Kalamazoo College - ICRPs - Kenya - Nairobi

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This collection contains student intercultural research projects during their study abroad in Kenya.

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    Tapping Women's Resource Knowledge: The Marketing of Medicinal Plants by the Maasai in Gikomba Market, Nairobi
    (1996-05) Nix-Stevenson, Dara; Munguti, Kaendi; Sangiriaki, Justus Topoika Ole Naituriae Ole
    Throughout East Africa, Maasai women have always managed and utilized plant resources. Masaai women are not merely passive gatherers of plant products They actively manage and utilize plant resources. They decide where and how much of a given plant resource to harvest. African women have imparted this tradition of indigenous plant knowledge to their children and grandchildren. Yet, their traditional management and utilization of plant resources for income-generating activities is little recognized or explored Besides the lack of recognition and exploration of the Maasai woman's role in mobilizing her plant resource knowledge to generate cash and income, little attention has also been given to her ability to ',wield her plant utilization and management skills as a means of increased access t0 and control over their personal economic development and sustainability in an attempt to alter the direction of her life for the better,
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    The Struggle to Print: The plight of the writer of fiction in Kenya
    (1996-02-10) Harris, Petersen; Munguti, Kaendi
    Every place on earth has a story to tell. It is left up to the humans who inhabit this globe to tell the story of nature from generation to generation. The people of Kenya are writing, and they have been years. Even though Kenya is one of the few places on earth where oral tradition is valued as an area of history, as oral tradition is intertwined with African history, books are an intrinsic part of Kenya's society today. Kenyans are writing fiction now, and are depicting through imaginary stories the very-real state of affairs in their home land. Furthermore, there are several Kenyan writers of fiction struggling to get published by either home-grown publishing houses or foreign satellites of overseas publishing groups. It is a complicated and troubling road to print, but some Kenyans have made it to the bookshelves with their fiction. Many more are still struggling.
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    Program Research and Evaluation
    Salzman, Sarna
    Programming is important because it is way to express information to a group of people. Programs are a method of organizing experienced people to impart some of their knowledge to a less experienced group. They are an educational resource. Understanding a program basically means understanding the tools and methods of programming and applying that understanding to a particular case-study. A program starts with specific goals that the providers intend to implement. From these goals, specialized knowledge and resources can be sought. With a basic plan, knowledge, and resources the structures of the actual program can be constructed. This is simply trying to fulfill the original goals. Outlines and syllabuses are created and participants are found. A strong program starts from clear goals, a broad base of knowledge, and utilizes its resources effectively.
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    Women Behind the Veil: Toward a Cultural and Religious Understanding of the States of Muslim Women
    Nix-Stevenson, Dara
    Throughout Islamic history, institutions and modes of thought devised by early Muslim societies have donned the core discourses of Islam and have played a central role in defining women's place in Muslim societies. Across the centuries these core discourses have influenced debates in the Arab and non-Arab world between Islamists and secularists and between advocates of veiling and its opponents. According to an investigation of the discourses on women and gender in Islamic Middle Eastern societies, the adoption of the veil by Muslim women occurred by a process of cultural assimilation of conquered peoples. The Muslim conquests of the areas in which veiling was commonplace among the upper classes, the influx of wealth, the resultant raised status of Arabs, and Muhammad's wives being taken as models probably combined to bring about its general adoption. The veil was apparently in use in the Sasanian society and the veil was heavily in use in the Christian Middle East and Mediterranean regions at the time of the rise of Islam. During the end of Muhammad's lifetime, his wives were the only Muslim women required to veil, but after his death and following the Muslim conquest of the adjoining territories, whose upper-class women veiled, the veil became a commonplace item of clothing among Muslim upper-class women, by a process of cultural assimilation. Veiling was apparently not introduced into Arabia by Muhammad but already existed among some classes, particularly in the towns, though it was probably more prevalent in the countries that the Arabs had contact with, such as Syria and Palestine. In those areas, as in Arabia, it was connected with social status, as was its use among Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Assyrians, all of whom practiced veiling to some degree.
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    Femininity and Feminism: The White Women of Kenya
    (1996) Van Dyck, Alexandra; Munguti, Kaendi
    In 1938 there was a white population living in Kenya of just 20,894, and it was not until the turn of the century that this population began to establish itself in Kenya at all. Thus, it seems quite remarkable to me that within such a small pool of people and within such a short amount of time, a relatively large number of white, Kenyan women earned world-wide recognition. Did they lead lifestyles which naturally drew attention to themselves and thus the women? Or did they achieve things which were truly extraordinary? Or perhaps they were known, as are so many women in history, simply through their husbands? I very quickly came to the conclusion that these women were unquestionably unique: there is, quite obviously something which distinguishes them from most of the women I know at home in the United States and those I know in Europe. Some would label the uniqueness "feminist."
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