Working Paper No. 12. Making Law in Rural East Africa: SunguSungu in Kenya.
Abstract
This working paper is the second in a series of three. The first, Domesticating Leviathan: Sungusungu groups in Tanzania (Crisis States Working Paper 16: series 1 - see output record) traced the history of the sungusungu movement in Tanzania, paying particular attention to its development among the Kuria, in the Mara Region, to the north of the country on the border with Kenya. It discusses the distinctive accommodation that came to characterise the relationship of the government to the movement, strictly-speaking illegal but officially authorised, neither part of the state nor totally rejected by it.
This paper takes up the same issues among Kuria in Kenya, outlining in some detail the development of the first sungusungu group in 1998, in the context of an influx of small arms, state corruption and the changing face of theft. The focus is, however, on the creation of a new order as sungusungu groups sought to redefine political loyalties and establish a new moral consensus. A third working paper will look in more detail at the trials themselves, the judicial processes and decision-making and the significance of consensual judgements.
Citation
Making Law in Rural East Africa: SunguSungu in Kenya. Working Paper No. 12 (series 2), 2007, London, UK; Crisis States Research Centre, 22 pp.
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