Masculinities in Colonial Kenya
Masculinities in colonial Kenya.
The subject of masculinity or masculinities is the one that has drawn attention to gender scholars around the world. Through interactions with Robert Morel’s writings about Gender and Masculinity, I have come to understand that masculinities differ depending in the context which they are in. This essay will analyse how and why did the production of masculinities change among the Maasai as a result of colonisation in Kenya. Many factors including environmental change and adapting to a different environment contributes to change.
Hodgson (199) analyses the historical articulation of modernity with the shifting production of Maasai masculinities in Tanzania. Hodgson (1999) looks at the experience of two different maasai masculinities which depict the traditional/ modern periods and the colonial/ postcolonial periods. The term “Maasai” is a term that depicts a specific type of masculinity. A maasai can be interpreted in many contexts as a warrior and in the Kenyan context, as men herding cattle and men of proud patriarchy. However, masculinities change in different contexts as I have mentioned before. Maasai can mean one thing in Kenya but mean something totally different in Europe. Where one is situated geographically has a huge impact on their experiences and how to interpret concepts like Masculinity or Maasai. How we interpret masculinity is highly influenced by how we have been taught masculinity to be, for example if a child grows up without a father figure; he/she does not the role of a father in his/her life because there is no father visible. Hence he/she can give a totally different description of a father to someone who grew up in the presence of a father figure. The same thing applies to masculinity. Our understanding of masculinity is measured by what we are taught masculinity to be. Hodgson (1999) looks at how maasai masculinity changed when maa-speaking men moved to different geographic spaces.
The maa- speaking
The subject of masculinity or masculinities is the one that has drawn attention to gender scholars around the world. Through interactions with Robert Morel’s writings about Gender and Masculinity, I have come to understand that masculinities differ depending in the context which they are in. This essay will analyse how and why did the production of masculinities change among the Maasai as a result of colonisation in Kenya. Many factors including environmental change and adapting to a different environment contributes to change.
Hodgson (199) analyses the historical articulation of modernity with the shifting production of Maasai masculinities in Tanzania. Hodgson (1999) looks at the experience of two different maasai masculinities which depict the traditional/ modern periods and the colonial/ postcolonial periods. The term “Maasai” is a term that depicts a specific type of masculinity. A maasai can be interpreted in many contexts as a warrior and in the Kenyan context, as men herding cattle and men of proud patriarchy. However, masculinities change in different contexts as I have mentioned before. Maasai can mean one thing in Kenya but mean something totally different in Europe. Where one is situated geographically has a huge impact on their experiences and how to interpret concepts like Masculinity or Maasai. How we interpret masculinity is highly influenced by how we have been taught masculinity to be, for example if a child grows up without a father figure; he/she does not the role of a father in his/her life because there is no father visible. Hence he/she can give a totally different description of a father to someone who grew up in the presence of a father figure. The same thing applies to masculinity. Our understanding of masculinity is measured by what we are taught masculinity to be. Hodgson (1999) looks at how maasai masculinity changed when maa-speaking men moved to different geographic spaces.
The maa- speaking
Bibliography: Dorothy L. Hodgson, “Once intrepid warriors”: Modernity and the production of Maasai Masculinities’, Ethnology 38, 2 (spring, 1999), pp.121-150.