Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition

23 Pages·2002·0.17 MB·English

Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition:
The Case of Kenyan Horticulture
Catherine S. Dolan
ABSTRACT
This article examines the social effects of contract farming of export horti-
cultureamongsmallholdersinMeruDistrict,Kenya.Duringthe1980sand
1990s,contractingwaspopularizedbydonorsandgovernmentsalikeasaway
to reduce poverty and increase opportunities for self-employment in rural
areas.Considerableresearchhasdocumentedthetensionsinsocialrelations
thatemergeinsuchcases,givingrisetogenderedstrugglesoverland,labour,
and income in the face of new commodity systems. This article highlights
similar tendencies. It suggests that men’s failure to compensate their wives
forhorticultureproductionhasgivenrisetoastringofwitchcraftallegations
and acts, as the wealth engendered by horticultural commodities comes
upagainstculturalnormsofmaritalobligation.Whilewitchcraftaccusations
can expose women to risks of social alienation and financial deprivation,
witchcraftneverthelessremainsapowerfulweaponthroughwhichwomencan
levelintra-householddisparitiesand,morebroadly,challengethelegitimacy
ofsocialpractice.InMeru,witchcraftdiscoursesareavehiclethroughwhich
gendered struggles over contract income are articulated and contested, and
throughwhichthesocialcostsofagrariantransitionbecomeapparent.
INTRODUCTION
On a breezy February day, throngs of women descended the fertile slopes
of Mt. Kenya to convene at the Chief’s camp. The meeting had been
summonedbylocalpoliticiansinthewakeofthepoisoningofavillageman,
whose wife claimed that he refused to share French bean income with her.
As women sat in the shade of the trees, nursing their babies and grading
French beans for export to Europe, the speaker asked the women if it was
right to put poison in their husbands’ food? The women quietly responded
‘no’. The speaker continued, ‘Why are you killing your husbands?...Your
husband protects and guards you so don’t try to kill him’.
IgratefullyacknowledgethefinancialsupportofFulbright,theJointCommitteeonAfrican
Studiesofthe SocialScienceResearchCouncil,andthe National ScienceFoundation(grant
#240-2873A),whichmadethisresearchpossible.IalsothankCecileJacksonoftheSchoolof
Development Studies, University of East Anglia, and three anonymous reviewers for their
constructivecomments.
DevelopmentandChange33(4):659–681(2002).#InstituteofSocialStudies2002.Published
byBlackwellPublishers,108CowleyRoad,OxfordOX41JF,UKand350MainSt.,Malden,
MA02148.USA
660 Catherine S. Dolan
Indeed, why are women allegedly poisoning their husbands? How are
such accusations connected to the infusion of external capital for French
bean production? And what can this case tell us about the way that social
relationsareexpressedand/ordestabilizedinsituationsofagrarianchange?
This article explores these questions, focusing on how the contract farming
of export horticulture in Meru District, Kenya has been mediated by local
conceptionsofgenderandculture.PriortotheintroductionofFrenchbeans
inMeru,women’susufructpropertywasallocatedtolocalvegetablesgrown
for household consumption and sale at local markets. When export horti-
cultural crops were introduced, they engendered new property and labour
arrangements,withthehorticulturalsuccessstoryfoundedtoalargeextent
onwomen’slabour.Moreover,asFrenchbeansbecameincreasinglylucrative,
horticulture—thehistoricaldomain ofwomen —became appropriatedby
men, who laid claim to the land allocated for, or the income derived from
French bean production. With men hedging into conventionally female
spheres, women’s1 control has eroded, and conflict has ensued over male
and female property, and women’s rights to a rewarding income stream.
Most women have responded to the intensification of the labour process
with apparent compliance, although the form of that compliance differs.
