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“The Post-Election Violence Has Brought Shame on This Place”: Narratives, Place, and Moral Violence in Western Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2018

Elizabeth Pfeiffer
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Abstract:

This article explores the intersections of violence, morality, and place to theorize the notion of moral violence. Using narratives collected during ethnographic research in a highway town in Kenya, it suggests that when people offer moralizing sentiments about this locality they are pointing to (and sometimes reproducing) the effects of and anxieties about the decades of violence and inequalities that have engulfed the lives of the residents. Particular attention is paid to the way in which narratives about political/ethnic violence and HIV/AIDS have blended to create and sustain moral violence as a chronic and particular, historically embedded variant of structural violence.

Résumé:

Cet article explore les confluences de la violence et de la moralité ainsi que le lieu où il est possible de théoriser la notion de violence morale. En utilisant des récits recueillis lors d’une recherche ethnographique dans une ville du Kenya, cet article suggère que lorsque les gens expriment des sentiments moralisateurs à propos de cette localité, ils signalent (et parfois reproduisent) les effets et les angoisses de décennies de violence et d’inégalités qui ont submergées la vie des résidents. Une attention particulière est accordée à la manière dont les récits sur la violence politique / ethnique et le VIH / SIDA se sont mélangés pour créer et maintenir la violence morale en tant que variante chronique et particulière, historiquement intégrée à la violence structurelle.

Keywords

NarrativeKenyaHIV/AIDSstigmagender relations
Type
Forum on Post-Colonial and Contemporary Kenya dedicated to Elliot Fratkin and Richard Waller
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , July 2018 , pp. 183 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2018 

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