LEIDEN UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY & DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY
“Somali Girls Like
White”
Somali Women, Beauty, and Cosmetic Skin
Lightening in Eastleigh, Nairobi, Kenya
Alisa Jannink
s0835560
2009
SUPERVISOR: DR. JAN JANSEN
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
2
The Makings of a Cosmetic Anthropologist
4
1. “Eww, Black”
Introduction to the Research and Definitions
6
2. Somalis, Not Africans
Somalis Historical Self-Perception as Non-African
10
3. Whiteness in a Post-colonial, Transnational World
Theoretical Reflections on Whiteness, Beauty, Media, and Consumption
15
4. Skin Lightening Narratives
The Skin Lightening Industry and its Health Effects
25
5. “Little Mogadishu”
Eastleigh, Nairobi and the Somalis I Learned From
31
6. “Somali Girls Like White”
Following Eastleigh’s Somali Women and the Valorization of Light Skin
51
7. Light Skin is Social Power
Concluding Remarks
80
Glossary: Somali – English and Swahili – English Translations
84
References
86
1
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my fiancé, Waayeel, who encouraged me to pursue an academic career and
never stood in the way of me accomplishing my goals overseas. Heartfelt thanks to him who brought me
to Africa as the first and only woman to meet his family, arranged for me to live with them and be under
their responsibility during my stay in Nairobi. I would like to thank my host-family and soon to be in-laws
for their loving hospitality, care, and concern with and for my safety while in the neighborhood of
Eastleigh, Nairobi, Kenya. Without my beloved and his family I would have never gained access to the
Somali community in the successful ways that I accomplished. Gratitude to my host-mother who
accepted me into her family and home, for spoiling me with many fashion and beauty related gifts, for
allowing me to spend time at her retail shop, and for throwing great dance parties at her home. Lots of
love to my darling little girl Su who helped me learn to speak basic Somali, to Zain with her loving and
tender affection, and to Fatima for always bringing me chai (Somali spiced black tea) and bowls of fresh
fruit, and making sure that I was comfortable and that the household was running smoothly throughout
the day. As well, thanks to Mary and Sari for exposing me to the afternoon entertainment of Bollywood,
Somali-dubbed Latin American soap operas, and Somali music videos.
Sincere appreciation to all of my informants and new friends in Eastleigh, for without them this
research could not have been conducted to the depth that was achieved. My principal research assistant
during March in particular, Homeboy, aided me throughout my public experiences in Eastleigh, many of
which would have not been possible without him. He acted as a type of bodyguard, negotiated
transportation for me, bargained retail prices for me among Kenyans, and introduced me to Somali girls
who spoke English. I wish to thank Bi and her family for allowing me to spend time in her beauty salon
and home, and to her husband Mohamed who asked me to come with him and teach English to his
students whom were very enthusiastic and gave me insight into gender roles, beauty, and daily ways of
life for Somalis in Eastleigh. Thanks to Sua who allowed and wanted me to spend time with her in her
cosmetic shop, and to Sam who included me in many social functions. To the neighbor boys and Aabo
who cried when I left, thanks for making me feel special, as well as to Ahmed for all his translating
assistance and opinions on beauty. I am indebted to the Eastleigh community for making my stay a most
pleasurable, safe, and memorable experience. At the request of all my informants, I use pseudonyms in
order to protect their anonymity as many of them are illegal migrants in Kenya and I do not want to
jeopardize their safety.
2
I would like to thank my supervisor Jan Jansen for his encouragement and constructive advice
throughout the 2008/09 academic year. He agreed for me to go to Eastleigh prior to him realizing the
dangers and safety concerns in this area that is often in the news headlines as a violent center of illegal
arms trade but which I experienced as a safe place thanks to my host-family. Sincere thank you to Leiden
University and the outstanding teachers, who helped to guide, encourage, and challenge me to an
academic level that I would have not achieved without them. Appreciation to Heather Akou for the
academic resources, related to Somali women and their fashion, which she made available to me prior
to my departure. Thanks to Z. O. Owiti the Permanent Secretary of the Kenyan Ministry of Science and
Technology, and to the National Museums of Kenya for granting me research affiliation, as well as to the
Republic of Kenya who gave me clearance to conduct legal and proper research within the country.