Some have remained silent in the face of mounting work burdens; others
have diverted their labour to church groups and become saved into a life
of Christ (Dolan, 2001).2 However, several women have employed more
aggressive strategies when their remuneration is at stake. Income is one
terrain on which familial politics are played out, as the wealth engendered
byhorticulturalcommoditiescomesupagainstculturalnormsofcommunal
obligation. In particular, women have directly challenged men’s refusal to
compensate them for their land and labour, threatening and/or deploying
witchcrafttoreclaimtheireconomicautonomyandpurchasefreedomfrom
maleconstraint.InMeru,witchcraftdiscoursesareavehiclethroughwhich
gendered struggles over contract income are articulated and contested, and
through which the social costs of agrarian transition become apparent.
HORTICULTURAL CONTRACTING IN MERUDISTRICT, KENYA
This article is based on fieldwork conducted in Meru District from 1994 to
19963 and three supplementary visits from 1998 to 2000. The research took
1. While there are important intra-gender differences and social divisions that condition
women’s access to resources, this article focuses exclusively on married women and
resourceconstraintsbetweenhusbandandwife.
2. JoiningchurchgroupsandbecomingsavedintoalifeofChristhavebecomewaysthat
womenconfronttheconfinesoftheirmarriage.
3. Fieldworkconsistedof quantitative andqualitative interviews conductedwith113male
contractfarmersand94spousescultivatingFrenchbeans.
Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition 661
place in Abothuguchi West, Central Imenti Division, one of the most
densely populated and agriculturally productive areas in Kenya.4 While
Meru boasts a long history of smallholder involvement in coffee and tea, it
wasnotuntilthelate1980sthatseveralNairobi-basedcompanies,respond-
ing to the growing demand for exotic vegetables in Europe, introduced
export horticulture to the area.5 By the mid-1990s there were more than
twenty-five horticultural export firms operating in Meru, providing seeds,
inputsandaguaranteedmarketoutlettosmallholderfarmersundercontract.
In Central Imenti specifically more than 600 farmers were integrated into
contractualarrangementstogrowFrenchbeansandmangetoutonplotsof
less than half an acre.
Horticulturalcropsareparticularlywellsuitedtocontractfarmingdueto
stringent quality and cosmetic imperatives that necessitate close scrutiny of
cultivation and post-harvest activities. Such imperatives engender particu-
larlyhighlabourintensityatcertainpointsintheproductionprocesssuchas
planting,weedingandharvesting.Forexample,Kenya’smostwidelygrown
horticultural export crops — snow peas and French beans — require 600
and 500 labour days per hectare respectively (Little, 1994). By outsourcing
production, export firms ensure that this intensification of the labour
process is internalized within the farm household.
While there is a now a sizeable literature6 documenting the economic
benefitsaswellassocialcostsofcontractfarming,therearetwofeaturesof
the institution that are relevant to this article. Firstly, one of the main
advantages of contracting for exportfirms isthat it allows them to exercise
control over the production process without the liability of owning or oper-
ating farms (Key and Rungsten, 1999). However, companies will generally
only issue contracts (and payment) to landowners. This effectively excludes
womenfromreceivingacontractintheirnamesinceinMeru,asinmostparts
of Kenya, the vast majority of landowners are men. Secondly, companies
remunerategrowersonthebasisoftheunitofproduceharvestedregardless
of labour input, thereby banking on the process of family self-exploitation
to meet production objectives. Export firms thus harness an entire family
to global agricultural production, trusting that the labour process will be
managedthroughculturalnormsofrightsandresponsibilities(Collins,1991).
However,itisnotonlyfamilylabourbutspecificallyfemalelabourthatis
essential for effective horticultural production. As the chairman of Kenya
4. In1995therewereanaverageof420peopleperkm2,withapproximately95percentofthe
labourforceengagedinsmallholderagriculture(RuralPlanningDepartment,1996).
5. WhileKenyahasalonghistoryofparticipationinexporthorticulture(vegetables,fruits
andcutflowers),itbecamewidelypromotedduringthe1980saspartoftheagricultural
diversificationinitiativesofinternationallendingagencies.
6. SeeAyakoetal.(1989),GloverandKusterer(1990),Kennedy(1989),andWilliamsand
Karen(1985)foradiscussiononthebenefitsofcontractfarming.SeeLittleandWatts
(1994)andMbilinyi(1988)foracritiqueofitssocialconsequences.
