THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT: POLITICS, INTIMACY, AND MIDDLE CLASS CONSTITUTION-MAKING IN KENYA A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Curtis Njue Murungi December 2013 © 2013 by Curtis Njue Murungi. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/rp278gz1871 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. James Ferguson, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Sylvia Yanagisako, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Paulla Ebron Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost for Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii ABSTRACT Based on sixteen months of fieldwork in Kenya, this dissertation is an anthropologically and ethnographically informed historical analysis of class as a political process. I place the constitution-making project in historical context in order to provide a background to its claims of being a “middle class” project and to examine what exactly it is a “middle class” constitution-making process produces and on whose behalf. I start by examining how Nairobi’s particular history has led to the creation of a socio-physical landscape that structures the emergence of social class in Kenya. I argue that the interests, ideological beliefs, and socioeconomic and sociopolitical strategies of the reform movement are tied to the ways Nairobi is differentially accessed as a lived and symbolic space, and that the interests of the urban, cosmopolitan, professional middle class from which reform activists are drawn is shaped by the intimacies entered into by its members. I take aim at the “deep state” that is said to be the biggest threat to democracy in Kenya and to the establishment of the reform state. Rather than seeing it as the reactionary holdover of a corrupt and illiberal regime, I suggest that the “deep state” represents the survival of several historical processes through which Kenyan society and the Kenyan state were built. In particular I pay attention to the role that agricultural commodities play in structuring the relationship between government and a domestic elite, and suggest we should view the efforts made to support large-scale settler agriculture in Kenya dominated by aristocrats from England, alongside changes to customary forms of authority occasioned by industrial capitalism in rural England. I then turn my attention to revealing how the process of writing a constitution necessarily reproduces the class distinctions that underlie the social inequalities that the constitution-making project is aimed at undermining. First, I show how the reform movement is better understood not as a mass movement but as a small, closely-aligned group of individuals from a mostly cosmopolitan and professional background, who chose to focus on “human rights” and constitution-making because these reflected their class interests. I suggest that the national civic education process, and the forums organized to collect public’s views about a new constitution, together acted to create and iv locate a Kenyan public steeped in the language of human rights and dedicated to the practices of liberal democracy and the abstract ideals of reform. Having located “the people” and collected their views, it was possible for the reform movement to lay a claim to government leadership. Finally, I take a close look at the role imagined for the Judiciary in the reform state and argue that in many ways, the Judiciary ended up being the real object of the reform process. This is because it is the place where reform activists could force the state to show itself, opening it’s authority up to challenge, and because it has since become the stage where the authority and importance of reform, and the status of reform activists, is confirmed, and where challenges to reform ideology can be contained and expunged. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University for their support and guidance through the completion of this project. I would like to thank my advisor, Sylvia Yanagisako, for agreeing to guide me through this process, for challenging me throughout it, and for doing so with a combination of caring and good humor. James Ferguson and Paulla Ebron, have consistently show an enthusiasm for my ideas, as outlandish as even I sometimes think they are, and, as members of my committee, have helped nurture my thinking and my research. I would also like to thank, Ewa Domanska, who as much as anyone has helped shaped how I think of myself as a researcher, Kathy Coll who has been instrumental in helping me think about teaching, and James Smith, who as a member of my examination committee pushed me to refine my research and to question my own common sense about Kenya. I also owe a sincere debt of gratitude to Liisa Malkki who has been witness to all the various twists and turns my project has taken, and been a valuable source of support throughout. I’d like to thank Sharika Thiranagama, who provided valuable insight and encouragement as she carefully read and commented on various chapter drafts, and James Holmquist who generously agreed to read and comment on a draft of this dissertation. I feel tremendously cared for at the Stanford Department of Anthropology. This starts with Ellen Christensen and Shelly Coughlan, who, with great love, have helped me navigate every challenge I’ve been faced with during my time in the program. Together with Jen Kidwell, Kaila Jimenez, Maria Manzanares, Emily Bishop, Claudia Engel, Rachel Tongco, Anahid Sarkissian, April Flores, and Regina Miller, their support helped me feel at home in the Department (perhaps too at home, I’ve been here a long time) and provided a crucial center around which my experience was built. I am indebted too, to the support of my cohort, Trinidad Rico, Dolly Kikon, Aisha Ghani, and Bruce O’Neil, and to all the other students with whom I have shared this rollercoaster experience. I would like to extend a special thanks to Kylea Liese, Chengdiao Fan, Hantian Zhang, Neepa Acharya, and Vivian Lu who helped me work my way through the writing process. I also want to thank my family and my friends who vi have sustained me, offering me love and support without which none of what I have accomplished at Stanford would have been possible. My dissertation research and writing were made possible by the generous support of the Stanford Department of Anthropology, as well as by the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Finally, I’d like to thank those to whom I owe the most for the work in this dissertation, those who generously availed themselves for interviews, welcomed me into their homes, their offices, and their lives, and shared their stories and feelings with me. I also want to think all those other friends and colleagues in Kenya who made my stay possible and as comfortable as possible, and helped make my work feasible. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSRACT ……………………………………………………………………………... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………... vi CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………………….. viii THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT: AN INTRODUCTION Holding on to the Question ……………………………………………………………… 1 A Liberal Symbolic System ……………………………………………………………... 5 Ghosts ………………………………………………………………………………...... 22 Lifestyles of the Urban and African ……………………………………………………. 27 City Making ……………………………………………………………………………. 33 Plan of this Work ………………………………………………………………………. 42 SECTION ONE: THE LETTER OF THE LAW The Setting ……………………………………………………………………………... 45 CHAPTER ONE: LOCATING THE MIDDLE CLASS Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….. 55 Party Politics …………………………………………………………………………… 56 Making Nairobi, Making Kenya ……………………………………………………….. 62 Nairobi and Middle Class Politics ……………………………………………………... 73 Middle Class Desire ……………………………………………………………………. 80 Navigating Nairobi ……………………………………………………………………... 85 Transportation and Accessibility ………………………………………………………. 88 Neo-liberal Visions …………………………………………………………………….. 96 CHAPTER TWO: KENYA HAS ITS OWNERS Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… 102 Moi’s Ghost …………………………………………………………………………... 104 Owners ………………………………………………………………………………... 109 Sugar and Commodity Exchange ……………………………………………………... 113 The Sugar Deal ……………………………………………………………………….. 116 Chepkube, the State, and the Commodity Chain ……………………………………... 126 Middle Class Economics …………………………………………………………….... 134 viii SECTION TWO: THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW The Setting ……………………………………………………………………………. 145 CHAPTER THREE: BOURGEOIS RIGHTS, BOURGEOIS INTIMACIES Introduction