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Kinship in Action, Kinship in Flux: Uncertainties and Transformations in Okiek Marriage Arrangement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2018

Corinne A. Kratz
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Abstract:

For Okiek in Kenya, marriage arrangement is a nexus where transformations of personhood and social relations, changes in land tenure, and shifting state engagements come together in ways that shape individual and family lives as well as communities. This article sketches transformations in Okiek life and marriage arrangement and considers how Okiek have managed interlineage discussions central to marriage arrangement. It explores the social dynamics, evocative rhetorics, uncertainties, and moral imaginations through which people constitute lineages and affinal relations in changing circumstances, and situates these processes within a longer historical trajectory of socioeconomic and demographic change.

Résumé:

Pour les Okiek du Kenya, les mariages sont révélateurs de la corrélation entre les transformations des relations sociales, l’évolution de la personnalité, les changements dans le régime foncier ainsi que la participation changeante des états et démontre comment tous ces différents aspects sont amenés à façonner la vie individuelle et familiale ainsi que l’organisation des communautés. Cet article esquisse les transformations dans les mariages et la vie Okiek et considère comment les Okiek ont géré les discussions intergénérationnelles au cœur de l’arrangement matrimonial. Il explore les dynamiques sociales, les rhétoriques évocatrices, les incertitudes, ainsi que l’imagination morale à travers lesquels les gens constituent des filiations et des relations de parenté au cours de circonstances changeantes, et situe ces processus dans une plus longue trajectoire historique de changements socioéconomiques et démographiques.

Keywords

marriage arrangementhistorysocioeconomic changeland tenurestructure and agencylanguage and performanceOkiekKenya
Type
Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 22 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2018 

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