How Young Women in Nairobi Shape Their Local Identities in Response to Aspects of the Mexican Telenovela, Cuando Seas Mia
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS) NEGOTIATING THE GLOBAL: HOW YOUNG WOMEN IN NAIROBI SHAPE THEIR LOCAL IDENTITIES IN RESPONSE TO ASPECTS OF THE MEXICAN TELENOVELA, CUANDO SEAS MIA A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts of Rhodes University by Aamera Hamzaali Jiwaji September 2010 ii ABSTRACT Latin American telenovelas have been exported to more than a hundred countries across the globe. While they are popular in their country of production because their messages resonate with their audience’s everyday experiences, their popularity amongst global audiences with whom they share neither a social nor a cultural history is unexplained. Kenya has been importing and airing Latin American telenovelas since the early 1990s, and telenovelas have permeated many aspects of Kenyan daily life, when compared to other foreign globally-distributed media products that are aired on Kenyan television. As global media products, telenovelas remain open to criticisms from the media imperialism thesis. This research adopts an ethnographic approach to the study of audiences, and looks at the reception of a Mexican telenovela, Cuando Seas Mia, by a group of young Kenyan women in Nairobi. It reflects upon the media imperialism thesis from an African perspective by investigating the meanings that these women make from Cuando Seas Mia, and how these shape their changing local identities and cultures. The young women in this study, most of whom have moved to the city from the rural areas, are influenced by traditional, patriarchal Kenyan society and by the modern, Western influences of an urban environment. They experience a tension between their evolving rural and urban roles and identities and are drawn to telenovelas because their exploration of rural- urban themes holds a relevance to their own lives. They negotiate their contemporary African youth identities, gender roles and heterosexual relationships in relation to representations in the telenovela, questioning and destabilising African and Western definitions. These women select aspects from their traditional, African cultures and from their modern, Western experiences (and consumption of global media) and reconstruct them into a transitional youth identity which suits their day to day lives as young women living in an urban African environment. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My thanks go to my supervisor, Priscilla Boshoff, for her support and encouragement. And to my family. iv CONTENTS ABsTrAcT ......................................................................................................................................ii AcKNoWLedgMeNTs ...............................................................................................................iii chAPTer 1: INTroducTIoN .................................................................................................... 1 chAPTer 2: MedIA IMPerIALIsM ANd eThNogrAPhIc AudIeNce sTudIes .......... 4 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 4 2. Media Imperialism ........................................................................................................................ 4 3. The Kenyan media ........................................................................................................................ 5 4. critiques of the media imperialism thesis ..................................................................................... 7 5. The telenovela debate and the Kenyan market ............................................................................. 9 6. ethnographic audience studies ................................................................................................... 12 6.1 The ethnographic critique of the media imperialism thesis ................................................. 12 6.2 ethnographic reception studies ............................................................................................ 14 7. ethnographic reception studies of global media products .......................................................... 15 8. conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 18 chAPTer 3: CUANDO SEAS MIA .............................................................................................. 19 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 19 2. Mexican telenovelas .................................................................................................................... 19 3. Cuando Seas Mia ....................................................................................................................... 21 4. The telenovela genre ................................................................................................................... 22 4.1 reality and melodrama ....................................................................................................... 25 4.2 entertainment and education ................................................................................................ 29 5. dualities in Cuando Seas Mia .................................................................................................... 30 5.1 good and evil ....................................................................................................................... 31 5.2 Tradition and modernity ...................................................................................................... 32 5.3 Femininity and masculinity ................................................................................................. 35 5.4 race ...................................................................................................................................... 38 6. conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 39 chAPTer 4: reseArch MeThodoLogy ........................................................................... 40 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 40 2. designing a research approach .................................................................................................. 40 3. The sample audience ................................................................................................................... 42 4. The research methods.................................................................................................................. 43 v 4.1 Focus groups ........................................................................................................................ 44 4.2 Individual interviews ............................................................................................................ 46 4.3 Interview guides ................................................................................................................... 47 5. Validity and reliability in qualitative studies............................................................................... 48 6. The role of the researcher ........................................................................................................... 50 7. conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 51 chAPTer 5: Towards AN uNderstandINg oF urBAN WoMeN IN KeNyA .......... 52 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 52 2. A country in transition ................................................................................................................. 53 2.1 Migration .............................................................................................................................. 54 2.2 rural-urban migration .......................................................................................................... 55 2.3 urbanisation ......................................................................................................................... 56 2.4 Nairobi .................................................................................................................................. 56 3. A society in transition.................................................................................................................. 58 4. Kenyan women .......................................................................................................................... 60 4.1 The place of traditional, patriarchal values in a modernising urban African society ........... 60 4.2 The women in this study ...................................................................................................... 64 5. conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 69 chAPTer 6: reseArch FINdINgs ......................................................................................... 70 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................