Communal Labor in Colonial Kenya : The Legitimization of Coercion, 1912–1930

This book advances research into the government-forced labor used widely in colonial Kenya from 1930 to 1963 after the passage of the International Labor Organization’s Forced Labour Convention.

This book describes the growth and development of communal forced labor in Kenya from 1912-1930. During the early period in Kenya''s colonial history the British administration employed various forms of forced labor to make Africans work on the building of infrastructure, like roads and bridges, and also for European settlers on their plantations. This type of forced labor was defined and justified as a continuation of traditional duties that Africans would normally owe to their chiefs. Under communal labor, the state in Kenya exploited African labor in ways that often contradicted its traditional mandate. Previous studies of forced labor in colonial Kenya have tended to describe communal labor as milder form of coercion. This book offers a fresh interpretation by exploring the negative impacts of communal labor and the various African reactions to this coercive labor regime.