The Blog

On Polygamy and Mistresses

Tue, 7 Jul 2009 20:04:07 +0300

By Jeanine Viau

After class on Thursday last week, each of the three classes prepared skits and follow-up discussion questions for a collective pastoral session. The skits were meant to dramatize and bring to life some of the issues being addressed in our respective courses. Interestingly, gender and cultural collision came to the forefront, both in the explicit issues presented and in the response/reception of these presentations. An initial moment of destabilizing discomfort came when the audience of students and field assistants from other courses laughed and jeered our skit depicting the silencing of women’s voices. We addressed serious concerns, including marital rape, female genital mutilation, severe marginalization and poverty, polygamy, unequal opportunities in education and distribution of labor, and the use of exclusively male language for God, and our colleagues silenced us, mocking our earnestness. When we raised concerns with the program director later on, he chalked it up to ‘nervous laughter,’ letting them off the hook. But in talking to our Kenyan cohorts and the field assistants from our class, there is a distinction between nervous laughter, as well as affirmative responses (which many of them claimed to be doing in retrospect), and outright disrespectful dismissal. Our Kenyan cohorts said that they had expected to be received this way; that they deal with this kind of treatment regularly as female university professors in their context.

An even more acute conflict emerged after the final skit, which dealt with polygamy vs. contemporary male infidelity as phenomena within the African cultural experience. Men and women alike laughed at various circumstances and encounters depicted in the dramatization, situations that a feminist lens observes with great unease and suspicion. Hearing the women laughing as the husband runs to meet his third mistress, while the wife is left economically responsible for her children and household, was disturbing. The skit was divided into two schemes – the first depicting a ‘traditional’ model of polygamy, the second a contemporary situation of male infidelity with multiple mistresses. The dramatization took on a normative stance favoring a traditional model of polygamy over accepted contemporary practices of male infidelity. This normative stance was further emphasized by the group’s proposed discussion question: ‘Which option is the way forward, polygamy or mistresses?’

Our uproar in response to this closed question was instantaneous. For the feminist minded, this question is normative in conception, meaning it asks for a discriminatory (arguably ethical) decision, and yet, it is closed, proposing that these are the only two possible choices. In the group discussion following the skit presentations, this was the first distinction we had to address: the difference between normative and descriptive claims. Many of those sympathetic to the practice of polygamy/mistresses and the question itself, with its closed frame, emphasized the fact of these practices within the Kenyan/African reality. However, there is a difference between acknowledging a cultural fact or a descriptive claim, and accepting this fact as normative, as a just and ethically legitimate mode of relating. Since the question was framed for a normative response, those of us reflecting within the feminist imagination had serious difficulties accepting these as the only two options.

Interestingly, as the discussion progressed, it was primarily the men in the group who affirmed polygamy as a just and ideal form of relating. Their primary arguments had to do with the affirmation of traditional African culture, the economic and labor advantages for women in polygamous households, and the protections and regulations supported in traditional African societies, which they attempted to show in the skit as the husband took his quarreling wives to the counsel of elders. But as the skit portrayed, as well as the reality of women in polygamous homes, the protections do more to protect the interests of men than women. The only reason the council of elders was consulted was because the husband’s desires and routine were interrupted; and the resolution simply involved the women ceasing to act jealously and the husband spending equal time with each.

Although some of the Kenyan women in the group discussion supported their male colleagues, most of them expressed the desire to have one husband only, that this was their ideal situation. If the choice is between a second wife or infidelity with mistresses, one of the women said she would prefer a polygamous relationship, particularly since she has no recourse if her husband is economically able to take a second wife or has to take one for the sake of having children. The men in the discussion tried to emphasize free choice as an element of traditional polygamy, that a woman consents to this arrangement; but hearing from the women, it seems that the only reason they would enter into such a relationship is in the absence of choice.

