A little bit of reflexivity

There are stories that I will tell, then there are stories that I will never be able to tell. In the past three weeks, my informants have reminded me that Kenya is an unequal society, with the rich living apart from the poor, and the growing middle class constantly yearning for the trappings of the good life. I have met informants who straddle both sides of the divide, who have very different ideas of what it means to be young in Kenya – for some it means having the world as your oyster, for others it means learning to hustle and hustle until you make it.

Like every good anthropologist, I hope my research will spur me into introspection, into looking within my own life to understand the biases that have shaped me, and the experiences that inform my being. Two weeks ago, I met someone who often goes to bed hungry, and it hit me for the very first time what it truly means to go to bed hungry. I have participated in all manner of drives to raise money for starving Kenyans, yet there I was, trying to write about someone whose experience I had only imagined then filed away for another day. I was honored to have met this person, and I shuddered when I imagined that I would never have met him any other way if I had not bothered to undertake this research project. I would never have known the struggles he faces in his daily life, or the great hope that he has in changing his circumstance in life.

Today as I walk into the IDP camp in Nakuru, I am walking with a different understanding of what privilege means in this country, and a deep appreciation of the experiences that continually shape the environments of the young people that I am meeting. There’s the urban life of the movies, the fast life and food, the fancy people with their smartphones and their cars and their Java coffee, then there’s the urban life of the urban poor, the ones whose stories of resilience and friendship I hope I will be able to tell.

What is your urban story?