Resistance and Politics of Survival: The Moral Economy of a Tobacco Producing Peasantry in Kenya, 1945-2002

Abstract

During the late 1960’s, BAT Company under state support controlled the tobacco contract farming that was starting to flourish in the fertile areas Kuria District in the southwestern parts of Republic of Kenya. From the beginning, tobacco proved to be a suitable cash crop for these poor peasants who were constantly struggling against a paucity of hard currency and declining pastoral economy b b. After years of successful tobacco planting, Kuria became symbols of prosperity. Even though the influence and power of the merchants and international conglomerates, was increasing, the cultivation of tobacco remained almost exclusively the field of a legion of families, who produced mounting loads of this crop. The case of tobacco production in this area demonstrated that minor-degree peasant agriculture could lead to increasing production for the export market. Because of their subsistence lifestyle, the tobacco producers were considered by many to be hardworking, honest, and thrifty citizens. According to some then-contemporary observers, this self-dependent lifestyle would lead the nation to a more democratic and egalitarian society. But that was not to be the case, the Kuria were once again in a perpetual crisis having been transformed by powerful forces of an international conglomerate in the course of few decades, from self-sufficient and haughty independent-minded tribesmen into poverty-stricken famine relief clients now living on ecological as well as political margins of the Kenyan society.