Luo entrustment: foreign finance and the soil of the spirits in Kenya

Shipton, Parker MacDonald

article

Luo entrustment: foreign finance and the soil of the spirits in Kenya

Africa • 65 (2) • Published In 1995 • Pages: 165-196

By: Shipton, Parker MacDonald.

Abstract
This article examines the cultural dimensions of financial credit and debt among the Luo of Kenya. The article places these issues against a deeper and broader background of entrustments and obligations. Based on intensive field research, the article shows that Luo farmers already have a broad assortment of borrowings and lendings of their own, some far more meaningful to them than loans from banks, cooperatives, or marketing boards will ever be. Some of these practices are only partly economic in nature; some involve sacred trusts or important political contacts.

Credit

Borrowing and lending

Real property

External relations

Research and development

Cultural identity and pride

Labor supply and employment

Property in movables

Exchange transactions

Medium of exchange

Mutual aid

Cult of the dead