The Lion, the Native and the Coffee Plant: Political Imagery and the Ambiguous Art of Currency Design in Colonial Kenya

Abstract

This paper examines the politics associated with the changing design of currency notes issued by the British in colonial Kenya. It argues that the exigencies of currency design are drawn as much from the social self-imagination of dominant classes as from the pertinent technological imperatives and aesthetic trends. It begins by analysing the original design of East African Currency Board notes that was in place from the 1920s to the 1950s. The paper then explores the background of social turbulence in Kenya that was the context of the radical changes to the East African Currency Board's banknote design in the 1950s. It highlights how yet another design was put into circulation in the early 1960s in the context of decolonisation and the creation of the East African Community. Throughout the period, currency design evolved from insisting on white dominance, to an ambiguous suggestion of multi-racialism, to a doomed attempt at federalism and finally, to African independence.