https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2541-0992
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ABSTRACT
This article advances the conceptualisation of conversations on state-building by examining gendered discourses. By focusing on specific historical moments in Rwanda and Kenya, this article analyses how ‘respectable femininities’ and ‘wayward sexualities’ become the ‘sites’ where national and state politics are ritualised and where tensions resulting from non-hegemonic performances of both gender and sexuality are resolved. I argue that by examining sites of gendered cultural production, it is possible to trace how gendered tensions are enacted through localised practices and discursive mechanisms deployed to manage political differences and build solidarity within heterogeneous groups. The ritualisation and creation of ethno-national homogeneity as part of state-building conversations occurs at the expense of greater freedoms for women. Fundamentally this article posits that gendered cultural and traditional norms are essential sites from which to map state-building conversations and should not be cordoned off to the realm of social and therefore excluded from the political.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. See Olonisakin et al., ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable Peace’.
2. Chazan and Shaw, Coping with Africa’s Food Crisis, 71.
3. See Thomas, Political Parties and Interest Groups.
4. Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, 150.
5. Bates, Essays on the Political Economy.
6. See Oyugi et al., The Politics of Transition in Kenya.
7. Foucault, History of Sexuality.
8. See Brandon et al., ‘Discourses in Transition’, 488.
9. See Lombard, The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Violence.
10. Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation, 45.
11. Ibid., 22.
12. Ibid., 24.
13. See Joseph, Descent of the Nation.
14. Connell, Masculinities.
15. See Ratele, ‘Analysing Males in Africa’.
16. Cohen and Atieno Odhiambo, The Risks of Knowledge, 265.
17. White, ‘True Stories’, 286.
18. Musila, ‘Navigating Epistemic Disarticulations’, 692.
19. Macharia, ‘Political Vernaculars’.
20. Gallimore, ‘Militarism, Ethnicity, and Sexual Violence’, 13.
21. Ibid., 13–14.
22. Jones, Peacemaking in Rwanda, cited in ibid., 18.
23. Kangura, ‘The Ten Commandments’, 6–8.
24. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 95.
25. Ibid., 202.
26. Ibid., 202.
27. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 156.
28. Ibid., 4.
29. Ibid., 5.
30. See Burton, Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities; Kandiyoti, ‘Identity and its Discontents’; McClintock, Imperial Leather; Yuval-Davis and Anthias, Women-Nation-State.
31. Luanda Magere is the story of a Luo hero who married a Nandi woman who betrayed him by revealing to his tribe where his power lay, which was in his shadow and not his body (see Okoth, ‘Luanda Magere’).
32. CIPEV, Report of the Commission of Inquiry, 246.
33. See Yuval-Davis and Anthias, Woman-Nation-State.
34. Star Newspapers, ‘Gideon Moi is Uncircumcised’; and ‘Kabogo in Court’.
35. See Mama and Okazawa-Rey, ‘Militarism, Conflict and Women’s Activism’.
36. Enloe, Maneuvers; Gender and Human Security Network, ‘Manifesto’.
37. See Macharia, ‘Political Vernaculars’.
38. See Okech, ‘Asymmetrical Conflict and Human Security’.
39. Mwai, ‘Society Benefits from Gender Equality’.
40. Mugisha, ‘Rwigara Welcomes Decision’.
41. Associated Press, ‘Rwandan Opposition Leader’.
42. Cockburn, The Space Between Us.
45. See Macharia, ‘Political Vernaculars’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Awino Okech
Dr Awino Okech is a lecturer at the Centre for Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her teaching and research interests lie in the nexus between gender, sexuality and nation/state-building projects as they occur in conflict and post-conflict societies. Prior to her appointment at the Centre for Gender Studies, she contributed to knowledge production and transfer through an adjunct teaching position with the African Leadership Centre at King’s College London where she co-convened the Gender Leadership and Society module as part of the MSc in Security, Leadership and Society.
