Kenyan civil society : between resilience and resistance.
The prospect of the general elections at the end of 1997 has multiplied demands and radicalised mobilisation in this ancient, deeply-rooted civil society. Social groups are demanding a less overbearing State presence. This sometimes leads them to join networks and micro-groups which, since they are not integrated at a higher level, content themselves with meeting their own internal needs. Moreoften, they develop intermediary bodies (unions) orseek representation through churches or NGO’s, which are entering the political market and competing with parties who are struggling to shed their traditional role and with whom the citizens identify themselves less and less.
The african street on the move. politics and collective action.
The street has become the place to express public power since independences, either directly through the use of force, or less openly, through the circulation of informers, or in a metaphorical way through the organization of demonstrations to the glory of the State’s power. A few events turned the street into a territory reaching saturation point over the last years. The tremendous development of an informal market with pedlers and the increase of city gangs resulted in the physical and symbolical invasion of the street. But what remains most important is the part played by demonstrations, a pattern of collective action often chosen by the actors for democratic claims. Thus the street established itself as a preeminent means to project multiple meanings in political space as soon as it made possible the display of live protest.
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