Peter Pan in Nairobi: Masculinity's Postcolonial City

Abstract

This paper is a study of 'hegemonic masculinity' (Connell) as it is represented in the Spear Books series, a subsidiary of East African Educational Publishers, Nairobi. I discuss three intersecting layers of the masculine gender order as reproduced by the series (1970–90): the colonial literary legacy of masculine city 'rambling'; the local (African) specificity of changing gender identities; and the impacts of globalization. The thematic thread I pursue is the proposition about the adult-as-child (Peter Pan) as a brutalizing aspect of 'masculinity in relation' (with man and woman). The masculine order of violence in the city is explained in terms of its colonial past as a segregated city and its postcolonial and international claims for recognition. I talk about a crisis in 'Kenyan men.'