Kenya National Archives

AO. Joseph Murumbi.

AO: Mr. Joseph Murumbi (1911-1990) was a Kenyan politician who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya from 1964 to 1966, and its second Vice-President between May and...Read more

AO. Fire.

AO: This quote highlights the use of fire(s) (also mentioned in Fedha 1972) to destroy many of the colonial government's documents and the supposed rationale for why the...Read more

Fenton, Siobhan. 2017. “Why Do Archive Files on Britain’s Colonial Past Keep Going Missing?” The Guardian (blog). December 27, 2017

TM: This Guardian article describes the interesting predicament that is happening at Britain's archives especially in matters surrounding Britain's colonial past. This has interesting insights on the lives of the people it affects namely, the people who bore the brunt of Emperial Britain and the...Read more

National Archive as the store of the country's history

Chief Archivist of the Kenya National Archives, N.W. Fedha (1972) wrote :

The National Archives is really a store of all the history of this country. A country without history is like a tree without roots. But then how can a country hope to preserve its history...Read more

Carotenuto Matthew and Katherine Luongo. “Navigating the Kenya National Archives: Research and Its Role in Kenyan Society.” History in Africa 32 (ed 2005)

TM: Interesting peice that prepares the researcher of the wealth of resources at the Kenya National Archives. However, this archaival resources come at a price as the anthropologically romanticized struggle researchers face at the archives as they navigate the waters of the KNA is documented in...Read more

AO. Un-sexy and "un-innovative" maintenance work

AO: This quote to me highlights the importance of avoiding progress narratives because in the nearly 15 years since this article was written by two American graduate students, the Kenya National...Read more

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