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Cultural Economics and Ramifications of Home-Brewing, Selling and Consumption of Alcohol among the Maragoli of Western Kenya

Anthropological Considerations of Production, Exchange, Vending and Tourism

ISBN: 978-1-78743-195-9, eISBN: 978-1-78743-194-2

Publication date: 10 August 2017

Abstract

Purpose

This longitudinally informed ethnographic work explores the interlocking socioeconomic and cultural roles, changes as well as effects of home-brewed alcoholic beverages in Maragoli society of western Kenya. The informants’ emic perspectives enhance existing knowledge and understanding of the commodification of home-brewing of alcohol. The participants’ experientially anchored views provide refined insights into how home-brews are influenced by the disintegration of livelihoods and women brewers’ need to earn money independently from men’s income to meet their financial needs. This work also documents alcohol-related maladaptive aspects including men’s misappropriation of funds, malnutrition, domestic violence, sexual promiscuity, rape, prostitution, and disposal of agricultural inputs and produce to obtain money to buy brews.

Methodology/approach

This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to enhance data quality, validity, reliability, and deep learning of the dynamics and ramifications of home-brewing of alcoholic products.

Findings

This study’s empirical results show Maragoli brewers’ ingenuity in their risk-aversive efforts to: (1) optimize positive benefits and (2) reduce the unintended maladaptive consequences of home-brews.

Practical implications

This work demonstrates that brewers are not passive victims of their productive resource constraints. They exercise ingenuity in producing and selling alcoholic beverages to earn a living even though this venture generates unintended harmful outcomes. This calls for interventions by governmental arms, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based support networks to empower brewers and their clientele to venture into alternative enterprises and consumption of less harmful refreshments. Safety-nets should also be in place to minimize vulnerability and social fragmentation attributable to home-brewed alcohol.

Keywords

Citation

Gwako, E.L.M. (2017), "Cultural Economics and Ramifications of Home-Brewing, Selling and Consumption of Alcohol among the Maragoli of Western Kenya", Anthropological Considerations of Production, Exchange, Vending and Tourism (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 37), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120170000037002

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited