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Title Gender and state-building conversations: the discursive production of gender identity in Kenya and Rwanda
Full text https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/31297/1/Okech%20-%20Gender%20and%20Statebuilding%5BP%5D_ACCEPTED.pdf
Date 2019
Author(s) Okech, Awino
Abstract This article advances the conceptualisation of conversations on state-building by examining gendered discourses. By focusing on specific historical moments in Rwanda and Kenya, this article analyses how 'respectable femininities' and 'wayward sexualities' become the 'sites' where national and state politics are ritualised and where tensions resulting from non-hegemonic performances of both gender and sexuality are resolved. I argue that by examining sites of gendered cultural production, it is possible to trace how gendered tensions are enacted through localised practices and discursive mechanisms deployed to manage political differences and build solidarity within heterogeneous groups. The ritualisation and creation of ethno-national homogeneity as part of state-building conversations occurs at the expense of greater freedoms for women. Fundamentally this article posits that gendered cultural and traditional norms are essential sites from which to map state-building conversations and should not be cordoned off to the realm of social and therefore excluded from the political.
Language en
Publisher Taylor & Francis
Relation http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/31297/; 10.1080/14678802.2019.1609762
Type of publication Journal Article; PeerReviewed
Format text
Identifier Okech, Awino (2019) 'Gender and state-building conversations: the discursive production of gender identity in Kenya and Rwanda.' Conflict, Security and Development. pp. 1-15. (Forthcoming)
Repository London - SOAS, University of London
Added to C-A: 2020-07-13;09:04:58