Womanhood and Girlhood in Twenty-First Century Middle Class Kenya

Disrupting Patri-centered Frameworks

Besi Brillian Muhonja

This study of twenty first century girlhoods and womanhoods charts a new area of scholarship on Kenya. The chapters investigate questions related to how new rituals of girlhood and womanhood that materialize when religious, indigenous, and foreign worlds encounter each other are re-structuring family and society, recasting roles, and informing fresh conceptualizations of African girlhood and womanhood. The author’s interdisciplinary analysis and writing journeys through the different stages of girlhood and womanhood as ritualized by Kenya’s 21st century middle class, and teases out the implications of these peculiarities to identity (re)creation and the restructuring of societies’ organs, and traditionally gendered institutions.

Applying a critical African studies lens, the arguments in this book center women as originators of action and thought without inquiring into a male other. Essentially, this work disrupts patri-centered constructions and examinations of female bodies and identities. The resulting deductions inform on the substratum of Kenyan girls and women’s self-definitions as manifest through their experiences and ritualized practices, and articulate the impact of the performances of these bodies and identities on Kenyan and global societies.

Lexington Books

Pages: 130 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-3433-8 • Hardback • December 2017 • $104.00 • (£80.00)

978-1-4985-3434-5 • eBook • December 2017 • $98.50 • (£76.00)

Series: Gender and Sexuality in Africa and the Diaspora

Subjects: Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / World / Africa, Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood, Political Science / World / African

Womanhood and Girlhood in Twenty-First Century Middle Class Kenya

Disrupting Patri-centered Frameworks

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This study of twenty first century girlhoods and womanhoods charts a new area of scholarship on Kenya. The chapters investigate questions related to how new rituals of girlhood and womanhood that materialize when religious, indigenous, and foreign worlds encounter each other are re-structuring family and society, recasting roles, and informing fresh conceptualizations of African girlhood and womanhood. The author’s interdisciplinary analysis and writing journeys through the different stages of girlhood and womanhood as ritualized by Kenya’s 21st century middle class, and teases out the implications of these peculiarities to identity (re)creation and the restructuring of societies’ organs, and traditionally gendered institutions.

Applying a critical African studies lens, the arguments in this book center women as originators of action and thought without inquiring into a male other. Essentially, this work disrupts patri-centered constructions and examinations of female bodies and identities. The resulting deductions inform on the substratum of Kenyan girls and women’s self-definitions as manifest through their experiences and ritualized practices, and articulate the impact of the performances of these bodies and identities on Kenyan and global societies.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 130 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-3433-8 • Hardback • December 2017 • $104.00 • (£80.00)

978-1-4985-3434-5 • eBook • December 2017 • $98.50 • (£76.00)

Series: Gender and Sexuality in Africa and the Diaspora

Subjects: Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / World / Africa, Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood, Political Science / World / African

Author

Besi Brillian Muhonja is associate professor at James Madison University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Elective Lone Parenting, New Matrilines and Matriarchies

Chapter 2: Usichana wa Ubabi
Erasures of Ritual and the Myth of Independence

Chapter 3: The Production of Bridehood

Chapter 4: Wifing Bodies (Re)negotiating Selfhood

Chapter 5: New Spaces, New Identities, New Languages

Reviews

This book is thoughtful and engaging. Muhonja shakes up taken-for-granted theoretical conceptualizations of motherhood, womanhood, and girlhood, providing a unique contribution and developing new approaches to research, language, rituals, and economic realities in Kenya. Written with thought and conviction, this book will interest anyone engaged in motherhood, girlhood, and critical studies regarding women, family, and class in Kenya.
— Tushabe wa Tushabe, Kansas State University

This work is an original and in-depth academic analysis of girlhood and womanhood in Kenya. Nothing like this has been written before. This work was made in Kenya for Kenya and the globe. Every woman will find a piece of herself in the book. It's a treat for feminists and gender scholars alike.
— Jane Rarieya, Aga Khan University

This is groundbreaking work by an Afro Feminist. In addition to making a thoughtful intervention in sex/gender and popular culture discussions, it engages in this cultural critique from a location of experience using work by Africanists. The class analysis it contains will shape our reading of globality for years to come as will the language it contributes to the growing lexicon in the emerging field of girl studies. Muhonja has taken us on a particular turn in transnational, global and urban studies.
— Betty Wambui, SUNY Oneanta