SOPRISEKEN · The Socialization of Private Sector Elites in Kenya

The Socialization of Private Sector Elites in Kenya

SOPRISEKEN focuses on the sociability of professional and managerial elites in modern Kenya. Studying socialization, and in particular the membership organizations in which it takes place, is a particularly fruitful way to understand how these elites have experienced the social and economic changes triggered in Africa by the “structural adjustment” policies of the 1980s; how they have come to understand themselves as a distinct social group - the “private sector” - sharing comparable social aspirations, lifestyle and economic ethos; and how the articulation of their interests has led to the development of similar civic and political attitudes. As regard to society and the general public, SOPRISEKEN makes issues regarding to African societies more understandable to European citizens, especially at times the migrant crisis brings to Europe populations, some of which from Africa, whose social background Europeans know too little. SOPRISEKEN thus provides information on issues which increasingly affect the daily lives of European citizens. SOPRISEKEN overall objectives are therefore to allow the experienced researcher to build a specialized bibliography ; to receive training in political anthropology ; to build trans-disciplinary hypothesis as regards to the formation of the private sector in Kenya; to test these hypothesis during a fieldwork in Kenya ; to build a new analytical framework to be presented at conference and that will be the subject of several publications.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union