Capabilities and intersectionality: studying citizenship in Western Kenya

This paper critically addresses the study of citizenship in a postcolonial context like Kenya. It draws on a digital ethnography with a group of young activists in Western Kenya involved in processes of civic education and engagement to explore notions of citizenship that centre its political subjects. Postcolonial and postmodernist scholars have questioned the suitability of Western political theorising of citizenship in postcolonial contexts considering the role of the West in suppressing certain social relations and governance structures or amplifying inequalities and divisions (Kabeer, 2002) as well as considering the contingent and relational nature of citizenship across contexts, scales and sites of belonging (Chung, 2017; Isin, 2009). This relational understanding of citizenship takes its conceptualisation beyond the legal framework of rights and into a multi-layered construct (Pailey, 2016). This paper follows this critical conceptualisation and presents an interdisciplinary approach to studying citizenship. It does so by combining critical citizenship studies, the Capabilities Approach (Robeyns, 2016; Sen, 1999) and intersectional feminist theory. It is based on an in-depth case study using digital ethnography, which combines online and offline qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, an online focus group discussion, online observations in WhatsApp groups and in-person observations in meetings and public participation events. Kenya as a postcolonial state has in place a relatively recent constitution (2010) and associated legal framework of devolved governance. Yet, this legal framework, which favours citizen sovereignty, decentralisation and public participation is intertwined in practice with exclusionary colonial legacies of subject-state relationships. The paper argues that, in this context, certain civil society initiatives and discourses are enabling the activation and performance of citizenship as a way to challenge discriminatory and elitist practices. For example, sharing knowledge on constitutional rights and accountability mechanisms as well as creating safe spaces that can enable a sense of worthiness and purpose can help to ‘activate’ excluded groups in civic or political engagement. Enacting citizen sovereignty in front of elected officials in public spaces of participation is helping ‘perform’ citizenship among oppressed groups, such as youth and women, even when public participation is not effectively implemented due to weak systems or clientelism. These processes can help to challenge both a lack of implementation of democratic responsibilities as per the constitutional legal framework, as well as a lack of interaction between citizens and the state. In doing this, the activation and performance of citizenship can work as conversion factors for excluded groups to move from a colonial subject-state relationship to enacting the citizenship capabilities they value.