. London: bergin & Garvey; 2000.
This book results from a cross-national and interdisciplinary research effort.
Although Collette Suda (C. S.), a rural sociologist, and Enos Njeru (E. N.), and
Philip Kilbride (P. K.), both anthropologists, were all academically trained in
the United States, we have benefited from an "insider" -" outsider" dialogue in
writing this book. C. S. and E. N., as Kenyans, kept our work closely grounded
in local language, cultural interpretations, and applied recommendations. P. K.
focused on ethnography as an "outsider," as non-Kenyans must do, and also
sought to coordinate our findings with comparative, cultural, and theoretical
concerns beyond the Kenyan scene. We operated, however, on some occasions
as insiders or outsiders given P. K.' s research on children and family in East
Africa since 1967 and E. N.'s and C. S.'s international travel, education, and
living experiences abroad. More details about our collaboration in research and
writing together are provided in the text.
Street children are often portrayed by the public and sometimes in
publications as a separate, socially distinct category of person. We have tried to
emphasize here social complexities that problemtize this simplistic view.
Following a holistic perspective, we have emphasized throughout the book how
street children in Kenya, in fact, live like other Kenyans, embedded, for
example, in similar institutions, informal work routines, cultural beliefs, and
family relations. Such involvements are not dissimilar in many respects from
others who make up the working poor in Nairobi. Still, street children do stand
apart as a distinct social category both in their own minds and that of the public
as well. We will consider reasons for this and which social characteristics seem
widely shared among street children. Throughout, however, while recognizing
commonalities, we attempt to emphasize the rich variation among children that
we discovered in our research.
In our book we seek to systematically provide information about street girls.
An awareness of difference and variation as our work progressed compelled us
to emphasize gender differences at every tum. We also wanted to highlight gender inasmuch as compared to boys, very little is published about street girls.
This is strikingly true in Kenya but, to a great degree, elsewhere in the world-as
well. We decided to incorporate a gendered analysis throughout the book rather
than providing separate chapters on girls. This decision was taken so as to
better put across the idea that there are commonalities among all street children
irrespective of gender differences. When all is said and done, boys and girls in
Kenya share a common label and many similar problems.
As part of our holistic perspective, we have taken special note of how the
current problem of street children in Kenya stands in sharp contrast to
indigenous derived practices and experiences associated with childhood in
Kenya. The street child is but a recent event in the culture history of Kenya.
Specifically, we have emphasized Kenyan family cultural beliefs and indigenous
practices as an interpretive framework not only because we believe this to be
relevant, but also inasmuch as family and gender issues themselves, apart from
street children, have occupied us prior to and throughout our work with street
children. For better or worse, we have tried here to relate social topics we know
the most about to the situation of street children. Only the reader can judge if
we have overstated our family-friendly interpretation and related practical
recommendations with which we conclude this book. We trust that most readers
will agree that family analysis is certainly relevant to a full understanding of
street children in Kenya. Whatever interpretive conclusions arise on this point,
we all hope that our descriptive materials about street children stand alone and
are informative in their own right.
Throughout our research and writing, we have followed research methods
that attempt to involve the voices of street children concerning events, beliefs,
experiences, and aspirations that they privilege in their own discourse about
themselves. Ethnography, focus group, and social survey converge around our
experience near research methodology. Overall, previous published materials in
Kenya have not systematically privileged children's voices in the multirnethod
sense that we have attempted here. Nevertheless, we have also set out
theoretical objectives and conceptual categories derived from our own
disciplinary, theoretical concerns and comparative understandings about street
children globally. Therefore, we will consider interplay between children's
voices and our theoretical framework as part of our discussion of methodology.
However, inclusion of street children's voices here is more than simply a
matter of epistemology. Our ultimate intention of being able to better suggest
some applied, practical recommendations to policy makers also compels us to
consider children's perspectives wherever possible. It is unlikely that many
policy recommendations concerning street children will get very far before
people first learn directly from the children about themselves. How best to
assist them is also something street children have thought about and about which
they have strong opinions. We end our book with policy recommendations that
take into account, but which are not limited to, the voices of those children
represented in our research. Weare hopeful that our recommendations, about social policy and applications of our research in Kenya will be of interest to all
of those thinking about applied solutions to what is, in fact, a global problem
concerning street children in many nations.
We use pseudonyms in this book for most individuals whom we encountered
in fieldwork. In particular, we have used real or invented nicknames for all
street children on the advice of street children who, themselves, use nicknames
to conceal their identities from the police. An exception is "Mama Ford," a
buyer of waste products from street boys who, after reading what we had written
about her with approval, requested that we give her real name, Josephine
Karanja, in publication.
We have also not published photographs so as to conceal the identities of
street children, most of whom are regularly under harassment from the police.
Moreover, most street children may want their past lives on the streets kept
private in the future. There is a rapid turnover on the streets such that as far as
the street children described here are concerned, all have left the streets or now
live in different locations in Nairobi. The wheel of field research and
publication grinds slowly; in our case, that has served our desire to protect the
identities of our informants as well as to become familiar with changes in their
lives over time.
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