Description
Berghahn Books The Land Is Dying Contingency Creativity and Conflict in Western Kenya 2010 Edition by Paul Wenzel Geissler, Ruth Jane Prince
Based on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book explores life in and around a Luo-speaking village in western Kenya during a time of death. The epidemic of HIV/AIDS affects every aspect of sociality and pervades villagers' debates about the past, the future and the ethics of everyday life. Central to such debates is a discussion of touch in the broad sense of concrete, material contact between persons. In mundane practices and in ritual acts, touch is considered to be key to the creation of bodily life as well as social continuity. Underlying the significance of material contact is its connection with growth - of persons and groups, animals, plants and the land - and the forward movement of life more generally. Under the pressure of illness and death, economic hardship and land scarcity, as well as bitter struggles about the relevance and application of Christianity and 'Luo tradition' in daily life, people find it difficult to agree about the role of touch in engendering growth, or indeed about the aims of growth itself. Table of contents :- Table of illustrationsAcknowledgementsChapter 1. Introduction: "Are we still together here?"A community at the end of the worldThe death of todayGrowing relationsBeing togetherGrowthTouchSearching for another social practiceEngaging boundariesHygieneKnowing boundariesChanging perspectives?Coming togetherVisitingChapter 2. Landscapes and historiesReturnsA road in timeKisumuDriving out Bondo DistrictThe lakePiny Luo - 'Luoland'A 'tribe'Luo socialityThe reserveReturn to Uhero Yimbo MuthurwaMaking Uhero village(Re-)SettlementBelonging and ownershipA modern Luo village'Down' into the village'Up' and 'down' KaOkothAlternative 'modernities': the beach and 'Jerusalem'KaOgumbaChapter 3. Salvation and Tradition: heaven and earth?Dichotomies in everyday lifeSalvationStrong ChristiansSaved lifeSaved and othersFaith in purityTraditionThe Luo rules'Born-again'TraditionalismTraditionalism, Christianity and The WestCustomary everyday lifeSearching waysTradition in everyday lifeEveryday ritualThe absence of ritualThe omnipresence of ritualPART ONEChapter 4. 'Opening the way': being at home in UheroIntroduction"Our culture says that one must make a home"Relational flows: embedding growth in the homeTom's new homeMoving forward - directionsOpenings and closuresOrder and sequenceComplementarity and growth: coming together in the houseMaking a houseSharing the gendered houseThe living houseGender, generation and growthStruggling against implicationThe home in heaven'The rules of the home'Powers of explicationPracticing rulesCementing relationsTraditionalism and other kinds of ethnography5. Growing children: shared persons and permeable bodiesIntroductionSharingSharing or exchange?Sharing foodFood, blood and kinship'The child is of the mother'Changed foods and relationsSharing and dividing nurtureShared bodiesIllnesses of infancy and their treatmentEvil eye and spiritsMedical pluralism?Herbal medicinesCleanness and dirtSharing namesBeing named afterBeing calledSharing names and naming sharesConclusionPART TWOChapter 6. Order and decomposition: touch around sickness and deathIntroductionOtoyo's homeThe sickness of a daughterReturn of a daughterKwer and chiraContinuity and contingencyAvoiding the rulesTreating chiraCaringThe death of a husbandExpected death"She should remember her love!"DeathThe funeralThe dead bodyLoving peopleConclusionChapter 7. 'Life Seen': touch, vision and speech in the making of sex in UheroIntroductionEarthly ethics and Christian moralityRiwruokRiwruok: outside intentionalityChira: Growth and directionalityChodo and luor: continuity and changeCleanness: Sex and separationThe proliferation of 'Sex'AIDS and chiraThe fight against AIDSPornography - 'bad things'ConclusionChapter 8. "Our Luo culture is sick": identity and infection in the debate about widow inheritanceIntroductionTesting positiveBecoming a widowContentious practicesA tough headTeroIndependenceAloneInheritance and infectionPast and present teroFighting teroDeprivation and propertyInheriting HIV - fears about women's sexuality and social reproductionTurning tero into a businessAmbiguous heritage: Tero as source of identity and infection'Our Luo culture is sick''The most elaborate and solemn ritual': tero is our cultureSanitising Luo culture?ConclusionPART THREEChapter 9. "How can we drink his tea without killing a bull?" - funerary ceremony and matters of remembranceIntroductionFunerary ceremoniesFunerals in UheroFuneral commensalityReturning to the funeralOsure's sawoAn Earthly feastRebekkaEating the sawoTraces of the past'Sides'Baba Winston's memorialA Christian funerary celebrationDebatesThe serviceRemembranceConclusionChapter 10. "The land is dying" - Traces and monuments in the village landscapeIntroductionCutting the landOwnershipLand, paper and powerLiving on the landGardens and farmsThe bushFencesAt homeTraces and inscriptionsGetting one's land - finding one's placeConclusionChapter 11. Contingency, creativity and difference in western KenyaCreative differenceOld and new dealings with hybridity"Are we still together here?"PostscriptKa-Ogumba 2007BibliographyBooks and ArticlesNewspaper articles and electronic mediaMusicIndex