Professor Ann Stewart will be going to Kenya to pursue research associated with her Leverhulme Fellowship: Caring for older women in Kenya’s plural legal system.

The study assesses the contribution of community-based ‘woman to woman’ marriage practices in Kenya to the provision of care, particularly for the elderly, when there is little social welfare available.

The everyday practices of caring for older people particularly women, traditionally woven into communal relations, are changing in the socio-economic and political circumstances of contemporary Kenya.

Are woman to woman marriages, historically understood as a means of tackling infertility, evolving into a way of recognising and ‘rewarding’ caring labour for those with assets? How are claims for recognition understood now in the ‘formal’ courts and within community dispute resolution practices?

Ann is lucky to have the support and assistance of three Warwick alumni in Kenya.

• Dr Agnes Meroka who undertook both her LLM and PhD in the Law School. Her research focused on gender and ethnicity in relation to land in Kenya. Ann was one of Agnes’ supervisors. Agnes is now a lecturer that the University of Nairobi Law Faculty.

• David Ngira Otieno who completed his LLM in IDLHR in 2013. David is now undertaking his PhD at the University of Nairobi Law Faculty on alternative dispute resolution.

• Martha Malika Maneno who completed her LLM in IDLHR in 2010. Martha presently holds a senior legal post within Kenyan government service.

The fourth member of the team (back in the UK) is Jenny Lander who is presently undertaking her doctorate at Warwick. Jenny also completed her LLM in IDLHR at Warwick in 2013.