Narrating the nation in retrospect: A reading of Wambui Waiyaki Otieno’s Mau Mau’s Daughter (1998): A life history
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Abstract
This article examines nation narration in retrospect in Wambui Waiyaki Otieno’s Mau Mau’s Daughter: A Life History. It explores how Otieno’s life story is weaved within the realm of social and political experiences that span from the precolonial to postcolonial eras in Kenya. The study thesis is that as the Kenyan woman autobiographer tells her personal story, she also narrates that of the nation. The primary text was read through an integration of autobiographical, nation and gender theoretical framework. Data was collected through a close reading of the autobiography and analysed critically in relation to the theoretical framework and related studies. The study found that women played a great role in the making of the Kenyan nation. On one hand, Otieno highlights the injustices or forms of oppression that have been normalized by patriarchal systems within the social, economic and political spheres of Kenya as a nation. These oppressive systems have been entrenched and sustained by both cultural and foreign ideologies. On the other hand, Otieno appreciates the contribution of the different genders to the development of the Kenyan nation. As such, she advocates for the strengthening of the place of gender and African-Kenyan cultures in reinventing the Kenyan nation.
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