The meanings of Obama in K'ogello: Culture, ethno-politics and the making of leaders in multiparty Kenya

Abstract

This article examines how different groups of Kenyans appropriated, publicised, and sought to harness the candidature and later the presidency of Barack Obama. On the one hand is the appropriation of Obama in the community of Luo ‘indigenes’ living in K'ogello village in western Kenya. On the other hand is a more ‘cosmopolitan’ audience at the University of Nairobi in Kenya's capital city, which is indicative of Kenya's ethnic diversity. The two constituencies appropriated Obama in different ways. I read these appropriations against a historical background that draws on the colonial creation of the Kenyan nation-state. The discussions that follow illustrate the political consequence of this colonial nation-state in the postcolonial period; they also show Obama's own ‘search’ for identity. The paper is written at a moment of Obama's ascendance to the Presidency and the resurgence of ethnic absolutism in Kenya's political competition.I argue that the appropriations of Obama within the K'ogello community, at the University of Nairobi and by Obama himself should be read in the context of the never ending tension between ‘cultural citizenship’ and ‘State citizenship’. This process is imbued in local notions of ‘development’ and participation in political liberalism. The paper proposes that a critical and interpretive approach of these concepts may present a different perspective of understanding the politics of identity of Kenyans in general and Obama in particular.