Writing the Difference

Kikuyu, Mau Mau, Home Guards, Missionaries

Abstract

In this article I describe the practices of agents involved in the 1957 reopening of Kenyan independent schools that had been closed in 1952 because they were considered “guerrilla hotbeds”, as well as the establishment of new schools under the direction of Consolata missionaries. The missionaries’ involvement in the reopening of old schools and the creation of new ones is the fruit of relationships built during the guerrilla war, when huge numbers of Kikuyu Kenya’s largest ethnic group, were imprisoned in concentration or detention camps. The analyses in this paper is based on data gathered from the field, along with archival and library research, utilizing a perspective focused on relational processes.