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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Mau Mau from Below: Fieldwork and Experience, 1955-57 and 1962
Author:Kershaw, GrethaISNI
Year:1991
Periodical:Canadian Journal of African Studies
Volume:25
Issue:2
Pages:274-297
Language:English
Geographic term:Kenya
Subjects:Mau Mau
diaries (form)
Bibliography/Research
colonialism
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
nationalism
About person:Greet KershawISNI
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/485220
Abstract:In these memoirs the author looks back on her experience 'in the field' in Kenya during Mau Mau. In the spring of 1955, she was asked by the World Council of Churches to go to Kenya and work for the Christian Council of Kenya's programme of rehabilitation for Mau Mau members. The idea that Mau Mau members needed rehabilitation depended on certain interpretations of Mau Mau, the oaths and the circumstances under which they had been taken. By the autumn of 1955, the author had come to the conclusion that if Mau Mau was principally an insurrectionist movement, it could not be assumed that the men and women needed spiritual and mental aid because of their involvement. She then began to study the Kikuyu perspective on Mau Mau. She discusses her first fieldwork period (1955-1957), her research design and its presuppositions, local Mau Mau and non-Mau Mau membership in Kiambu, the economic basis of Mau Mau participation, the linguistic definition of Mau Mau, conflicts between field information and ethnography in the perspectives on Mau Mau, and ethical problems of and in the field. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
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