Category: Uncategorized
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What am I learning?
I think Chamas are accounts. People make deposits and withdrawals . They make all sorts of deposits. It’s cannot be about what they do. It’s what/who they are . It’s who they are together. There is a social spiritual identity to them. They do not relegate their well being to technology. They have a skepticism…
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And Another Chama visit III
Through the meal, the chairman discusses and clearly seems to know more about the member who disappeared. One member says ” chairman, you should have shared this information with us” Then breaks into Luhya as though to lovingly reprimand the chair for not coming clean earlier. I lose the rest of the conversation, but the lessons…
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And another Chama Visit II
My musings seem disjointed because as I explained, this is a group that transacts in their first language, which I do not understand at all, apart from when they code switch with a fair amount of Kiswahili and/or English 15:30 another member arrives. She takes time to explain why she is late. She is welcomed…
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And another Chama Part I
Chamas excite me. I can pick the most random conversation with anyone about a Chama, whether or not they have one. Increasingly, I am sure my some of my friends on whatsapp are enduring conversations with me, because I must throw in a twist on a Chama. They rouse me, yes, now that I am…
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Thinking through the communication in organisation
Many things happen all the time everywhere. But they cannot be referred to as organisation. From a communication perspective, there are certain pre-definitions of organisation that is constituted through communication. I argue that organisation can be used as both verb and noun: As noun, an Organisation is people (agency) proliferating acts of togetherness consistently and iteratively…
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Another Chama Visit
Just like Kupelia, Uhunye Friends and Neigbours (UFN) had demanded to know what benefit they would gain from my coming to their organisation- even if I was a student. Needless to say, they had me give them a ‘communication score’ and a mini lecture on what I thought of their communication skills as a group.…
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My First Chama Visit in Narok (part 2)
After soaking in all the beauty of the Narok outskirts, Jane introduced me to my first interviewee, Mary, The treasurer. Mary and Jane were colleagues at a local primary school where the Chama was born. I gathered then that the members of the Chama had been sent to a struggling school and were tasked with…
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My First Chama Visit in Narok (part 1)
Narok is beautiful. The journey there, for those who enjoy driving, and are patient drivers, is quite something. Endless winding roads overlooking deep valleys, chilling thoughts of rolling uncontrollably to the valleys, vast tracts of virgin land, trains of tourist vans heading to the Mara, and the odd monkey and gazelle that could care less…
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What is my study about?
My study is on how communication constitutes organisations. I did not want to study your everyday organisation, but instead pursued an expanded view of organisations, and so therefore I settled on Chamas (the formal plural of Chama is Vyama, but there is a way in which this sounds like a political party in Kiswahili…so for…
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Where’d I start with this PhD.?
I met a Tanzanian professor a while back. Prof. Kamuzora, and to be honest, when he gave us a talk about beginning your PhD journey, I attended in order to sign the register. But he planted a seed. And it grew. I am not one of those who foresaw the rounded hat from an early…
Matters Communication 