Remapping urban modernities: Julie Ward’s death and the Kenyan grapevine

Abstract

This article examines rumour as a type of urban text which interrogates the officially proclaimed rationality of the modern state. Drawing on reported rumours and allegations about the death of British tourist Julie Ward in Kenya in 1988, it reflects on rumour as a medium that contests the legitimacy of hegemonic “truths” produced through modern institutions in Africa. In their critique of the amenability of modern state institutions to manipulation, the rumours and allegations of the Julie Ward case deplore the failure of the Kenyan state to deliver the promised benefits of postcolonial modernity. At the same time, the rumours engage with certain aspects of this modernity, including modern science and the law, in ways that underscore the porosity of discursive boundaries between “modernity” and “tradition” and which signal the layered continuities between the two.

Keywords:

• rumour
• social imaginary
• Julie Ward
• Kenya
• urban modernity

Notes

1. Jua Kali, Swahili for “harsh sun”, is a Kenyan idiom referring to the informal sector and used of metal and wood workers who often work under sheds, with limited resources and exposed to the elements.

2. “Grapevine” is used here in reference to the local rumour(‐mongering) networks.

3. Julie Ward’s death is the subject of three “true crime” books by British and American writers: see Hiltzik, Gavron, and Ward (her father).

4. The dungeons have made a contribution to Kenyan literature in the form of a rich library of prison writing, including Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross and Wahome Mutahi’s Three Days on the Cross. For a discussion of Mutahi’s writing see Mutonya.

5. This message has been absorbed into Kenyan parlance as illustrated by the common phrase “na iwe funzo kwake na wengineo” (Swahili for “and let it be a warning to him/her and any others”) – a way of talking about those reluctant to “follow the footsteps” of President Moi.

6. See, for instance, The People’s coverage of the Julie Ward death in the 1996 article “If Only Julie Ward Were a Kenyan …” (Correspondent). The article outlines a series of suspicious murders in post‐independence Kenya down to the Julie Ward murder, pointing out recurrent tropes between these cases.

7. See Ogude for a discussion of D.O. Misiani’s music and its commentary on state‐commissioned assassinations.

8. I am grateful to Florence Sipalla for drawing my attention to this dimension.

9. See Nairobi Law Monthly, no. 43, June 1992. The existence of this elite army has been a constant refrain in Kenyan politics, especially since the early 1990s saw an outburst of so‐called ethnic clashes in which trained militias were believed to be behind the violence that rocked parts of the Rift Valley and Coast provinces. See Kagwanja.

10. See Ellis, Nyamnjoh, and Bob White on rumour in Togo, Cameroon and the Congo, respectively.

11. See Ochola and Anderson. The notion of “private armies” features prominently in Kenyan politics; and includes the closeted trained killers alluded to in Big Muhammed and Kodipo’s allegations and a range of vigilante and youth groups hired by politicians to disrupt political rallies or violently “persuade” an opponent to withdraw from running for office.