662 Catherine S. Dolan
Horticultural Exporters claimed, ‘Women are better bean pickers. Their
hands are smaller and they have more patience for the work than the men’
(pers. comm.). These gendered associations are not simply derived from
capitalist ideologies that consider women better suited for horticultural
workbutarealsoembeddedinlocalculturalnormsthatdifferentiatelabour
allocation and crop cultivation by gender.
Gender and Contract Farming
Studies of how gender identities, roles and responsibilities inform and are
informed by changing commodity relations are, by now, familiar ones.
Nearlythreedecadesago,forexample,ChambersandMoris(1973)charted
the ‘unintended consequences’ of development that arose when gendered
property rights were overlooked in a Kenyan rice scheme. More recently,
scholarshavedocumentedthetensionsinsocialrelationstoemergeincases
of agricultural commercialization, tracing the link between the penetration
of transnational capital and the transformation of women’s private lives in
thehousehold(seevonBu¨lowandSørensen,1988;Carney,1992;Dey,1981;
Heald, 1991; Mackintosh, 1989; Mbilinyi, 1988).
Several of these studies have focused specifically on the institution of
contract farming, documenting how agrarian potential is circumscribed by
the nature and form of domestic organization, including conjugal, kin and
filial responsibilities. For example, Heald’s research (1991) among contract
tobacco growers in Western Kenya clearly illustrated how social structure
mediated the effects of contract farming, leading to markedly different
outcomes for the Teso and Kuria. In contrast to the Kuria, the small
household size and rigid division of labour among the Teso impeded the
moblizationoflabour,generatingtensionsamonghusbandsandwivesover
labourallocation,subsistence,andcontrolovertobaccoincome.Thistheme
— the incapacity of households to accommodate increased labour burdens
and the social strain that ensues — features in several studies of contract
farming. Both von Bu¨low and Sørensen (1988), and Mbilinyi (1988), for
example, depicted how pressures on women’s labour time following the
introduction of tea contracting destabilized conjugal relations and under-
minedthebroaderpotentialforcapitalaccumulation.Similarly,researchby
Carney and Watts (1990) on irrigated rice contracting captured with great
claritythesignificancethatsocialnormsplayindefiningpropertyrightsand
labour responsibilities, and more importantly how those definitions confer
opportunitiesforincomeandwell-beingincontractfarming.Whatallthese
studiesshareisaconjugalcontractrifewithstrugglesoverland,labour,and
incomeinthefaceofchangingmaterialrelations.Morespecifically,theyall
point to the importance of understanding how gender and cultural norms
figure in the constitution and transformation of agrarian processes. This
article follows these lines of inquiry, exploring how the process of French
Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition 663
bean contracting is shaped by, as well as embedded in, the practices and
discourses of witchcraft in Meru.
WITCHCRAFT ANDMODERNITY
Withinthelasttwodecades,oneofthemoststrikingaspectsofpostcolonial
Africa has been the re-emergence of witchcraft in public discourse. While
witchcrafthaslongbeenattheheartofAfricananthropologicalstudy,ithas
recently resurfaced as central to critiques of culture and modernity. Part
of the reason for this renewed interest has been the shift away from view-
ing African witchcraft as a phenomenon restricted to bounded ‘traditional’
societies to the identification of witchcraft with wider processes of global
change.7 In fact, the majority of recent work views witchcraft as distinctly
modern, as a signifier for the contradictions and tensions emanating from
contemporary processes of missionization, urbanization, state domination
andglobalization.8Thesestudiesshowthatfarfromdisappearingintheface
of modernization, witchcraft is ubiquitous in Africa, implicated in conflicts
between rural and urban, state and community, and men and women.