Finally I would like to give a special thanks to my parents. To my mother Janette in Canada for
her love and continuous support, without her help throughout my academic career I would not have
been able to achieve this level of success. Thank you for always being there, encouraging me, teaching
me values, keeping me focused and determined, and raising me into the woman I am today. And to my
late Dutch father Peter for instilling the passion I have for cultures, travel, and adventure; I miss you and
wish you were here to see what I have accomplished.
3
The Beginnings of a Cosmetic Anthropologist in Eastleigh
My research on skin lightening and beauty among Somali women in Eastleigh may be timely.
Currently, Somalis are achieving great deals of success as migrants in Nairobi, challenging the discourse
that refugees are marginalized and at a disadvantage; in fact being refugees and having links to the
transnational Somali community worldwide has positioned the Somalis at an economic advantage over
much of the Kenyan population. Due to my background as a makeup artist and a model, I may have a
unique set of skills to conduct this research on the construction, consumption, and performance of
beauty, specifically among Somali women in Eastleigh, with a special attention for cosmetic skin
lightening.
For the past eight years I have worked as a leader in diverse fields of the beauty industry
including as a makeup artist, cosmetician and beauty advisor, as well as hair and fashion model; I have
been trained to sell, construct, and perform a feminine beauty ideal that is circulated through mass
media and other transnational networks around the globe. I was trained to know the smallest details of
cosmetic products, identify ways women could enhance their appearance through them, and sell an
image of beauty that could be created through the use of such products. I became knowledgeable in a
variety of cosmetics, not only makeup, but skin and hair care merchandise as well. Through visual
analysis alone, I am able to immediately determine which cosmetic products are used and how they are
worn to construct a specific image without being verbally told. Having detailed training in cosmetics has
been an invaluable source of information as a particular focus of this research which has resulted in me
producing a level of investigation that will not easily be duplicated. In sum, one might say that I have a
second nature to immediately recognize cosmetic use, advertising and marketing, and most importantly,
cultural perceptions and performances of beauty.
Combining my academic background in cultural anthropology with my professional background
in the beauty industry, I hope to make a challenging contribution to some debates that have been
featured in the past few decades in anthropology, and beyond – the ways in which cultures use
cosmetics to relay socially meaningful messages. In addition, I regard my chance to have lived with my
soon-to-be in-laws in Eastleigh as a unique opportunity to obtain a level of validity that is a prerequisite
and necessity for qualitative research which is fieldwork.
With a strong foundation in the Large Issues, Small Places program at Leiden University I aim to
demonstrate that any local practice is tied to global connections that link people to each other through a
distinct and diverse web of experiences. My focus on the local experiences of Somali women in Eastleigh
4
is at the same time an understanding that they are tied to greater economic, social, political, and
cultural frameworks which impact Somali’s daily lives.
Aware of the different means that cultural values are transmitted, I know that the
representation of a culture can never be all-encompassing and the position of the researcher, related to
gender, class, nationality, etc., must be taken into account for what types of information are obtained.
My academic preparation had the intention to teach me how to observe, plan, and successfully navigate
social situations in a culturally sensitive manner while interpreting social meanings and symbols.
Methodological considerations include interviews, participant observation, media and historical analysis,
and keeping detailed field notes as means of gathering ethnographic data.
