Rhizomatic Cartographies of Children’s Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Siaya, Kenya Elizabeth Mulewa Ngutuku 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 1 This dissertation is part of the research programme of CERES, Research School for Resource Studies for Development The research was funded by the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) _________________________________________________________________ © Elizabeth Mulewa Ngutuku 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author. ISBN 978-90-6490-115-7 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 2 Rhizomatic Cartographies of Children’s Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Siaya, Kenya Rizomatische cartografieën van armoede en kwetsbaarheid onder kinderen in Siaya, Kenia. Thesis to obtain the degree of Doctor from the Erasmus University Rotterdam by command of the Rector Magnificus Prof.dr. R.C.M.E. Engels and in accordance with the decision of the Doctorate Board The public defence shall be held on Wednesday 4 March 2020 at 16.00 hrs by Elizabeth Mulewa Ngutuku born in Kitui, Kenya 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 3 Doctoral Committee Doctoral dissertation supervisor Prof.mr.dr. C.J.M. Arts Other members Prof.dr. B.B. Swadener, Arizona State University Prof.dr. K. Hanson, University of Geneva Dr. A. Chhachhi Co-supervisor Dr. L.A. Okwany 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 4 Dedication I dedicate this research to Mumo, our fostered daughter who was taken away from us too soon, just before the research commenced. Her tenacity and hunger for education and accepting to go back to high school after four years, parallels that of the many children I encountered, that I also honour. The painful tears of a grieving ‘Other mother’ gave me the ears to hear, and to listen to the many caregivers I encountered through pain. 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 5 Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures ......................................................... xi Acronyms ....................................................................... xii Acknowledgements .............................................................. xiv Abstract ...................................................................... xviii Samenvatting ................................................................... xxi Rethinking Children’s Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Kenya ...................................................... 1 1.1 Encountering Ayo: Introducing the Research ....................................... 1 1.2 Child Poverty and Vulnerability in Kenya: What We Know ................... 5 1.3 Research as a ‘Social Critique’ .............................................................. 8 1.4 Research Questions ........................................................................... 21 1.5 Main Research Question ................................................................... 21 1.6 Locating Children’s Experience in Siaya ............................................. 22 1.7 Stuttering Concepts, Researching and Writing Under Erasure ............. 27 1.8 A Note on Space ............................................................................... 32 1.9 Writing a Thesis like a Rhizome: Order of Chapters ............................ 35 Piecing the Research through Theory ............................................... 39 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 39 2.2 Rhizomatic Thinking and Cartography ............................................... 39 2.3 Discourse, Subjectification and Governmentality ................................ 45 2.4 Children’s Experience, Rights and Rights as Living ............................. 49 2.5 Conceptualizing Children’s Voice ...................................................... 54 2.6 Gendered Poverty and Vulnerability Beyond Intersectionality ............. 55 2.7 Concluding: Reading Children’s Experience as Messy ......................... 57 vi 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 6 Contents vii Representations of Child Poverty and Vulnerability in Kenya: A Rhizo-Discursive Genealogy ....................................................... 59 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 59 3.2 Destitute, Vagrants and Terrorists: Colonial and Early Independence Imaginaries of (Poor) Children .......................................................... 60 3.3 Needs of Children as a Dis-ease: OVCs as Iconic Welfare Subjects ..... 69 3.4 Global Discourses: Continuities in Discourses of Catastrophe ............. 74 3.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 79 Listening Softly to Children’s Voice: Generating Cartographies of Children’s Experience ................................................................. 81 4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 81 4.2 Ethnography: A Site for Mapping Children’s Entangled Experience .... 81 Ethnography as an Entanglement of Spaces ...................................... 83 4.3 Community Entry and Research Authorization .................................. 84 4.4 Research Sites ................................................................................... 85 4.5 Selecting Organizations ..................................................................... 87 4.6 The Research Team .......................................................................... 87 4.7 Listening Softly to Children’s Voice ................................................... 89 4.8 Approaching the Field like a Rhizome: Becoming Minoritarian ........... 91 4.9 Beyond Selecting Children to Encountering Children ......................... 93 4.10 Methods as Messy and as an Assemblage ........................................... 98 4.11 Documentation and Transcription ................................................... 107 4.12 Data Analysis Beyond Coding .......................................................... 108 4.13 Reflexivity as Ontological: Ethics as Diffracted and Rhizomatic ......... 110 Caring for Children in Cramped Spaces ............................................ 119 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 119 5.2 HIV/AIDS and Death as a defining Context of Caregiving in Siaya .. 120 5.3 Insecure Livelihoods as the Context of Caregiving ............................ 122 5.4 The Ocean has become a Desert: Challenges to Fishing .................... 128 5.5 Food Insecurity and Hunger as a Context for Caregiving ................... 131 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020 PDF page: 7 viii RHIZOMATIC CARTOGRAPHIES OF CHILDREN’S LIVED EXPERIENCE OF POVERTY AND VULNERABILITY 5.6 Caregiving as a Chi Liel: Gendered Caregiving as Widows ................. 136 5.7 Assembling a Chuor Liel: Cartographies of a Widower Caregiver ...... 145 5.8 Alive but Dead Fathers/Husbands ................................................... 153 5.9 Reworking Care: Community Capital for Vulnerable Children ........... 156 5.10 Concluding Discussions: Constrained Contexts of Caregiving ........... 158 Who are the Poor and Vulnerable Children in Siaya? ‘Rhizomatic Categories’ ............................................................... 161 6.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 161 6.2 The Fluid Category of Children ‘Staying on Their Own’ .................... 162 6.3 The Fluidities of Being an ‘Outsider’ Child ....................................... 166 6.4 Children on the Move after Projects ................................................ 175 6.5 Further Ambiguities in the Fostered Child Category ......................... 178 6.6 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 183 Cartographies of Children’s Schooling Experience ....................... 184 7.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 184 7.2 Foregrounding Education Policy in Kenya ....................................... 185 7.3 Excluded Before They Start School .................................................. 188 7.4 Basic Education: ‘This Education is Not Free’ ................................... 191 7.5 Poverty as Having Nothing to Give to the Teacher ........................... 192 7.6 Assembling a Radio Without Cells: Hunger and Schooling ................ 196 7.7 Children of ‘Small Schools’ .............................................................. 199 7.8 School as a Surrogate Caregiver: Subsidizing for Needy Children ...... 203 7.9 Breaking the Habitus of a Poor Child in Education .......................... 206 7.10 In Conclusion: Assembling a Poor Child Experience Through Schooling 214 The Politics of Needs Interpretation in Support Programmes .. 217 8.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 217 8.2 The Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project ................................. 218 8.3 Sponsorship Organization ............................................................... 219 539937-L-bw-Ngutuku Processed on: 10-1-2020