Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power (Social History of Africa)

Examines the complex sociologies, politics and histories of the debates that arose after the death of Kenyan lawyer S.M.Otieno and the struggle over where his body should be buried. The dispute between his wife and members of Otieno's clan revealed a range of issues as diverse as the meaning of death and the purpose of interment, the standing of statutory and traditional law, the nature of marriage, and the value and power of such constructs as 'modernity', 'tradition', 'Kenyan', 'Luo' and 'home'. North America: Heinemann