I had extensive access to the Somali community in Eastleigh due to my personal relationship
with my Somali fiancé. He was born in Somalia and migrated to Canada when he was ten with distant
relatives. His father has remained in Somalia to this day, and his mother, brother, and other members of
his extended family migrated to the neighborhood of Eastleigh, in Nairobi, Kenya, over diverse periods
extending up to twelve years ago. My fiancé returned to see his family for the first time in 2002, fifteen
years after leaving Africa. Being in a relationship with him for five years, I was honored to be the first
woman he introduced to his family. I was nervous about whether or not they would think I was good
enough for their son. When Somalis in Eastleigh would strike up a conversation with me, often
commenting how nice I looked dressed like a Somali, I would often remark to their surprise that my
husband was Somali. I would say he was my husband even though we are not married because it is not
common in Somali culture to be in a relationship for a year or more without getting married; claiming he
was my husband instead of my boyfriend sounded more like a permanent and serious relationship. I
really felt that due to this connection it enabled me to meet more people and have them include and
accept me more than if I had just been a single foreigner with no personal connection to the community.
By synchronizing my academic foundation in cultural anthropology with my extensive
experience in the beauty industry, as well as with my personal relationships to Somalis, I strive to a high
level of research. This unique set of skills has allowed me to make an in-depth anthropological study on
cosmetic adornment.
5
CHAPTER ONE
“Eww, Black”:
Introduction to the Research and Definitions
Beauty is a form of social power and women, as well as men, use cosmetics to alter their
appearance in order to be regarded as socially desirable. Cosmetic use has been a feature of civilizations
for thousands of years and how people adorn themselves indicates a lot about their culture and sociohistorical position. Cosmetics are used to alter one’s appearance in order to communicate socially
meaningful messages. “Cosmetics were made to serve beauty, elaborate it, or promote it” (Oumeish
2001: 375) and the ways in which cosmetics are used reveals cultural standards of beauty (DeMello
2007: 82). Various forms of cosmetics have been used for millennia by individuals to appear more
youthful, healthy, and appealing to potential mates. From this standpoint, cosmetics are used to
emphasize a person’s beauty or sexual desirability as an adaptation and “to accentuate the overt signals
of sexuality and social identity” (Oumeish 2001: 378). A woman’s identity is constructed by the way she
adorns herself and is shaped by individual agency as well as dominant power structures; identity based
on gender, religion, and ethnicity, among other aspects, signals what we as well as what others are.
Through cosmetic use humans relay messages about what their social group values at a particular point
in time as identities are moulded out of various social, historical, and political processes.
The global skin lightening industry is ever-expanding as women buy into a beauty ideal that
attaches value to whiteness. In Nairobi, many young Somali women are using cosmetics to alter the
appearance of their natural skin color in order to look like they have lighter or fair skin. Why do Somali
women alter their appearance with cosmetics in order to appear lighter in skin tone? What does this say
about their values and the world they live in? The importance of skin color becomes apparent in the
ways Somali women live their daily lives, in their interactions with other people, and the social and
political circumstances in which they are positioned. It is the social and political contexts that make skin
color matter, contexts that make social distinctions based on one’s appearance. One’s skin color is a
relevant variable in people’s lives and consciousness worldwide and is linked to social benefit or
disadvantage. Why do Somali women feel it is necessary to lighten the appearance of their skin color? Is
it because they have experienced systematic discrimination against their blackness and use these
products to distance themselves from the negativity that blackness symbolizes in most global contexts?
6
Why are Somalis placing a value on having light skin over dark skin, spending money and risking health
to consume skin lightening cosmetic products? Are Somali women trying to transgress their black
identity in order to emphasize difference from having dark or black skin?
Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the neighbourhood of Eastleigh, in Nairob, Kenya,
I explore various reasons for why Somali women are using cosmetic skin lightening products and why
the community valorizes fair skin tones over darker ones. As common to the goals of Leiden University’s
MA program in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, I intend to follow how large issues
such as migration, globalization, modernity, and ethnic identity are tied to the local practices, social
organization, and attitudes of Somali women in Eastleigh, a place also called “Little Mogadishu”. I argue
that cosmetic skin lightening among Somali women in Nairobi is linked to beauty, social mobility, and
advantage, and that skin color plays a central role in shaping their life chances and experiences. I suggest
that color prejudice is present among Somalis in Eastleigh and lightening is a way for women to gain
social power. I also contend that the importance of skin shade is more important for women than for
men because men have more access to increase their social standing through education, economic, and
migrant prospects, which opportunities are largely limited to Somali women, and also consider how men
perpetuate the notion that fair skin is the ultimate feminine, beauty ideal. Skin lightening, although
practiced around the world, is made complex by Somali women in Nairobi. Female Africans in exile may
easily be regarded as an extremely marginalized group in the global configuration of power. It is possible
that Somali women in Eastleigh reject this premise and successfully use cosmetics to appear lighter in
skin tone as means to appropriate power and construct difference between themselves and the local
Kenyan population as a technique of exclusion.