As a Western feminist, I am required to acknowledge my socio-cultural location, check my cultural assumptions, and authentically evaluate the arguments before making normative judgments and claims. However, this should not exclude me from the debate, particularly when I hear competing perspectives coming out of the host context. Women are not satisfied nor is justice normally served in polygamous familial structures. Not only am I aided by insights born out of my own cultural location, I stand in solidarity with women from the Kenyan (and other African) contexts who are oppressed by certain cultural assumptions and desire more for their daughters and themselves.

Our instructor, Anne, sheds light on the particular injustices for women in polygamous situations and the collapse of traditional arguments supporting polygamy in light of a feminist theological critique. She demonstrates how research has almost exclusively relied on the perspectives/testimonies of men to support claims of justice in polygamous relationships. In talking to women, men’s claims to women’s satisfaction and wholeness break down. For Anne, an authentic Christian vision of human relationship provides a powerful source for women’s liberation: “Polygamy is one of those systems that legalize the inferiority and subordination of women to men. Christ’s message is one that gives full life to all and mends the brokenness of our humanity. Polygamy reflects the brokenness of our humanity, and as such cannot be accommodated by Christianity. The Christian message recognizes that women and men are equal sharers in humanity and that both are made in the image and likeness of God. It carries within it a radical vision of human mutuality, reciprocity, and cooperation” (Nasimiyu-Wasike, 116). This seems to be in line with much of the fieldwork I have done; Christianity becomes a source of empowerment and resistance for the women in this context.

Looking at this issue in concrete practice, and considering Anne’s critique of polygamous marriage structures, one of the interviews I had yesterday sheds light on the oppression of young women who are trapped within unjust cultural matrices. I interviewed a woman deputy at a girl’s secondary school in one of the rural areas of Ngong district just outside of Nairobi. A deputy is like a disciplinary dean in the US context. She identified traditional cultural structures and obligations, particularly related to marriage and sexuality, as the greatest challenges facing young women in this community. This community is predominantly Massai, one of over fifty particular ethnic groups within the Kenyan context. The Massai have, in large part, maintained their traditional culture, including polygamy and traditional gender norms and divisions of labor. The deputy said that within this community, the education of girl children is not a priority. Young women are valued for their marriageablility, the bride wealth they are able to bring to the family. Many of the girls in this context are married right out of primary school (around 14 or 15). Others, who make it to secondary school, end up dropping out, forced into marriages, and/or succumbing to societal pressures because their families cannot and/or will not pay school fees. For community sponsors who would help with the cost of education, again, the education of girls is not valued, so those resources more often than not go to boys.

The question for me continues to be: Are women making these decisions freely? Are they empowered agents? I asked the deputy if these situations were often consensual, the marriages, sex and adolescent pregnancies. She said, “How can they be?” These young women are under extreme pressure to accept their cultural fate as women, which exclusively means marriage, child bearing, and difficult domestic labor (often the entire economic responsibility for the household falls to them; and this is when they are between 14-18 years old). These women are culturally programmed to think that this is their only option, that they are not really women until they are married, and if they don’t have children, they are dead ends. Many are married into polygamous households, in the context of which they are considered property, extensions of male immortality, economic success, and status. Those coming out of polygamous home environments, particularly the daughters of second and third wives, are that much more victims of cultural and self-devaluation, as they witness the dehumanization of their mothers.

In light of these insights from the ground, I stand with Anne and the deputy in deploring these cultural conditions. Just because a traditional practice constitutes a cultural fact does not mean it is life healing, life redeeming, or life sustaining. The entrapment of women in these mazes of injustice, without knowing there is an option to try their luck on the open planes of agency, beyond the walls of the cultural prison (as the program director calls it), is always tragic. It is not sufficient to practice cultural justification without adequate interrogation and evaluation. So I join the deputy in calling for victory (as in Josh 1:7,8), a notion absent from the minds of many young women worldwide. I lend my voice to Miriam, and Hannah, and Mary’s prophetic calls for justice and transformation, their embodied challenges to cultural conformity and systemic oppression.

