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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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'Rumour has it that..' : Tendrils of Truths in the Julie Ward Grapevine in Kenya
| Panel |
20. Popular culture and politics - alternative channels of expression
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| Paper ID | 484 |
| Author(s) |
Musila, Grace A.
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | On 6th September 1988, 28-year old Julie Ann Ward, a British tourist, was reported missing after failing to return to Nairobi, as planned, from a trip in one of Kenya’s national reserves, the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. A search was mounted for her, with the anxious support of her father, the British hotelier, John Ward. Six days later, her partly burnt remains: part of her left leg, locks of hair and her jaw, broken into two were found in the game reserve; while her skull was found several days later in the game reserve. Subsequently there was a court inquest into her death, followed by a long and winding search for her killers. The death captured the local imagination in Kenya, resulting in several rumours, and speculation regarding her death, the possible culprits, and even the reasons behind her murder. [At the time of writing, her killers are still at large.] In this paper, I suggest that while the Julie Ward case was formally prosecuted within the Kenyan and British courtrooms, a parallel prosecution was unfolding among the various publics constituted by the case in Kenya, who came up with their own findings which were alternately opposed to, aligned with and complementary to the official verdicts in the courtrooms. These ‘parallel courts’ took the shape of rumours and gossip speculating on the possible truth(s) behind the Julie Ward murder mystery.
If we take Luise White’s definition of rumour as ‘events analysed and commented upon’(2000: 42), then the range of speculations on Julie Ward’s murderer(s) and the reasons behind it open up a rich archive of shared histories and experiences whose value lies in their approximation of, allusion to and distortion of lived realities. In this paper, I examine these rumours as a social quilt sewn together using patches of experiences, fears, anxieties, disenchantments and even joys and triumphs; behind each of which lies a story, a snatch of memory, a glimpse of the past, the present and even speculations on the future. I am interested in the social truths that are stored in these narratives; the range of discourses that are inscribed in these rumours which ostensibly discuss Julie Ward’s death. Drawing on the work of Luise White and Stephen Ellis on rumour, the paper argues that rumour operates along a different index of truth, whose claim to legitimacy derives precisely from its contestation of hegemonic truths and their conventions of credibility. Working with the rumours regarding the Julie Ward murder in Kenya, the paper makes a case for rumour as an important medium of intervention and political expression, especially in contexts where other more formalized forums of expression have either been appropriated by dominant forces, or are muffled by political censorship, such as Kenya was in the 1980’s-1990’s during the Moi regime. In effect, the paper suggests, the insertion of these rumours into social discourse created important forums for debating issues ranging from the Moi regime’s repressive practices, to the place of race and gender in Kenya.
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