How political is the ‘middle class’ in Kenya?

ABSTRACT

The current debate presents the middle class in the Global South as a driver of democratic change and the core of civil society. The activities of NGOs, or student protests, for instance, seem to support this notion. However, these examples should not be overstretched. Before confirming the idea that the ‘middle class’ is a carrier of political protest and a driver of democratic change, we need to answer at least two questions. Is the ‘middle class’ really a class in the strict sociological sense, with a common class consciousness or just a group with a middle-income: ‘middle-income group’? And are the protests really representative of the middle-income group? Taking Kenya as an example, we cannot identify a ‘middle class’ in the strict sense of the sociological class concept. Neither does the political commitment of the middle-income group follow socio-economic differences. More important are patterns of socio-cultural differentiation that can be conceptualised as socio-cultural ‘milieus’.

KEYWORDS:

• Kenya
• middle class
• protest
• milieu
• socio-cultural differentiation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The empirical data draws from the project ‘Middle class on the rise’, part of the research programme ‘Future Africa – visions in time’ (2012–2018). See http://www.bayreuth-academy.uni-bayreuth.de/en/gesamtprojekt/index.html. I am grateful to the team: Erdmute Alber, Dieter Neubert (project leaders), Lena Kroeker, Maike Voigt and Florian Stoll. For an overview see Kroeker and Voigt (2017).

2 This stratum is called the ‘floating class’ because they have just escaped poverty and face the risk of falling back into poverty.

3 LabourStart for Kenya: http://www.labourstart.org/news/country.php?country=Kenya&langcode=en (accessed 22 April 2021).

4 Socio-economic differentiation can be analysed in more detail as social situations understood as ‘typical contexts of conditions of action’ that are (un)favourable ‘for the satisfaction of generally accepted needs’ (Hradil 1987, 153). For an application to Kenya see Neubert (2019a, 335–358).

5 My translation. This concept of ‘milieu’ should not be confused with the Bourdieu concept (Bourdieu 1984). Bourdieu constructs his milieu as a particular ‘habitus’ linked with class. In the concept of Flaig et al. milieu is independent of socio-economic positions.

6 This was part of the already mentioned project ‘Middle classes on the rise’. The pilot study included an intensive field study combined with over 100 hundred qualitative interviews, diaries with daily routines, places and emotions conducted by Florian Stoll and several empirical MA projects. This provided the basis for a first tentative description of Kenyan milieus. It turned out that differences in ways of life need to include some different elements from those in Germany. Some examples are the links to the rural home or the question of who is included in the future aims in the life of the individual, the core family, the extended family, the ethnic group or the society as whole (operationalised as scope of future aspirations).

7 This milieu is comparable to the ‘black diamonds’ in South Africa (Oliver 2007).

8 Our field study did not systematically cover Muslim and Hindu groups. There may also be ‘committed Muslim’ and ‘committed Hindu’ milieus with possible overlaps with ‘committed Christian’ milieus with regard to moral values. We have also hints that there are Hindus and Muslims in other milieus, either politically active or not. Hindus and Muslims live mostly in urban settings; thus, rural links do not play a role.

9 Our qualitative pilot study does not offer data on the size of the milieus. We only offer an informed guess based on observations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): [Grant Number: 01UC1201]; Volkswagen Foundation: [Grant Number Opus Magnum: 91].

Notes on contributors

Dieter Neubert

Dieter Neubert is a retired Professor of Development Sociology at the University of Bayreuth/Germany. Current research topics are sociology of Africa, political sociology, violent conflicts, and development policy. Besides his research focus on Africa, he has also conducted research in Southeast Asia.