Children's Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Siaya, Kenya

This research looks into children’s complex lived experience in Kenya. It is based on a one-year ethnographic research in Siaya, a county characterized by some of the lowest indicators of child well-being in Kenya.

Elizabeth Ngutuku explored the children’s experience as ‘cartography’, or a rhizomatic map, from three interlinked every-day and symbolic spaces of children: the household/home, and non-state and state programmes of support and schooling.

She finds that children’s lived experience is not linear. It is formed at sometimes enduring and/or shifting interstices of material lack and historically/politically located factors. It also forms at complex social relations, including community-individual and state-citizen relations and obligations. This experience coalesces at the context of representations and understanding of children’s needs, rights and identity in programmes and the emergent agency of children.

Doctoral board

Chair

Professor Inge Hutter

Doctoral dissertation supervisor

Professor Karin Arts

Co-supervisor

Dr Auma Okwany

Members of the Full Doctoral Committee

Professor Elizabeth Swadener, Arizona State University

Professor Simiyu Wandibba, University of Nairobi

Professor Karl Hanson, University of Geneva

Dr Amrita Chhachhi

Dr Naomi van Stapele