{"product_id":"worries-of-the-heart-widows-family-and-community-in-kenya-9780226554204","title":"Worries of the Heart: Widows  Family  and Community in Kenya","description":"\u003cp\u003eGrowing up in the Maragoli community in Kenya  Kenda Mutongi encountered a perplexing contradiction. While the young teachers at her village school railed against colonialism  many of her elders  including her widowed mother  praised their former British masters. In this moving book  Mutongi explores how both the challenges and contradictions of colonial rule and the frustrations and failures of independence shaped the lives of Maragoli widows and their complex relations with each other  their families  and the larger community. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first  rates of widowhood have been remarkably high in Kenya. Yet despite their numbers  widows and their families exist at the margins of society  and their lives act as a barometer for the harsh realities of rural Kenya. Mutongi here argues that widows survive by publicly airing their social  economic  and political problems  their worries of the heart. Initially aimed at the men in their community  and then their colonial rulers  this strategy changed after independence as widows increasingly invoked the language of citizenship to demand their rights from the new leaders of Kenyaleaders whose failure to meet the needs of ordinary citizens has led to deep disenchantment and altered Kenyans view of their colonial past. An innovative blend of ethnography and historical research  Worries of the Heart is a poignant narrative rich with insights into postcolonial Africa.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646887354421,"sku":"ByrdShop_0226554201","price":27.04,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780226554204.jpg?v=1781680101","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/worries-of-the-heart-widows-family-and-community-in-kenya-9780226554204","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}