Struggle Over Burial of Otieno in Kenya

David William Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo, in Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa, examine the array of legal,social, political and gender-related issues which arose during the struggle over who would control the remains of famed Kenyan lawyer Silvanus Melea Otieno. Among these many issues are the significance of death and internment, the law, the life of Otieno, the state of marriage in Kenya, academic and anthropological matters, and many questions involving the socioeconomic structure of that society.

The outcome of the five-month legal struggle was the burial of Otieno "not on his Ngong farm in the Nairobi suburbs but rather in the land of his kinsmen at Nyamila village" (11).

The authors have undertaken their examination of this case because "the case elaborated itself as a laboratory for the study of the production of history and the sociology of power in contemporary Africa" (12).

Even more specifically, the authors focus on "the crucial role of the courtroom contest in the very constitution of ideas concerning the 'modern' and the 'traditional' in Kenyan life" (15).

The authors are thorough in examining every detail of the legal struggle itself, but those details compose only the raw material of their investigation. They are not aiming to determine who is right or wrong in that struggle, but rather to determine the process whereby history itself is produced. They recognize that in such a complex case as Otieno's, th

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