Indigenous African Knowledge Production: Food-Processing Practices among Kenyan Rural Women

by Njoki Nathani-Wane

Overview

The Jie people of northern Uganda and the Turkana of northern Kenya have a genesis myth about Nayeche, a Jie woman who followed the footprints of a gray bull across the waterless plateau and who founded a “cradle land” in the plains of Turkana. In Remembering Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro, Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler shows how the poetic journey of Nayeche and the gray bull Engiro and their metaphorical return during the Jie harvest rituals gives rise to stories, imagery, and the articulation of ethnic and individual identities.

Since the 1990s, Mirzeler has travelled to East Africa to apprentice with storytellers. Remembering Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro is both an account of his experience listening to these storytellers and of how oral tradition continues to evolve in the modern world. Mirzeler’s work contributes significantly to the anthropology of storytelling, the study of myth and memory, and the use of oral tradition in historical studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442670044
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	05/27/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Njoki Nathani Wane is a professor in the Department of Humanities, Social Science, and Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreward by George J. Sefa Dei (University of Toronto, Sociology and Equity Studies)

Map of Kenya

Introduction

Chapter One – Food Processing: Embu and Indigenous Knowledges

Chapter Two – Kenya: The Land, the People, and the Socio-Political Economy

Chapter Three – The Everyday Experiences of Embu Women

Chapter Four – Food Preservation and Change

Chapter Five – Gender Relations; Decision Making & Food Preferences

Chapter Six – Indigenous Technology & the Influence of New Innovations

Chapter Seven – Removing the Margins: Including Indigenous Women’s Voices in Knowledge Roduction

Chapter Eight – Contesting Knowledge: Some Concluding Thoughts

Endnotes

References

What People are Saying About This

Patricia Clark

“Little has been published on African women’s indigenous knowledge systems and food production. Wane’s book is an important contribution to the research in this area.”

Isidore Lobnibe

“Njoki Nathani Wane addresses an important topic and proffers a powerful argument that places women at the centre of local knowledge production. She does an excellent job in representing Embu women’s views and their engagement with traditional technologies.”

Editorial Reviews

Little has been published on African women’s indigenous knowledge systems and food production. Wane’s book is an important contribution to the research in this area.”—Patricia Clark, Director, African and African-American Studies, SUNY Oswego
“Njoki Nathani Wane addresses an important topic and proffers a powerful argument that places women at the centre of local knowledge production. She does an excellent job in representing Embu women’s views and their engagement with traditional technologies.”—Isidore Lobnibe, Department of Anthropology, Western Oregon University

From the Publisher