Urbanization and Adaptation: A Reorganization Process of Social Relations among the Maragoli Migrants in Their Urban Colony, Kangemi, Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

The retribalization phenomenon prevails in the most of African larger cities today. Though many of urban migrants do not seem to break away "tribal" social relations in town, the retribalization itself can be regarded purely contemporary, dynamic and urban phenomenon in spite of its appearance. We would like to take up the Maragoli migrants from Western Kenya living in Kangemi, a poor housing area in Nairobi in order to bear out that kind of retribalization phenomenon. The retribalization phenomenon among them appeared as nothing less than survival mechanism on the extreme edge of subsistence in a severe urban environment. In order to elucidate this phenomenon, this paper adopts the following procedures. Firstly, eight urban situations, where social relations are developed and organized, are chosen from the daily life of the Maragoli migrants in Kangemi. Secondly, the forms of recognizing social relations (network/group type) are examined in each situation. Thirdly, the principles of reorganizing them (clan-lineage/village-homeboy/urban neighborhood-locality principle) are verified in each situation. Finally, we analyze how the village-homeboy principle, which has been rapidly developed in town, is embedded and reinterpreted in a traditional and dominant ideology of unilineal decent. This paper taken an example of the eighth situation and focuses on social relations organized on the occasion of cooperation for transporting a deceased migrant's body back home. These activities are still mainly done by the extended family and clan members in the home land, but they are scarcely done by them alone in Nairobi, where they are replaced with home-boys. For the home-boy principle had been newly developed in town as base for cooperation. It might be pointed out that even in such a most traditional and culturally conservative situation as is concerned with funeral rites, the principle of reorganizing social relations has gradually changed from the clan-lineage principle to the home-boy principle, though it is already provided with legitimacy within the framework of the traditional ideology.