Lorna Jepkoech Kimaiyo is a PhD student of History at Columbia University’s department of history specializing in the modern history of Africa. She studied for both the bachelors and master of arts degree at Kenyatta University Nairobi, Kenya. Her research focuses on sports history, gender, postcolonial modernity and nationalism in Kenya.
ABSTRACT:
“Ethnicity and Sports in Colonial Kenya.”
Lorna Kimaiyo, Columbia University (doctoral student)
British colonial institutions in Kenya approached the development of sports in the colony along ethnic lines, with lasting implications for how Africans spent their leisure time. The military and the police were two major colonial institutions involved in the introduction of sports in Kenya. Both maintained a policy of recruiting prospective athletes based on ethnic considerations. Following the imperial idea of ‘martial races’, ethnicity often determined who was recruited and, once recruited, who could participate in the sporting activities introduced by the military and police. This practiced enforced ethnic difference in the development of modern sports in Kenya. For example, the British believed the Kalenjin to form a ‘martial race’ and so Kalenjin men comprised a high percentage of military recruits in the King’s African Riffles. It was from among those military recruits that a significant number of Kalenjin athletes distinguished themselves in colonial Kenya. Although the Kalenjin have over the years carved a niche for themselves in athletics both nationally and globally, the question of how the introduction and development of sports impacted the discourse on ethnicity in colonial and post-colonial Kenya has remained largely unexplored. This study thus attempts to examine how the colonial idea of ethnicity impacted Kenyan sports in the mid-twentieth century using athletics and Kalenjin identity as a case study.