While anthropological interpretations of witchcraft may have changed,
the idea thatwitchcraft reflects the friction between communalvalues(moral
economy) and individualaccumulation (capitalism)persists. Expressions of
theoccultarewelldocumentedinsituationsofeconomicchange,wherethe
introduction of new resources exacerbates social differentiation and accentu-
ates struggles for power and control. For example, Seur (1992: 206) shows
how farmers in a climate of rapid economic differentiation in Zimbabwe
used sorcery accusations as a check on communal imbalance, effectively
ensuring conformity to ‘an ideology of equality’. Similarly, Kohnert (1996)
discusses the spate of witchcraft accusations against the nouveaux riches
whofloutcustomaryrulesofredistributionandkinshipnormsofsolidarity.
In the same vein, Niehaus (1993) traces the historical shift from witches
attacking communities to witches targeting individuals and households,
reflectingthedeteriorationofcommunaltiesandheightenedfrictionwithin
and between households.
7. Anthropologists have interpreted African witchcraft variously. Arguably the most
significant work has been Evans-Pritchard’s (1937) interpretation of Azande witchcraft
asanexplanatoryframeworkforseeminglyinexplicablephenomena(suchasmisfortune
and illness). Functionalist approaches such as Goody (1970), Douglas (1963), Marwick
(1965),Middleton(1964)andMiddletonandWinter(1963)viewedwitchcraftandwitch-
craftaccusationsasmechanismsofsocialcontrol,ensuringlong-termequilibriumthrough
thereleaseofstructuraltensionamongkinandcommunity.Forareviewofliteratureon
AfricanwitchcraftseetheessaysinAfricanStudiesReview41:3(1998).
8. See Auslander (1993), Austen (1993), Bastian (1993), Comaroff and Comaroff (1993),
Englund (1996), Geschiere (1997), Kohnert (1996), Masquelier (1993), Niehaus (1993,
2001),Parish(1999,2000),Rutherford(1999)andShaw(1997).
664 Catherine S. Dolan
What all these studies demonstrate is how clearly witchcraft and kinship
areconnectedtosocialnormsandexpectationsofreciprocityandexchange,
and how both are inculcated in putative notions of intimacy and trust. As
Geschiere and Fisiy (1994: 325) contend: ‘witchcraft is indeed the dark side
of kinship: it reflects the frightening notion that there is hidden aggression
and violence where there should be only trust and solidarity’.
In no area is this ‘dark side’ more evident than in the use (or purported
use) of witchcraft between men and women. Several feminist scholars
(Ciekawy, 1999; Drucker-Brown, 1993; Karlsen, 1987; Larner, 1981) have
shown how witchcraft practice and accusations are grounded in gendered
power struggles, where culturally constructed notions of male and female
and the boundaries of material prosperity are played out.9 For example,
Nadel (1952) interpreted witchcraft among the Nupe of Nigeria as a mani-
festation of male–female competition. He argued that the prevalence of
female witches attacking, dominating and threatening male authority was
linkedtowomen’seconomicpowerinthemarketplace.Inthissituationthe
success of female traders precipitated accusations by their husbands (who
werefrequentlyindebtedtothem)thatwomenwereorganizedinclandestine
witch’s covens. Similarly, Goody’s study of male and female witchcraft
among the Gonja of Ghana showed how idealized constructions of gender
roles denied women a sanctioned vehicle for the expression of aggressive
emotion. As Goody noted, women’s perceived use of witchcraft not only
threatenedtheviabilityofmalecontrolbutcast‘intodoubtthebenevolence
of the affective relationships on which the domestic group centres’ (1970:
242). This theme was echoed by Drucker-Brown (1993), who argued that
witchcraft among the Mamprusi of Ghana not only reflected the emergent
autonomy of women in the sexual division of labour but also diminishing
malecontrolintheeconomicsphere.Whatallthesecaseshaveincommonis
that witchcraft is associated with women transcending the boundaries of
appropriate social behaviour and hence, challenging their ascribed position
within the social hierarchy.
WITCHCRAFT IN MERU
Despite the widespread adoption of Christianity in Kenya, anxiety about
witchcraftandfearofitsrepercussionsremainasalientfeatureofdailylife.
