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‘Kachinja are Coming!’: Encounters Around Medical Research Work in a Kenyan Village

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

P. Wenzel Geissler
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Abstract

When conducting medical field research in a Luo village in western Kenya, my colleagues and I were occasionally suspected of being blood-thieves, locally called kachinja. The article contextualizes these blood-stealing accusations within the practices of medical research that prompted them, and within the local historical experiences which, I shall argue, they refer to. Further, it examines two social situations, in which blood-stealing accusations were raised against me and people who were in contact with me, in order to show how the kachinja idiom is used in social practice, as part of long-term social processes as well as of momentary situations, within local patterns of relatedness. These observations show how global structures and processes are articulated and moulded in a particular locality through idioms that carry memories of individual as well as collective, historical experiences, and how they are enacted by people within webs of contemporary local social relations.

Résumé

Lors de travaux de recherche médicale menés dans un village Luo situé dans l'ouest du Kenya, il est arrivé que l'auteur du papier et ses collègues soient soupçonnés d'être des voleurs de sang, localement appelés kachinja. L'article replace ces accusations de vol de sang dans le contexte des pratiques de recherchemédicale qui les ont suscitées et dans celui des expériences historiques locales auxquelles elles renvoient. De plus, il examine deux situations sociales dans lesquelles les accusations de vol de sang ont été portées à l'encontre de l'auteur de l'article et des personnes qui étaient en contact avec lui, afin de montrer le mode d'utilisation de l'idiome kachinja dans la pratique sociale, dans le cadre de processus sociaux à long terme et de situations momentanées, au sein des modèles locaux d'apparenté. Ces observations montrent comment les structures et processus globaux s'articulent et se façonnent dans une localité particulière à travers des idiomes porteurs de mémoires individuelles et d'expériences historiques collectives, et comment elles sont interprétées dans des écheveaux de relations sociales locales contemporaines.

Type
Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 75 , Issue 2 , May 2005 , pp. 173 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2005

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