Without Water, there is no life

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 23:13:31 +0300

By Elisabeth Vasko

The Ndakaini Dam accounts for 80 percent of Nairobi’s water needs. It has a capacity of 70 million cubic meters. Today, its capacity is at 26.6 million cubic meters (38 percent) due to a lack of rainfall in the area. The daily demand for water is 650,000 cubic meters; the distributed daily capacity is 380,000 cubic meters. If all the water is distributed and rainfall remains the same, there will be no water in Nairobi by December. (Source: Daily Nation, Moses Kuria).

While drought has been a feature of the region’s climatology, it has been exacerbated by global climate change and large scale deforestation. The Green Belt Movement estimates Kenya’s forest coverage at 2 percent. Forest cover impacts rainfall, underground water, soil fertility, clean air, and soil erosion. Consequently, the drought has been accompanied by a food shortage. As the prices of food rise, more families are pushed into hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one sixth of all humanity is undernourished. Without water, there is no food.
In Nairobi the issue is not only a lack of water, but a lack of clean water. Clean water and good hygiene decrease the spread of disease. For people with HIV/AIDS good personal hygiene is essential in reducing the chances of opportunistic infections. Moreover, as we are quickly learning, ARV’s cannot be taken without food. Without water and food, there is no health.

And I could keep going . . .

To be really honest, Nairobi’s water shortage has only been a minor inconvenience for me. It has meant taking cold fast showers in the house, flushing toilets only when necessary, and wearing my clothes a little longer before washing them. For the most part, I have been able to make these adjustments without making major lifestyle changes. Yes, I did get “sick” from the water, but I was able to go to a pharmacist and purchase medication for 500ks (approximately $7 US). To give you a little perspective, it took Margaret-- a local fruit and vegetable seller—one month to save this amount. We have been able to eat what we want, our only restriction being budgetary guidelines. [Nakumatt — one the more affluent grocery chains in region—has almost everything one can find in the US.] While I have appreciated access to the “comforts” of home, I am also profoundly aware that I am living in a space of contradiction.

During the day, my research takes to me hear the stories of women who struggle to feed their families and to learn about the inequitable distribution of resources in Kenya. At night, I return to a space with electricity, clean water, and abundant food. Moreover, I do all of this knowing that when I return to the US, I will be able to take a long hot shower. If I am really honest, I have to admit that I am grateful for these privileges. They are not things I want to give up. Rather, I prefer to convince myself that everyone should have such “rights.” However, this is not justice. Our visions of justice cannot be tied to racial, economic, or social privilege. Justice has to be rooted in livelihoods. I know this in my head. The question becomes whether I will come to know this in my body. The search for solidarity requires that we take this seriously.

Without water, there is no life.

Suffering and Evil

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:49:18 +0300

By Emily Reimer-Barry

Why do people suffer? How can one believe in a Creator God who allows people to suffer? How can we explain our everyday experiences of evil and tragedy while still affirming order and meaning in our world?

These are complex questions and they are not new. Human beings have wrestled with these kinds of theological and philosophical questions for thousands of years. Christians in the United States answer these questions in a variety of ways. As I’m finding out this week, so do Africans. As part of our seminar I have been reading about witchcraft and traditional African religion(s). For Americans, talk of witches might make one think of such varied themes as tacky Halloween costumes, historical analysis of the Salem Witch Trials, or Wicca in contemporary America. Here in Kenya some ethnic groups account for evil in the world by explaining that witches can use their powers to influence other people’s behavior or to influence nature.

As part of my research for this course I had the opportunity to interview a Christian woman who believes in witches. I am still processing this experience but want to describe our conversation and some of the things I have learned from it.

For my informant, a witch is a person whose intention is evil, and who has special powers to influence nature or the behavior of other people. You can’t recognize witches by where they live, what they wear, or where they worship. But if something evil happens you know a witch is involved. For example, if a family member gets sick with terminal illness, you can assume that a witch is to blame. Nothing is mere accident in the world; there is always an agent involved. But this understanding of witchcraft safeguards an image of an all-good Creator God because, according to my informant, “God allows the evil to be done, but God does not do evil.” As a Christian she believes that prayers to Jesus can combat witchcraft, if the one who prays has enough faith. I told her that I did not think that I believed in witches, and she told me “witches exist whether you believe in them or not.” When my informant told me that she had experienced witchcraft in her own life, I asked her to tell me her stories.

