The Power of Being : A Study of Poverty, Fertility and Sexuality among the Kuria in Kenya and Tanzania

The study is concerned with power based on ‘being’, which is the thread run-ning through the entire thesis. The extended family is the focal point, and three themes, interrelated in Kuria society, are explored, namely, poverty, sexuality and fertility. Poverty, one of the focuses, involves drawing atten-tion to local perceptions of destitution and prosperity, grappling with issues about access to, and control of, resources, pointing out impoverishing mech-anisms inherent in traditional socioeconomic systems and exemplifying criti-cal strategies to overcome poverty. In addition to displaying mechanisms of impoverishment, the thesis specifies vulnerable categories of individuals and explores contemporary strategies to overcome destitution. Since Kuria has been recognized as being a patriarchal society, which has led to a depiction of reality entailing a de-emphasizing of principles mediating male domi-nance, the study sheds light upon principles restraining male power and on compelling female recourses in situations of transgressions of cultural codes. The study provides empirical examples demonstrating formal cursing as a powerful female recourse in contexts of male abuse of power. “Power of being’ is dramatically manifested when women curse in their capacity as married daughters and sisters. The Kuria woman marriage has been investi-gated, and the author concludes that besides being a strategy by women who are excluded from privileged categories to overcome poverty and humilia-tion, the woman marriage reveals female aspirations to male spheres of power and status. Through the woman marriage it might be possible for women to own homesteads and to become lineage founders. Sexuality and fertility form intriguing parts of male and female being. In order to expose values at the heart of society with regard to male and female sexuality, the study explores symbols articulated by metaphors.