Confinement and beyond: space, mobility, and connections in two Mau Mau detention memoirs

Abstract

This contribution analyzes two detention diaries, by J. M. Kariuki (Mau Mau Detainee: The Account by a Kenya African of His Experiences in the Detention Camps 1953–1960. Oxford University Press, 1963) and Gakaara wa Wanjaũ (Mwandĩki wa Mau Mau Ithaamĩrio-Inĩ. Heinemann, 1983), that interpret life in the colonial camps in Kenya in the 1950s. Focusing on aspects of movement, camp landscapes, sociability, bodily degradation, writing and the mobility of materials, the article shows that colonial policy aimed at a process of reducing prisoners to “bare persons,” while detainees attempted to stay as close to their social networks and themselves as possible. In the constant struggle and negotiation over mobility, connections and communication, camp personnel and prisoners do not appear as homogeneous groups. Clearly Mau Mau’s detention camps were horrible places with often extremely violent conditions. Yet, a simplified, dichotomous analysis stands in the way of understanding the capricious nature of colonial practice, and reduces the detainees to their status as detainees, while they aimed precisely to overcome the spatial and bodily restrictions imposed, attempting to connect beyond the camps.

Keywords:

• Kenya
• diary
• Mau Mau detention
• space
• mobility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Inge Brinkman

Inge Brinkman studied History and African Studies, after which she received a Ph.D. degree from Leiden University in 1996 with a thesis on oral and written literature, identity and gender in Central Kenya. She has carried out various postdoctoral projects (Cologne University; Leiden African Studies Centre; Ghent University) on subjects related to Africa’s socio-cultural history. At present she is a professor of African Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. Her fields of research include African literature, African popular culture, and African history, focusing on autobiography in the wider context of cultural history, and on monsters in oral narratives. She has published various books and articles in international peer-reviewed publications and journals. In 2019, she co-authored, with Mineke Schipper and Daniela Merolla, Afrikaanse Letterkunde, a Dutch-language handbook on African literatures, published by Amsterdam University Press.