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Heemst, Annelies van (2025)

“I can be more than just sitting in the grass” How Female Maasai University Students are Navigating Changing Gender Expectations

Bachelor thesis | Afrikaanse talen en culturen (BA)
The Maasai are globally seen as the epitome of ‘traditional’ African culture and often pictured as archetypical patriarchal pastoralists. For a long time, these reductive notions have served to overlook and marginalize the agency of Maasai women. This thesis contributes to current research that has started debunking these notions and taking Maasai women's agency seriously. It focuses on how young Maasai women are navigating various overlapping 'modern' and 'traditional' spaces and changing gender expectations associated with these spaces. The author's fieldwork in a university and a Maasai village setting in Kenya forms the central methodology through which Maasai women's attitudes and experiences are analysed.
Maasai
young women
anthropological fieldwork
Author
Heemst, Annelies van
Faculty
Faculty of Humanities
Supervisors
Wit, S. de
ECTS Credits
10
Language
en