Communal networks and gender: placing identities among South Asians in Kenya

Abstract

The analysis of the intra‐ethnic relations of South Asians in Kenya has revealed that migration interlinked with networking form a key to successful social mobility. The caste system, which in South Asia is not only persistent in Hinduism but has also at least partly survived in Sikhism, Islam, and Christianity, appears in Kenya only in so‐called communities. These communities are based on religion, language or place of origin and further divisions such as caste (jati), and they maintain their own community centres or places of worship. The ‘established’ Asians have developed a specific East African identity and they tend to dissociate themselves from recent South Asian immigrants. The creation of communities has assisted the migrants in feeling more at home – or in place – in their new environment. The aim of this paper is to illustrate and analyse communal networks of Kenyan Asians, by taking intra‐communal divisions into account.