Searching for a New Kenya: Politics and Social Media on the Streets of Mombasa
Cambridge University Press, 5/6/2021
EAN 9781108843669, ISBN10: 1108843662
Hardcover, 240 pages, 23.5 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Searching for a New Kenya analyses public discussion in urban Kenya, focusing on the gatherings of citizens, both in-person and online, where people discuss issues of common concern to shed light on the role public discussion plays in politics and how social media affects political movements. Through rich ethnographic study of politics on the ground and online in Mombasa, Stephanie Diepeveen brings a fresh perspective on the wider challenges and dynamics of negotiating political narratives across protracted historical debates and changing digital media. Based on a critical revision of Hannah Arendt's ideas about action and power, this study explores the different dynamics of public talk in practice. It contributes to wider debates about the place and limitations of the Western canon in relation to the study of politics elsewhere, while also offering a nuanced view of why and how certain terms of debate persist in Kenya, and where the potential for change lies for public talk across changing media.
Part I. Re-thinking Publics from Kenya
1. Introduction
2. The history of publics in Mombasa
people, media and the state
Part II. Characterising Publics
3. Publics in the streets
Mombasa's street parliaments
4. Publics in civil society and online
Mombasa's youth parliaments
Part III. Situating Publics in Time and Space
5. Our turn to starve
material insecurity, idleness and publics
6. Publics and the contested state of land in Kenya
7. The obfuscation of spatial constraints on Facebook
Part IV. The Power of Publics
8. Popular politics and publics during the 2013 general elections
9. In the presence of fear
violence and publics in Kenya
10. The individual spectator and the role of imagination in publics
11. Conclusion.