One of the things that jumped out at me when I was sifting through the Rift Valley Province crime reports last week was that in district after district, month after month, the most common type of crime, in terms of sheer number of arrests was the production, possession, or consumption of homemade brew. My interest in the topic was intensified by a recent post by Chris Blattman, whose surveys in Northern Uganda have shown that brewing alcohol is the leading income generating activity for the women they talked to there.
While it is impossible to make comparisons or draw inferences based on these two bits of information (as I know nothing about whether brewing is illegal in Uganda or if such laws are enforced, nor about the prevalence of brewing vis-a-vis other income generating activities in Kenya), I do think, as Blattman argues, that home-brewing is a topic that merits further attention. From my perspective, this struck me as an interesting example of the government trying to legislate and enforce a set of norms that are not necessarily accepted by the population at large. In my own field sites, the old Maasai guys who are frequently under the influence of mauritina certainly don't see themselves as doing anything illegal. Furthermore, they do little to hide their consumption, especially at big public ceremonies such as circumcisions and weddings, at which getting totally wasted on local brew is just what the old folks do. I'm curious whether this attitude is uniform throughout Kenya, or whether there are some straight-edge communities out there somewhere.
It would also be interesting to see whether police in Uganda treat brewing in the same way as police in Kenya. If they do, the high rate of brewing among Ugandan women is especially puzzling, as the activity isn't necessarily as low risk as Blattman argues- as profits may be offset by a high likelihood of paying a fine or a bribe.
More to come as I head back to the archives in coming weeks...
2 comments:
I find this fascinating (as you would probably guess, given my "research interests"). What I'd like to know is how many people are doing this without getting arrested? Even with a large number of arrests, it could be a low-risk activity for any one particular moonshiner...
It would also be interesting to know what motivated the arrests. Do Kenyan police officers think of home-brew as a breach of the peace? Or are they more worried about the loss of tax revenue (which seems to have been the pattern in the US and UK)?
i'm heading out to the field today, and plan on doing a little on the ground investigation (read: trying to get arrested for making local brew). Expect more updates when I get back from the field on Friday.
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