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Contents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2025

Peter Lockwood
Affiliation:
University of Manchester

Information

Contents

  1. List of Figures

  2. Acknowledgements

  3. List of Key Persons

  4. Glossary of Keywords

  5. Introduction

    1. ‘I feel that I want to slap him’

    2. Land, Class, and Kinship in the Shadow of Nairobi

    3. Eroding the Moral Economy of Kinship

    4. A Labour Theory of Virtue

    5. A Neighbourhood Ethnography: Methodological and Conceptual Notes on Gender, Aspiration, Secrecy, and Distinction

    6. Chapter Outlines

  6. Ituura: A Neighbourhood beyond the Sprawl

  7. 1Ten Million Beggars: From Peasants to Paupers on the Edge of the City

    1. Ten Millionaires, Ten Million Beggars

    2. The Colonial Origins of Land Poverty

    3. Prosperity after Independence? The ‘Kenya Debate’

    4. New Ways to Prosperity?

    5. Cash-hunting at Land’s End

    6. A Labour Ethic

    7. Short-cuts to Consumption

    8. Conclusion

  8. 2Hopeless Consumptions: ‘Hanging on’ to the Future Amidst Destitution

    1. Stevoh on the Road

    2. Hopeless Consumptions

    3. Wayward Sons

    4. Anxieties of Continuity

    5. ‘We’re not going to last much longer’

    6. ‘Giving up on themselves’

    7. ‘Bold to make it’

    8. Claims of Distinction

    9. The End of ‘the takataka job’

    10. Conclusion

  9. 3Retaining Land, Claiming Morality: Debating Labour, Legacy, and Virtue

    1. Struggling for School Fees

    2. The Obligations of the Father and the Freedom to Do Otherwise

    3. To Leave a ‘Legacy’ Behind

    4. On Status and Control: Ways to Do Weekend Drinking

    5. Drinking the Land

    6. A Virtue of Necessity

    7. The Exhaustion of Patrilineal Virtue

    8. Conclusion

  10. 4Household Sustainers: Women’s Work in the Shadow of Male Poverty

    1. Mwaura’s Malaise

    2. Sociality in Ituura: First Impressions

    3. Catherine and Mama Nyambura: A Friendship

    4. Socio-economic Stratification and the Politics of Moral Obligation

    5. Envy, Avoidance, and Refusal

    6. Aspiration and the Atmosphere of Civility

    7. The Limits of Civility and the Life of a Hustler

    8. Conclusion

  11. 5‘Women Only Hustle for Themselves’: Men’s Mistrust and Women’s Lost Faith in Marriage

    1. Women’s Ambitions, Men’s Anxieties

    2. ‘Man, who is there to marry from around here? I mean, really?’

    3. Women’s Independence in the Early Twentieth Century

    4. ‘Kikuyu women’, ‘Kiambu women’

    5. Single with a Sponsor

    6. To Be Independent

    7. Conclusion

  12. 6Enclosing Property, Containing Envy: Inheritance, Gender, and Land Conflict in Urbanising Kiambu

    1. Land Disputes at Home

    2. Intimate Exclusions

    3. ‘A little investment’

    4. Gendered Jealousy

    5. Inheritance Denied

    6. Ugly Emotions and the Practice of Intimate Exclusion

    7. Reasons for Enclosure

    8. Anticipating Future Dispute

    9. Conclusion

  13. 7‘There is only starting at the bottom’: Downward Mobility and the Future

    1. Return to Ituura

    2. Struggling for ‘Stability’

    3. Broken Lines

    4. ‘No otherwise’

    5. Labour Theory and Downward Social Mobility

    6. Breaking the Patrilineal Contract

    7. Conclusion

  14. Conclusion

    1. Land, Class, Kinship, and the Future: Facing Downward Mobility in the ‘New Kenya’

    2. Kinship, Class, and Capital

    3. Labour Theory Revisited

    4. ‘A self-confused house’

  15. References

  16. Index

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  • Contents
  • Peter Lockwood, University of Manchester
  • Book: Peasants to Paupers
  • Online publication: 24 December 2025
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  • Contents
  • Peter Lockwood, University of Manchester
  • Book: Peasants to Paupers
  • Online publication: 24 December 2025
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Contents
  • Peter Lockwood, University of Manchester
  • Book: Peasants to Paupers
  • Online publication: 24 December 2025
Available formats
×