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‘Compliments from the Housewives’: Contesting White Public Space in Late-Colonial Nairobi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2023

Meghan E. Ference Open the ORCID record for Meghan E. Ference [Opens in a new window]
Meghan E. Ference*
Affiliation:
Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, United States
*
Email: mference@brooklyn.cuny.edu
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Abstract

This article examines the racial politics of decolonization in late-colonial Nairobi in the decade before independence through the unique space of the colonial bus using archival letters from a group of European women who called themselves ‘The Housewives’. In letters to Nairobi's mayor and the Kenya Bus Service (KBS), the Housewives argued against a newly proposed transportation policy that would make all seating on the colonial buses the same price, doing away with the first-class section. The letters reveal that African bus riders, particularly Muslim women riders, were centrally important in this crucial time in Kenya's urban history. With Nairobi still under a ‘State of Emergency’ as military operations against the Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) were coming to an end, these letters show colonial buses as battlegrounds during the final years of British colonial rule in Kenya with extremely porous social borders and transportation vehicles serving as rich sites of urban life.

Keywords

KenyaEast Africacolonial policywhite settlementwomen
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , July 2023 , pp. 229 - 247
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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