On 4 March 2020, Elizabeth Mulewa Ngutuku, graduated Cum Laude from the International Institute of Social Studies with her thesis 'Rhizomatic Cartographies of Children’s Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Siaya, Kenya'
Her research looked into children’s complex lived experience in Kenya. It is based on a one-year ethnographic research in Siaya, a county characterized by some of the lowest indicators of child well-being in Kenya.
Elizabeth explored the children’s experience as ‘cartography’, or a rhizomatic map, from three interlinked every-day and symbolic spaces of children: the household/home, and non-state and state programmes of support and schooling.
She found that children’s lived experience is not linear. It is formed at sometimes enduring and/or shifting interstices of material lack and historically/politically located factors. It also forms at complex social relations, including community-individual and state-citizen relations and obligations. This experience coalesces at the context of representations and understanding of children’s needs, rights and identity in programmes and the emergent agency of children.
Video and photos of the event
Download the thesis
The full thesis will be available from the ISS Library.
English and Dutch abstracts are available below.