Witchcraft is blamed for missing persons, deviant social behaviour, illness,
death and natural catastrophe, and people are lynched, mobbed and
9. Severaltheoriessuggestthatwomenarepredominantlyassociatedwiththeoccultdueto
theirsocialmarginalization,whichisexpressedinsymbolicformssuchasspiritpossession,
sorcery and witchcraft (Ardener, 1970; Giles, 1987; Lewis, 1989; Ong, 1987). However,
others(Drucker-Brown,1993;Nadel,1952) attributethe phenomenonto theincreasing
powerofwomenineconomicspheres.
Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition 665
slaughtered because of their alleged predilection for the occult.10 It is an
integral and dynamic aspect of social order, an ever-present threat that is
deeply inscribed in ‘public culture and private life’(Comaroff and Comaroff,
1993:xviii).Asoneintervieweenoted,‘Mostofusfearitsomuch.Weareso
afraid of losing our lives, property or children. You see if one is bewitched
it’s not easy to reverse its effects. It’s traumatizing’.
YetwitchcraftisnotanewphenomenoninMeru.11Asearlyasthe1900s
colonialofficialsinMeruDistrictperceivedlocalinstitutionssuchaskiamas12
andthenjurincheke13asbulwarksofwitchcraftandpaganism.LocalNative
Councilminutes arepermeatedwithclaimsthattheprogressoftheDistrict
had been impeded by the persistence of ‘superstition’, and warnings to
Christians against joining secret societies or adopting lurid oathing prac-
tices.14 By the 1920s colonial officials were intent on banishing witchcraft,
contending that the inability of the ‘backward’ Meru people to attain the
economic advancement of the neighbouring Kikuyu was rooted in witch-
craftpractices,whichhadpenetratedtheMeruAfricanColonialServiceand
endangered the colonial structure itself. District Commissioner Lamb (who
instituted the anti-witchdoctor campaign), claimed that no tribe in Kenya
wasmoredeeplysteepedinwitchcraftthantheMeru,andthatwitchcraftwas
robbing ‘the chiefs, and through them the entire machinery of the British
administration of all governing initiative’ (cited by Fadiman, 1993: 305).
Closetoacenturylater,vilifyingwitchcraftasanobstacletodevelopment
is central to the vision of the post-colonial state. From national politicians
to village leaders, witchcraft isdemonized inpublicdiscourse as a relic ofa
backward past that threatens to undermine national objectives of progress
and accumulation. In fact, in 1994 President Moi was forced to appoint a
Presidential Commission to investigate the perceived resurgence of witch-
craft,ritualmurders,andotherostensiblyoccultpracticesbrewingthrough-
outKenya.Theoutcomeofthisinvestigation—thewidelypublicizedReport
onDevilWorship—includednumerousreportsofmagic,ritualmurder,and
cannibalism, which threatened to derail the country’s national objectives
(Njau, 1999). The government frequently calls baraza (public assemblies)15
to preach against the apparent rise of occult practices such as witchcraft
10. Thereweresixteendeathscausedbymobviolenceagainstpersonssuspectedofpractising
witchcraftin1998(USStateDepartment,1998).
11. IncontrasttoEvans-Pritchard’s(1937)seminaldistinctionbetweenwitchcraft(ascribed)
andsorcery(achieved),theMeruusethetermsinterchangeablyinconversation.Whilethe
practicesdescribedinthispaper(i.e.poisoning)fallwithintheEvans-Pritchards’definition
ofsorcery,Iusethetermwitchcrafttodenotebothtypesofaction.
12. Kiamas(councils)formedpartofthegoverningbodyoftheMeru(Fadiman,1993).
13. The njuri ncheke, or Council of Elders, is a disciplinary body that was responsible for
executinglawsandarbitratingdisputes.
14. MinutesoftheMeruLocalNativeCouncilCountyCourt,LNC/15/15/6,1952,andMay
12,1955(nofilenumber).
15. Baraza are outdoorassemblies licensedby the state,typicallycalled by nationaland/or
localpoliticians(Haugerud,1995).
666 Catherine S. Dolan
and to promote ideologies of Christianity and national unity to subvert its
appeal.