Her first experience of witchcraft was when she was seven years old. Her grandmother was always suspicious of her neighbor down the street and on one particular day, while walking back from the market with her grandmother, they felt like they were being followed by evil spirits. They looked back and saw this suspicious neighbor, whom she called a witch. When they arrived at the gate to their compound the witch caught up to them, mumbled a curse, and spat on the ground. My informant accidentally stepped in the spit and immediately her scalp began to itch and her hair began to fall out. Her grandmother began to pray with her to combat the spell, and eventually her itchy flaky scalp healed but her hair has never fully come back. Today she has short hair that she pulls back with a hair band and she says that her hair never grows.

She told me another story as well. Once, in her church, a young boy was unable to eat for nearly a month. During one church service members of the community extended their hands to pray over the boy but when he tried to eat that night, sand mysteriously appeared in his food. That is how they knew that he had been cursed. When they prayed over him at another church service the boy writhed in pain and my informant said that she could see stones falling from the ceiling. But because of the faithful prayers of the Christians who prayed over the boy, the work of the witch’s curse had been disrupted, and with more prayers over more weeks the boy was freed and was able to heal and to eat again.

My informant also told me that diviners can interpret and resist witches’ actions. A diviner is a person who has a vocation to mediate God’s healing presence in the world. A diviner is a godly person who can confirm a witch’s action and who has the power to disrupt this evil intent.

At this point in the conversation I had tons of questions for my informant! I started by asking her about her understanding of personal responsibility in light of what she had told me about witchcraft. How could she be sure that when something went wrong a witch was to blame? Does she have an understanding of bad luck or of negative consequences from actions? My informant said that sometimes when bad things happen it is because the person did something wrong. But in other times when bad things happen it cannot be attributed to the person doing something wrong. That is why you can go to a diviner and explain the problem and if the diviner is very good, she can help you.

I was also curious about whether her belief in witchcraft prevented her from seeking medical treatment in cases of illness (since she had already told me that illness is an example of witchcraft). I specifically asked her: what do you do if a family member is sick? She said that first she prays to God and asks God for healing. She explains to God that she has faith in God’s powers and she believes God’s will will be done. But, if the illness is very serious, she goes to the hospital. If it is not serious then she stays at home and asks God to heal her.

I asked her if she could give me an example of this in her life, and she told two stories. First, when she was very sick at home and thought she had malaria, she told her husband that God would heal her and that she did not need Western medicine. But her husband made her go to the hospital to be treated, and when she took the medicine she recovered. She said that this was not only because of the medicine but because of her great faith in God. She gave another example as well. A few years ago when traveling to see her mother she began to have a high fever and hot flashes/cold shivers. She called her mother to tell her that she was turning the car around because she was sick and her mother insisted that she continue to come and that while she traveled her mother would pray for her unceasingly. Sure enough, when she arrived at her mother’s gate she was healed.

She told one final story as a way of explaining her understanding of her belief in witches and her faith in God’s power. When her father was very old he became sick, and on the way to the hospital she and her mother prayed over him. God revealed to her that her father’s time had come, and when he received treatment in the hospital he was healed and then died. Even though she was very sad to say goodbye to her father, she knew that God had confirmed that her father’s time had come. His death was not a result of witchcraft.

At this point we were running out of time and our conversation shifted to my experience in Kenya so far. I told her that I was still getting used to the bumpy roads and that I was nervous about the matatu drivers who are very reckless. She asked me if I am a Christian and I told her yes, and she told me that I should not worry about the matatu drivers because if I have faith in God then God will protect me.

I wanted to ask her if this is the kind of advice she would give in other circumstances, but I thought it would be rude. I had in mind the case of HIV-prevention and condom use but I did not feel comfortable asking her whether she would just tell someone to pray for God’s protection.

