1 - Introduction

Summary

The introduction sets out the context and framework for exploring popular politics in Kenya in the 2010s. It begins by juxtaposing a dynamic political communication landscape, with protracted and familiar repertoires through which political differences are understood. From here, it lays out the purpose of the book: to make sense of how, and to what extent, everyday publics explain continuity and change in shared political imaginaries in Kenya. It considers conceptual resources in Africanist scholarship on publics that exist to help understand the power of everyday publics on the continent, and suggests a revision of Hannah Arendt’s ideas of the power of publics as a way expand this scholarship to better account for the power of everyday publics. Finally, it also introduces Mombasa’s people’s parliaments, everyday informal gatherings that are the empirical window through which Kenya’s popular politics are examined.