However, despite the rhetoric deployed by government and clergy, it is
specifically within the context of the ‘modern’ post-colonial state that
witchcraftisflourishing(Parish,1999).Sowhoarethesewitchesthatarethe
‘terrorofdevelopment’(Apter,1993:125)?Canwitchcraftdiscoursestellus
anythingaboutthewaygenderedconflictsoverresourcesareregisteredand
contested in a context of agrarian transition?
As in many African societies, witchcraft in Meru (urogi) is seen as a way
todiagnoseandunderstandmisfortuneandadversity.16Itisnotuncommon
tohearwitchcraftinvokedasanexplanationforcropfailure,livestockloss,
and other ‘natural’ catastrophes. As one interviewee said, ‘A phenomenon
that cannot be explained like drought, floods, these things that destroy our
property and not the neighbours, this is truly witchcraft’. Yet witchcraft
is more frequently viewed as a means to redress interpersonal hostilities
and jealousies stemming from economic differentiation. In an area of high
population growth riven by competition for resources, witchcraft acts as a
powerful weapon to settle the score against potential rivals for economic
gain.Asoneintervieweeexpressedit,‘itisthisgapbetweenthe‘‘haves’’and
the ‘‘have nots’’ that causes all this bewitching issue’. This echoes Green’s
(1994: 24) study of the Pogoro of Tanzania, which showed that witches,
motivated by jealousy and greed, attacked people whose main mistake
was in surpassing their fellow villagers on the path to accumulation. This
explanationwassupportedbyawell-to-doMerumanwhosaid,‘WhenIgo
intoMerutown...youhearmanyeducatedpeopleandthosewhoarevery
rich confessing they don’t want to go to the villages because they will be
bewitched.Iunderstandthat.Youevenfearthepeoplearoundyou.Whenyou
havesomethingtheydon’thave,it’snoteasyto live withit.Whenyou know
thatthepeopleyoueatanddrinkwithwantyourthings,whatcanyoudo?’
FortheMeruwitchcraftisapremeditatedact,basedonthemanipulation
of spiritual entities and/or substances by malicious individuals with the
intent to cause harm. It generally assumes the form of either bewitching or
poisoning.17 The former involves casting a spell on a piece of the victim’s
property or planting a substance in a strategic point where the victim is
likely to pass. The latter involves creating a medicinal concoction from
plants, to inflict illness, death, or more widely, to render the victim lazy,
unreliable, and mentally incapacitated. The Meru also believe that a witch-
doctor or ‘herbalist’ can counter the effects of bewitching, but only if the
victim possesses sufficient resources to offer proper compensation.
16. Prior to the advent of Christianity, the notion of a centralized evil force personified as
Satan or the devil was non-existent in Meru. Instead, misfortune was attributed to
displeasedancestralspiritsortovariousformsofwitchcraft.
17. HistoricalacountsrecordthreemaintypesofwitchcraftinMeru:cursesandincantations;
rituals;andpotions/medicines(Fadiman,1993;M’Imanyara,1992).
Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition 667
In contrast to the colonial and pre-colonial period, however, where
individuals associated with witchcraft were widely considered to be male,
today the sex of the witch is contingent upon the type of offence for which
retribution is sought. In general, men are associated with witchcraft that is
employedtomitigateinter-householdconflicts,primarilylanddisputeswith
neighbours. Women, on the other hand, are most commonly regarded as
perpetratorsofintra-householdwitchcraft,seekingtorevengehusbands,co-
wives,andchildrenfortheirgreatershareofresources.Thelatterassociation
is borne out in divorce records, where husbands frequently accuse wives of
threatening to poison or bewitch them to gain access to household land.18
However, while women are the targets of most allegations, many women
also consider witchcraft to be a legitimate way to assert claims for equity
andpowerwithintheirhouseholds.Rumoursofwomengivingtheirhusbands
kagweria19 — a substance that induces psychosis and transforms men into
dolts,thusleavingcontrolofthehouseholdtothewife—orpoisoningtheir
husbands to death, have been recorded in Meru since the 1930s. Women’s
use of the practice is said to have heightened during the 1970s when men
startedabusingcoffeeandteaincome,whichwhileundermalecontrol,was
also intended to sustain the economic well-being of the household. Cur-
rently the practice is claimed to include conflicts over French bean income,
which women consider their crop. Other rationales for ‘demasculinizing’
men through kagweria include adultery, one co-wife becoming jealous of
anotherifthehusbandisfavouringthelatter’schildreninlandallocation,and
women’ssubordinationinthehousehold(Dolan,1999).Inthesecases,theuse
of kagweria is fuelled by a woman’s sense of injustice, primarily their
exclusion from the protections afforded by land and independent income
streams, such as French beans.
