Keeping the Feminist War Real in Contemporary Kenya: The Case of Wambui Otieno

Abstract

Wambui Otieno continues to reawaken the feminist war in contemporary Kenya and makes feminist work feel like fun again, at least for me. She was not born a defiant woman, she becomes one. She still experiences the most outrageous and reactionary attacks for her defiance in Kenya. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss Otieno with a special focus on her defiance against the symbolic order of cultural norms in Kenya. Using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, I will show that Otieno’s present defiance to social norms in contemporary Kenya has emerged from her past experiences of defiance. Particular attention is given to how Otieno’s habitus informs her defiance because I want to stress that history—the production of history—is the fundamental concept in understanding the feminist struggle epitomized in Otieno’s defiant practices.