As our conversation ended I had more questions than answers, and I am still thinking about what she said. I don’t know what to make of the stories she told me. Clearly her grandmother’s neighbor had scared her as a young child, and she associates this story with her psoriasis and hair growth. Others might say that there are other explanations, but this is the one that makes the most sense to her. Some might use Western medicine to explain how she recovered from malaria or from the illness she experienced when traveling to see her mother, but she believes she was healed through the power of prayer (at least in part).

I remain troubled by my informant’s attempt to explain tragedy by referring to witchcraft. But at the same time I am trying to understand how this makes sense to her. If we see her beliefs contextually can we understand how a person in her social location might find it empowering to say that faithful prayer can disrupt evil in the world?

I also want to point out that there are some important similarities with my informant’s understanding of witchcraft and some Christians’ understandings of the devil or Satan. Some Christians believe that there are cosmic forces of good and evil battling and that bad things in your live are the result of the work of the devil. Lest we automatically dismiss this woman’s description as superstitious we should acknowledge that there are superstitious Christians in the world as well. For me her analysis made me realize that any discussion of evil and tragedy in the world brings up many questions about God, human agency, and meaning-making.

As I conclude this long-winded description and reflection, I’d simply like to point out that even if my readers find my informant’s descriptions to be strange, she is not alone. Just last week the BBC Africa “Have Your Say” online forum was devoted to the question: “Do you believe in witchcraft?” As you can imagine a variety of responses have been submitted. You can read them online here.

In addition there are a few recent news stories from BBC Africa about persons who have been murdered here in Kenya because their attackers claimed they were witches. So my informant’s descriptions, which might seem strange to me, are more prevalent than I had initially realized. One powerful and disturbing report is Joseph Obhiambo’s recent article in which he gives a first-hand account of the public murder of five accused witches. While Pope Benedict has spoken out against witchcraft, I witnessed a “Catholic visionary” here in Nairobi just a few days ago whose claims about the power of the rosary and holy water came close to the same kind of beliefs my informant was describing.

When we discussed witchcraft in our seminar last week, one of the Kenyan participants said that one can think of witchcraft as the community’s way of shaming and stigmatizing persons who do not fit the norm of their culture. It is a way that the traditional community regulated behavior, she told me. For me, many questions remain. Why do people—Christian or otherwise—seek to describe tragedy by ascribing agency and power to a figure like the devil or a witch? In a country where over 150 persons have been accused of witchcraft and murdered by members of their community, what is going on? How are these beliefs connected to a community’s education, to widespread experience of tragedy, and the need to have someone, something to blame? And how should Christians describe the goal of prayer, the limits of human agency, and the realities of tragedy?

Reflections on culture and Hybridity

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:30:24 +0300

Reflection by Jeanine Viau

After the initial conception and pregnancy of this project, we are now in the groanings of labor. In this space, we will certainly encounter multiple experiences of conception, burden rendering, and spiraling contractions of joy and pain. And already, we have confidence that our initiative will bear abundant fruit.

We will be making many introductions over the next weeks. If our initial introductions are any indication of what these will be like, then they will entail deep a/effection, as well as struggle. My impression is that the relationships between the Kenyan and US participants have formed easily and authentically thus far. I am grateful that we have developed some intimacy very quickly. This, I think has come as a result of shared living space and meals, and a loving willingness to be in community with one another. Our individual research partnerships are still taking shape. These will be more of a struggle, as each of our imaginations resists compromising the integrity of its questions. This negotiation is already an important lesson in meaningful collaboration.

