I Am Socially out: Mobility and Place Examined through Discourses of Unexpected Journeys

Since 1992 the Kenyan nation has experienced violence after every election (except during the 2002 election). This has been attributed to divisive campaigns, the weak electoral system and the dwindling trust in the electoral process. Violence after elections has partly led to displacement of the populace as a result of forced migration of communities or sections of communities. Building on this background, we focus on narratives of the internally displaced communities with the aim of finding out how, with the use of language, ideas about the future and the past of these communities are drawn into discourse, assumed social positions affirmed and or contested. Particularly we argue that by drawing on their experiences before, during and after violence that rocked the country during the 2007/2008 election, the displaced persons enact ‘acts of positioning’ that reveal strategies with which they define their sense of being and identity, disruptions on their sense of being, social rejections, and ways of coming to terms with their new life. As data, this paper relies on 10 audio recordings of narratives from internally displaced persons from the Rift Valley region elicited using in-depth interviews, where violence was rampant. Data is analyzed at the level of content and discursive strategies identified. Preliminary findings reveal that with the use of reported speech, modality among other strategies, displaced persons position themselves with respect to claims, thereby demonstrating agency reproduced through a complex interaction of forces of action and reaction that characterize the volatile social and political post-election space in the Rift Valley region and in Kenya in general .