In reality, whether or not women use kagweria against their husbands is
unclear. While there are indications of a well-established local market for
theherbs,itisalsothecasethatwitchcraftisgenerallymanifestinrumours,
allusions and insinuations, which may or may not be grounded in actual
practice. However, the essential question is not whether women are
poisoning their husbands per se, but rather under what circumstances such
threats and allegations arise. And it appears that one such circumstance is
the contract farming of French beans.
French Bean Production
How women’s work is defined, commodified, and negotiated within the
household directly mediates the production process of horticulture
18. MeruCountyCourtRecords,LandRegister,CentralImentiCivilCases#63/88,#69/91,
#20/91,#5/92,#733/64.
19. Kagweria, a liquid acquired from certain trees, is mixed with sedative drugs. It can be
purchasedfromknowledgeablewomenintheChukaandEmbuareas.
668 Catherine S. Dolan
contracting. In Meru over 90 per cent of contracts are issued to male
household members who control labour allocation and secure payment.23
However, the fulfilment of those contracts rests primarily on women’s
unpaid labour; women are nearly wholly responsible for planting, weeding
and picking French beans. While over 27 per cent of men do participate
in French bean labour, for the most part their activities (ploughing and
fertilizer application) require less overall labour and have less significance
forproductquality.Nevertheless,despitethelabourrequirementsofFrench
beans,therehasbeennoadjustmentoflabourobligationsbetweenhusband
andwife.Infact,menhavecontributedlesslabourtotheirwives’plotsand
women have been compelled to hire labour to perform tasks that were
formerlyperformedbytheirhusbands.Some52percentofmenincontrast
to 39 per cent of women hired people to work on horticultural crops. In
both cases the hired labour was highly feminized with women constituting
over 75 per cent of workers contracted to plant, weed, pick and grade
French beans (primarily female-defined tasks).20
However,itisFrenchbeanincome,andinsomecaseslandappropriation,
rather than labour, which has become the terrain of overt conflict between
husbandandwife.Ingeneral,womenhavenotopenlychallengedtheintensi-
fication of the labour process. Whilesome women have diverted their labour
to church groups, seeking both fellowship and their own choice of work, this
practice falls within the parameters of prevailing norms of the ‘good wife’.
In Meru maintaining the reputation of a good wife engenders considerable
protections.Itisintimatelylinkedtothebenefitsthatwomenderivefroma
household system where loss of social standing has dramatic material conse-
quences. However, there are several women who are rumoured to have
discarded the protections afforded by compliance with Christian norms of
conjugal responsibility. These women have exerted a forceful claim against
men’s refusal tocompensatethem forthelabour usedinFrench beanculti-
vation,andinsomecasestheappropriationoftheirusufructland.Thenext
section of the paper examines why this is, and more specifically why witch-
craftdiscourseshavebecomethelocioftensionsbetweenhusbandandwife.
STRUGGLES OVERLAND
In Meru land fragmentation has become increasingly prevalent, fuelled by
high population growth and patrilineal inheritance practices that compel
eachmantodivide hispropertyamonghissons.Deterioratinglandquality
and availability means that land has become a vitally contested resource,
andakeyfieldonwhichintra-familialcontestationsareexpressed.Between
1983 and 1994 the number of land disputes in Meru District doubled from
20. SeeDolan(2001)forananalysisoftheimpactofFrenchbeanproductiononhousehold
labourallocation.