We have had a few lessons in negotiating space and voice, since arriving in Kenya. Our host institution is an anthropologically based institute of African cultural studies. In academic circles, there are ongoing arguments between normative ethical disciplines and classic models of anthropological investigation, specifically concerning the doing and interpreting of ethnography. It has taken several conversations with our host institution to make clear our purpose(s) and secure some measure of autonomy for our work in the field and the classroom. This ongoing discussion is indicative of ongoing interdisciplinary struggles in the wider academy, within anthropological and theological/ethical circles alike. Walking across the threshold at this institution involved entering a predetermined analytical paradigm of cultural immersion, utilizing a list of definitive categorical domains for organizing cultural beliefs, along with static answers plugged into these boxes for the African and Western contexts. Several of us experienced significant cognitive dissonance with this model, particularly with the contradiction between an advocacy for objective, unbiased cultural immersion, and a predetermined categorical structure of interpretation.

Also, our host institution is committed to recovering and preserving the differences between Western and Traditional African culture. This is an honorable endeavor, but even our African cohorts are very suspicious of this commitment. Their question is, which Traditional African culture are you talking about? As it stands, they collapse all of these cultures under the umbrella of ‘African culture.’ I could ask the same quesiton regarding the Western, even just the American context; not every community fits neatly into the categorical dichotomies determined by the host program. One of the primary objectives of our project is to acknowledge, honor, and discover some particularities of radical hybridity in the global context, and especially in postcolonial spaces and persons. We all become persons of reflection intimately connected to this space as either members of the dominated society, or the dominating society (or multiple variations). We prefer a commitment to complexity, which recognizes that cultural domains are somewhat superficial, and cannot neatly explain the cultural contradictions within each individual, community, and society.

Anne’s classroom has become a liminal bubble within the institutional walls, a heart beating and fluttering with the anticipation of bursting. We have met resistance from male students in other summer courses, asking why there aren’t any men in the class, and how then can we have a balanced perspective (wouldn’t we learn more)? The question even came up from a field assistant in the class: we are talking about a feminist theology, what about a masculine theology? Anne articulately responded that all theology, really, almost all intellectual reflection up to the 1960’s, is a product of the malestream imagination. She recalled having had a man in this class several years ago, who was not there to learn, only to argue with her. This is the mentality we seek to resist. They say we are closed minded, congregating behind closed doors, and bringing with us predetermined biases, but often it is them who refuse to hear what we are saying, what has been born out of our own experiences of injustice.

Anne gives us a new model for reflection from the work of Letty Russell and others. We are working with ‘A Theological Spiral of Action,’ where the individual (1) reflect on experience (particularly an experience of injustice); (2) analyzes the social reality attending to political economic, social, cultural, and intellectual forms of oppression; (3) questions tradition, Biblical and Church teaching in the case of theology; (4) then searches for clues to transformations and strategies for action; [and (5) brings those insights into practice]. This model focuses on particular encounters and experiences, rather than organizing into broad general categories of interpretation. It recognizes that there is no such thing as pure objectivity in research and pedagogy; rather, all projects are always engaged for or against the oppressed. The larger framework is the Spiral of reflection and action, connecting all of our points of contradiction and insight together. And when multiple spirals intertwine, the hybrid spaces of creativity, contradiction, and coherence are infinitely complex and the possibilities for action are endless.

So maybe, our child is still a fleck of gold on the horizon or is still resting in the hammock of the womb or is commencing the Spiral of travail. Definitely it is all of these at once. And this community will surely be blessed with multiple children, several daughters willing to continue walking down the Spiral Staircase.

The “GROUP”

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:30:52 +0300

Reflection by Melissa Browning

In reflecting on our first week here, the aspect that has been most meaningful is the connections that are being formed by the Kenyan and US participants. We each keep reflecting on how grateful we are to be part of this community of brilliant and gifted women. We have been in classes together, in the field together, eating and living together for a week and we are thrilled to watch as connections are formed. As the month together progresses, we are looking forward to what we will learn together as the dinner table and the classroom become cross-cultural (and postcolonial) spaces.

At this point, we’ve formed “collaborative-writing teams” with one US and one Kenyan participant working and writing together. These teams will be focusing (broadly) on the following topics within a postcolonial feminist context: sexuality, post-election violence, food, leadership, and women’s narratives. As we work on these topics, we will be doing fieldwork with African women and listening to their stories. Keep checking back on this blog, and we will share what we’re learning!