Beyond the universalized home: identity intersectionalities in western Kenyan students' production of place

Abstract

Globally, while defined roles within the home based on gender and age are widely acknowledged, knowledge of the ways in which these roles take shape is largely unknown, particularly outside of Western structures. Using Kenya as a site of analysis, and student responses to images of various types of houses found in their textbook, this research will demonstrate that students' conceptualizations of home reveal extensive dissonance with the metanarrative of the gendered home. In doing so, this study attempts to address both the dearth of research exploring the production of home in non-Western environments and the potential continuum of meaning that may exist between people and home by analyzing the ways in which primary students in western Kenya produce and negotiate images of home with their lived realities. Ultimately, the goal of this analysis is to reveal the delicate negotiation students participate in when producing personal ideas of home as well as their perceptions of home for other people in their community, while also demonstrating that though the home may be gendered, it is also viewed through any number of additional cultural lenses.

Más allá del hogar universalizado: interseccionalidades de la identidad en la producción de lugar en estudiantes kenianos occidentales

Globalmente, mientras los roles definidos dentro del hogar basados en género y edad son ampliamente reconocidos, el conocimiento de las formas en que estos roles toman forma es mayormente desconocida, particularmente fuera de las estructuras occidentales. Utilizando a Kenia como sitio de análisis, y las respuestas de estudiantes a imágenes de varios tipos de casas encontradas en sus libros de texto, esta investigación demuestra que las conceptualizaciones de hogar de los y las estudiantes revelan una extensiva disonancia con la metanarrativa del hogar generizado. De esta forma, este estudio intenta abordar tanto la escasez de investigación que estudie la producción de hogar en ambientes no occidentales como el potencial continuo de significados que puede existir entre las personas y el hogar analizando las formas en que los y las estudiantes primarios de Kenia occidental producen y negocian imágenes del hogar con sus realidades vividas. En última instancia, el objetivo de este análisis es revelar la delicada negociación en la que participan los y las estudiantes cuando producen sus ideas personales de hogar y sus percepciones de hogar para otras personas en su comunidad, al mismo tiempo demostrando que si bien el hogar puede estar generizado, también es visto con cualquier cantidad de ópticas culturales adicionales.

超越普遍化的家：肯尼亚西部学生的地方生产中，身份认同的相互交织性

纵观全球，根据性别与年龄定义的家庭角色已受到广泛的认识，但有关这些角色形塑方式的知识，却仍未被充分了解，特别是对西方结构之外的世界而言。本研究以肯尼亚做为分析的场域，并以学生对教科书中各种家户意象的反应，证实学生对于家庭的概念化，与后设的性别化家庭叙事有着大量的不一致。以此，本研究透过分析肯尼亚西部的小学生如何生产并协商家庭意象及他们的真实生活，企图同时处理探讨非西方环境中家庭生产研究的不足，以及可能存在于人们和家之间的潜在连续意义。本分析的最终目标，在于揭露学生们在生产个人的家庭概念时所参与的细致协商，以及他们对小区中其他人的家庭的看法，并同时证实，尽管家可能是性别化的，但它亦透过若干其他的文化视角看待之。

Keywords::

• education
• children
• textbooks
• curriculum
• Kenya

Palabras claves::

• educación
• niños y niñas
• libros de texto
• currículum
• Kenia

关键词::

• 教育
• 孩童
• 教科书
• 课程
• 肯尼亚

Acknowledgements

I thank Arshad Ali, Carine Allaf, Lesley Bartlett, Frédérique Weyer, and Zeena Zakharia, and the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.

Notes

^1. While there was deliberate consideration to ensure equal numbers of girls and boys in this study, the data are not disaggregated by gender identity. The focus of this study is how students, across the gendered spectrum, conceptualize the home rather than a comparative study of how girls and boys construct these spaces.

^2. As this paper critiques the absence of the conceptualizations of the home outside of Western contents, relying on French theorists for data analysis is arguably problematic. The benefit of engaging Debord and Barthes, however, is the adaptability of their work in contesting the creation of meaning and critiquing assumptions based on partial realities, tools engaged in this project to contribute to moving the discourse outside of its Western canon.

^3. Swahili is one of Kenya's more than 70 ethnic groups and live almost exclusively along the coast and islands of East Africa.

^4. Closely related and both nomadic-pastoralist, the Maasai and Samburu are two other ethnic groups found in Kenya.

^5. Pamela was my research assistant for this project and accompanied me to all school sites.

^6. While this study makes use of ethnic identity in its relationship to student perceptions, this is an area requiring broader examination. Ethnic identity in Kenya is a complex, multifaceted aspect of individual and collective life. As such, an area for future research is to explore the relationship between student perceptions, economic livelihood, and ethnic identity.

^7. As with ethnic identity, this is an area requiring broader examination. Class in Kenya, as it is globally, has multiple layers. Its engagement with ideas of the home is another area for future research. As discussed previously, this is an underresearched field and necessitates much greater engagement on multiple levels.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kim Foulds

Kim Foulds is Program Coordinator of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellows Program at Quinnipiac University. She holds a PhD in Education and an MA in African Studies from UCLA. Her academic work focuses on the intersections of postcolonial nation building, cultural constructions of identity, and international expectations around curriculum development in Kenya. As a practitioner, Kim works on projects related to development, monitoring and evaluation, gender assessments, and mainstreaming in primary and secondary school curriculum in conflict-affected, postconflict states and developing states.