing milieu. The coloured elite initially did not question the legitimacy of coloured identity. Only in 1939, under threats of increased residential segregation, combined with the resulting opposition in coloured protest politics, was the legitimacy of coloured identity publicly contested . By 1943, with the creation of the Coloured Advisory Council (CAC), local coloured unity proved to be insufficient. A division within the ranks of the local coloured elite was evident. As a result, the expression of coloured identity still remains contested in contemporary King William's Town.
- Full Text:
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