Adèle Nivière

Research Project

In my dissertation project, I seek to understand how the families of former slaves redeemed by Catholic missions in eastern Kenya and Tanzania attempted, throughout much of the colonial period, to mitigate the vulnerability of their status. To this end, they mobilized family and migration strategies that could cross both internal colonial and international borders, sometimes extending across all of East Africa. Furthermore, I examine how the exit from slavery influenced the formation of specific gender regimes that varied from one region to another.

Drawing on mission archives (parish registers, community diaries, reports, correspondence), colonial archives, and interviews, I show through the example of three mission stations (Mombasa, Mwa Baya Nyundo, and Bura) that the overlapping of different networks of belonging — which could cross both internal colonial and international borders — enabled the anchoring and integration of former slaves and their descendants into multiple communities of belonging.