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

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.

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