First and foremost, immense thanks go to my former supervisor and generous adviser thereafter Derek Peterson for his constant support and insightful guidance. Over the past ten years, Derek’s commitment and intellectual rigor has provided inspiration, challenge, and, at times, some needed tough love. This project is also particularly indebted to the pioneering work and tireless encouragement of John Lonsdale. When I first e-mailed John as an undergraduate student in Toronto, eager but unsure of my next step, I could not have imagined that he would not only respond and introduce me to the topic that would come to form this book but also become a central mentor and champion for this research. John’s own work began in western Kenya, and his enthusiasm, generosity, and staggering memory opened the door both intellectually and personally.
I was privileged to count Megan Vaughan and John Iliffe among my mentors at Cambridge; both provided immeasurable advice and direction throughout this project. The African History Group and World History Seminar at the University of Cambridge provided critical spaces to present chapters and ideas as they developed. Special thanks also to Sean Hawkins, Paul Nugent, Bruce Berman, David Anderson, Lynn Thomas, Ruth Watson, Chris Youe, Terence Ranger, Peter Wafula Wekesa, Bethwell Ogot, Pamela Khanakwa, and Justin Willis for their invaluable counsel and feedback over the years. The final chapter of this volume benefited greatly from a fellowship with the National History Center’s International Seminar on Decolonization in 2009. I am grateful to the organizers and intellectual mentors, Wm. Roger Louis, Philippa Levine, Marilyn Young, Dane Kennedy, and Jason Parker, and to my fellow seminarians for the rich discussions that forced me to think in more conceptual and cross-regional ways. The University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto have also provided intellectual homes over the years of revision; colleagues too numerous to name at both institutions have prompted me to think about this project in new and exciting ways.
In eastern Africa, I am extremely grateful to Peterson Kithuka and Richard Ambani at the Kenya National Archives for helping track down missing files and providing crucial insights into the mazes of files held in the archives. In particular, Richard generously offered his encyclopedic knowledge of the archives and his own personal connection to the histories of western Kenya to the service of this research. Special thanks also go to chief archivist Eliakim A. Azangu for providing permissions for the reproduction of images from the Kenya National Archives. Claire Médard introduced me to the intimidating world of fieldwork and provided me with my first home in western Kenya. Very special thanks to my research assistant, Henry Kissinger Adera, for his invaluable work and company. I am also indebted to the many men and women in western Kenya who gave up their time to recount their own personal histories and in particular the men of the Luyia Council of Elders and their families. I am especially grateful to J. D. Otiende, an impressive historian in his own right, for his candor, his hospitality, and his incisive historical memory. In Uganda, this research was supported by the Makerere Institute for Social Research and their former director, Nakanyike Musisi, whom I am now privileged to count among my colleagues at the University of Toronto. The institute also provided a great home during the first stage of revisions for the book while I held a Visiting Research and Teaching Fellowship under the directorship of Mahmood Mamdani. I owe a great debt to my colleagues and graduate students there for their deep intellectual commitment and the spirited exchanges we enjoyed.
The research for the original doctoral project was funded by the Gates Foundation (2006–9) and the Cambridge Overseas Research Scholarship (2006–9). At the University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall, the Faculty of History, and the Centre of African Studies generously provided funds for field research through the Smuts Memorial Fund, the Prince Consort Fund, the Members’ History Fund, the Holland Rose Fund, and the UAC Nigeria Travel Fund. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship (2010–12) also provided critical funds that helped transform this project from a doctoral thesis into an academic monograph. I sincerely thank these institutions for their generosity and commitment to research.
I am grateful to Ohio University Press, Gill Berchowitz, and the editors of the New African Histories series for their patience, their insightful counsel, and their belief in my vision for this project. In particular, I am grateful to Allen Isaacman for his intellectual and personal engagement, and his commitment to young scholars. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their careful readings and constructive criticism.
Undertaking this project would not have been possible without the encouragement and moral support of friends and family. To fellow scholars Emma Hunter, Matt Carotenuto, Myles Osborne, Stacey Hynd, Lindiwe Dovey, and Alex Corriveau-Bourque, thanks for the friendships, arguments, and support in the field. Friends too numerous to name across eastern Africa also opened doors, shed light on complex local politics, and offered welcome diversions over the years. To fellow historians Julia Laite and Jen Grant, thanks for the many years of debate, wine, and cupcakes, and for reminding me of the light at the end of the tunnel. Special thanks to Alban Rrustemi and Gregory Hughes for their immense personal and “technical” support over the years. To my TIFF family, thanks for “transforming the way” I see the world and for the annual “breaks.” And finally, my sincerest thanks to my sisters for their constant encouragement; my nieces for their boundless curiosity and uplifting spirits; my father, whose passion for history and debate inspired my own; and my mother, the intrepid and tireless editor, for her incisive insights, sense of humor through painstaking edits, and unwavering support.
Abbreviations
| ACK | Anglican Church of Kenya |
| ADC | African District Council |
| APA | Abaluyia Peoples Association |
| AWA | Abaluyia Welfare Association |
| AWF | African Workers’ Federation |
| BFBS | British and Foreign Bible Society |
| BPU | Buluhya Political Union |
| CMS | Church Missionary Society |
| FAM | Friends African Mission |
| FUM | Friends United Mission |
| IAI | International African Institute |
| IBEAC | Imperial British East Africa Company |
| KADU | Kenya African Democratic Union |
| KANU | Kenya African National Union |
| KAU | Kenya African Union |
| KCA | Kikuyu Central Association |
| KLC | Kenya Land Commission |
| KNA | Kenya National Archives |
| KPA | Kakamega Provincial Archives |
| KTWA | Kavirondo Taxpayers’ Welfare Association |
| LNC | Local Native Council |
| NARA | US National Archives and Records Administration |
| NCA | Nyanza Central Association |
| NKCA | North Kavirondo Central Association |
| NKTWA | North Kavirondo Taxpayers’ Welfare Association |
| NLTC | Native Land Tenure Committee |
| OAU | Organization of African Unity |
| TNA:PRO | The National Archives: Public Records Office |
| UNA | Uganda National Archives |
INTRODUCTION
Mapping Political Communities in Africa
ON 25 August 2009, Perus Angaya Abura sat drinking her morning tea in her home, in the Amalemba Estates outside Kakamega, in Kenya’s Western Province, anticipating a knock at her door from a “census enumerator.” The 2009 Kenya census sparked controversy when government officials opted to resurrect a section on ethnic background on their questionnaires. Responding to concerns over ethnic violence, official manipulation, and minority rights, Kenyan officials expanded the list of forty-two “tribes” recognized in the last census a decade before to 114. The new list contained several tribes Perus had identified with at various points in her long life.1 For the first time, “Kenyan” appeared as an option on a national census. “Luyia,” the ethnic group ascribed to Perus since the first colonial census, in 1948, when she was but a teenager, also appeared.2 Under “Luyia,” a collapsible list of several different names unfolded for the first time: “Kisa,” the administrative name given to the clans within Perus’s home location during the colonial demarcation of 1909; and “Isukha,” her husband’s community and thus the community of her children, now appeared as official ethnic identities. Here laid out before Perus were some of the multiple identities she had come to wear: in