Mungiki: Between violent youth politics and traditionalist sect

Contact person: Jacob Rasmussen

This PhD project is concerned with violent youth politics in Nairobi, Kenya. The primary empirical focus of the project is Mungiki; a Kikuyu based movement that is engaged in religious activities, politics, local development, crime, and violence.

Understanding the processes of political violence in Kenya has gained renewed relevance and significance after the post-election crisis of the December 2007 elections. Ever since the first multiparty elections in 1992 allegations of mobilisation of youth groups into political violence has preceded the electoral process. One of the most prominent groups in this regard is the Mungiki. To understand and prevent the electoral violence and politically motivated violence in general it is necessary to gain an understanding of the movements taking part in the violence and the mobilisation of people into the violence.

However, Mungiki is more than just a youth movement accused of taking part in the electoral and political violence. Mungiki started out as a religious movement with the objective of fighting poverty and freeing people of oppression (financial and political). In order to reach these objectives Mungiki has been engaged in politics as well as they have engaged in local development activities that challenge the authority of the state as they provide services that are usually provided by the state. The alleged illegal taxation of the services provided alongside the violent activities Mungiki has taken part in has resulted in the ban of the movement. Today, Mungiki is still an illegal movement, but they are in the process of registering as a political party under a different name.

The existing literature on Mungiki recognises the various aspects and activities of the movement, but none deals thoroughly with the organisational structure and the relation between the different aspects and activities of the movement. They either focus solely on the religious aspect of Mungiki, or treat the movement as a militia. It is the aim to investigate these relations in order to understand the movement as a whole, which will also be the key to understanding the appeal and the objectives of Mungiki.

The Kenyan police have set up a special task force to target militias and gangs and Mungiki has been the major target. However, the task force has been accused by Human Rights Movements for abductions and extrajudicial killings of several hundred alleged Mungiki members. This has somewhat changed the public image of Mungiki as more than perpetrators but also as victims of police and state oppression.

The project is part of larger programme about youth and violent political organisations