Indigenous African Knowledge Production: Food-Processing Practices among Kenyan Rural Women

142 Pages·2014·1.15 MB·English

by  Njoki Nathani-Wane

INDIGENOUS AFRICAN KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION
Food-Processing Practices among Kenyan Rural Women
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NJOKI NATHANI WANE
Indigenous African
Knowledge Production
Food-Processing Practices among
Kenyan Rural Women
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2014
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-4426-4814-2
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-
based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Wane, Njoki Nathani, author
Indigenous African knowledge production : food-processing practices among
Kenyan rural women/Njoki Nathani Wane.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4814-2 (bound)
1. Embu (African people) – Science. 2. Embu (African people) – Folklore.
3. Embu (African people) – Social life and customs. 4. Women – Kenya –
Embu District – Social life and customs. 5. Food industry and trade –
Kenya – Embu District. I. Title.
DT433-545-E48W35 2014 305.48′896391067626 C2014-900132-0
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the
Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing
activities.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
Council.
To Mom, Dad, Brother Anthony, Michael Lemiso,
Francis, and Murtha.
May your souls rest in peace.
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Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Map of Kenya xiv
Introduction 3
1 Food Processing: Embu Women and Indigenous Knowledges 19
2 Kenya: The Land, the People, and the Socio-political Economy 31
3 The Everyday Experiences of Embu Women 44
4 Food Preservation and Change 63
5 Gender Relations, Decision Making, and Food Preferences 72
6 Indigenous Technology and the Influence of New Innovations 79
7 Removing the Margins: Including Indigenous Women’s Voices in
Knowledge Production 87
8 Contesting Knowledge: Some Concluding Thoughts 98
Notes 107
References 113
Index 121
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Foreword
Anyone who has visited rural communities in indigenous communities
cannot escape the constant lament of their elders about the attempts
of the current generation to dismiss or disempower indigenous ways
of knowing as “irrelevant knowledge.” The elders’ defence of “indig-
enous” or customary ways of doing things does not imply that local
peoples want to live in the past or that they are only interested in glo-
rifying or romanticizing the past for its own sake. Rather, it is an astute
realization that knowledge is cumulative. Knowledge builds on itself,
and only the anti-intellectual claims that some forms of knowledge
are useless, without appreciating the contexts and politics of claiming
and producing such knowledge. If there is “useless” knowledge, it is
defined more by the poor intent of the user of such knowledge than
by the knowledge per se. For indigenous or minority scholars in the
academy it is a constant struggle to legitimize their cultural ways of
knowing. Today we can point to another form of intellectual politics
that calls on us to subvert dominance and to shift away from Euro-
centric or Western-centric theorizing and discursive practices. Person-
ally, I see indigenous knowledge as a strategic knowledge base from
which to rupture the Western academy because I am convinced that
indigenous, anti-colonial analysis offers the best hope to challenge the
epistemic violence of Western cultural knowledge as it relates to the
material and spiritual exigencies and existence of marginalized subjects
and communities. Although the insistence upon the reimagining and
repositioning of difference as critical political discourse draws strength
from the important work of critical theorizing, I nevertheless want to
insist further upon an anti-colonial agency that enunciates itself in the
talk of “border crossing” and “cultural synthesis” by inserting power