Abstract
Gĩkũyũ and settler colonist women’s life histories were analyzed using textual analysis of first-person accounts to understand the ideologies behind women’s perceptions of land, place, and human-environment relationships, and to fill a gap in the literature on women in central Kenya. Earlier studies have focused on social relations between Gĩkũyũ and colonists, social issues affecting these groups, or land as an important, but nongendered construct. Our major finding was that the women’s understandings of humanenvironment relations and place reflected gender awareness, but overall were consistent with the dominant ideologies of men from their cultural background and time. Settler colonists took a decidedly Western perspective of people as separate from, acting upon, and improving unordered, chaotic lands and Kenya as an aesthetically pleasing, though potentially dangerous place. Gĩkũyũ women saw land as ancestral home, site of struggle against colonial land grabs and forced labor, and people as more connected to, rather than separate from their environment.
Recommended Citation
Frontani, Heidi G. and Hewitt, Rachel Rebecca
(2005)
"Ideologies of Land and Place: Gĩkũyũ and Settler Colonist Women in Kenya,"
The Geographical Bulletin: Vol. 47:
Iss.
1, Article 2.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/thegeographicalbulletin/vol47/iss1/2