| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines women's and children's labour in
Kenya's Western Province, arural economy, inthe colonial and
post-colonial periods. It begins with an examination of
African patriarchal forms of the division of labour between
the sexes in the pre-colonial period. The thesis analyses the
impact of colonial rule and the introduction of white settler
farming and the effects of this on the use of technology in
the production of subsistence and cash crops in Western
Province, not itself an area of white settlement, but one
profoundly influenced by migrant labour outflows to settler
areas. A discussion of colonial policy reveals that policies
which ostensibly should have controlled this process and
protected both women and children were ineffect never applied
seriously, given atacit alliance between European and African
patriarchs who were in control of policy implementation and
who stressed its impracticality. Finally, the thesis analyses
women's responses to their own marginalisation and the forms
of their strategies for survival. At the individual level
women were able to use markets and the cash economy to carve
out niches for themselves as traders and a few of them
achieved outstanding success. At a collective level, the
emergence of organised and ably led women's groups developed
from pre-colonial traditions of women's cooperative labour
gangs. These new groups have become one of the most important
forces for self-reliant development in Kenya | en |
