Life and Land Configurations Among the Luo of Western Kenya

Abstract

Life and land configurations among the Luo is a study of the people‟s disparate ontologies of life and the way it is interconnected with land. It explores what constitutes life and the people‟s explanations of it and land. The study is based on over one-year ethnography in Ahero and West Kano irrigation schemes of Kisumu County in western Kenya. The central question underpinning this study is: how is life and land interconnected among the Luo people and, most significantly, how does this interconnection reveal the constitution of life? Specifically, the study examined life and land configurations among the Luo; how life and land are interconnected through experiences of human beings in everyday life; and, lastly, the physical and spiritual aspects of human and nonhuman agents in life and land configurations among the Luo. The study was guided by „the general pragmatics‟ approach A sample population of 150 household heads purposively selected participated in the study. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, participant observations, key informant interviews, narrative conversations, and focus group discussions; and were analyzed thematically by coding into themes and sub-themes. The study findings show that the Luo conceived life as being constituted of spiritual entities, bodily units, practices and conditions which are integrated in multiple practices. The integration is realized through a cosmojuridical agency, which is the universe of human and nonhuman (ancestor/spirit) co-action represented by the integrated potencies of human and nonhuman species which enable them to exert their forces in life. The potencies are the perceivable materialities that influence and shape life processes. The domain of cosmojuridical agency supposes the human performance of animal or plant sacrifices, offerings and rituals undertaken in response to ancestor or spirit commands that bear significance to life. Life and land are interconnected elements as they are revealed in the people‟s daily lived experiences. Physical and spiritual aspects of human and nonhuman agents appear through land features, humans and spirits which exert their authority to influence life processes. It is concluded that the plurality of life among the Luo is defined by multiple constitution of embodied bodily units, organs, objects, materials, practices and species.