The term “white” is an ambiguous concept that is used in this paper to describe people who
appear to be of Northern European descent, while “black” is used to refer to people that have genetic
phenotypic traits suggesting origins that stem from Africa. As well, I understand that the terms light and
dark are also value laden and do not actually describe the huge variety of skin tones that are found
throughout the world. The purpose for using the terms white, light, black, and dark is because these are
terms that are used throughout academic and social discourse. I believe the reasons why Somalis value
light skin tones over darker ones, or white over black, has to be understood in the context of what
Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1994: 146) calls the “worldwide hierarchy of races, religions, and cultures”. This
hierarchy situates white, Euro-Americans, as the most socially, economically, technologically, and
politically advantaged group over all other cultural groups. In his discussion of color politics in Haiti
(1994), Trouillot theorizes that although skin color is an important indicator structuring this hierarchy, it
7
is not the only factor that positions a person near the top or bottom. Physical characteristics such as hair
texture and color as well as facial features need to be considered. Jemima Pierre (2008) writing on the
extreme practice of skin-bleaching in urban Ghana argues that the practice needs to be understood
within global and local ideologies of race. Pierre (2008: 26) argues that “*r+acialization proceeds
according to local historical particularities, but these always occur in dialogue with global discourses and
practices that structure the lives of those so racialized”.
The initial experience that led me to realize the value placed on light skin tone over darker
complexions occurred in my first week of fieldwork in Eastleigh, a largely ethnic Somali neighbourhood.
It occurred as a member of my host-family returned from five days spent in Mombasa on the Kenyan
South Coast. Sitting in the private home of my host-family, my host-mother rubbed the person’s skin
and said “Eww, black, eww, black” referring to the darkening of their skin that occurred after an
increased time spent in the sun. This moment surprised me and provided me with an important
introduction, or clue, to the value that Somalis place on having a fair skin tone. With this in mind, many
experiences I observed further demonstrated that a lighter skin tone was considered desirable to the
Somali community I was in contact with in Eastleigh, while darker tones were devalued.
In order to understand why Somali women spend much time, energy, and emotion in lightening
the appearance of their skin tone, and why Somalis place a value on fair skin, it is important to depict
the socio-historic context which has helped shape this community preference. Somalis have a history of
colorism and slavery within their society which discriminated people, specifically the Bantu population,
who had darker skin tones and different physical features from ethnic Somalis, such as hair texture and
nose shape. As Somalis were subjugated to colonial rule they also experienced racism and social
evolutionary ideologies that reinforced that people with white skin were superior over darker skinned
peoples. Modernization theory also perpetuated beliefs that Africans were primitive and needed to
adapt to Euro-American ways of life in order to be successful. As the result of the Somali Civil War, many
Somalis came to live in Nairobi, a city which also places a higher value on light skin over dark due to its
colonial and migrant history. Most Somalis in Nairobi came to reside in Eastleigh, a place where they
have largely recreated their homeland. Eastleigh is also regarded as the Fashion District of East Africa
because beauty and fashion goods come from all over the world and are sold there. In a globally
interconnected world that is highly controlled and influenced by multinational corporations and media,
women are exposed to reinforced messages about specific images of feminine beauty and how
consuming certain products can help women attain this standardized ideal. By researching Somali
women’s cosmetic use and the factors that are linked to it I aim to demonstrate how a fair skinned
8
beauty ideal is constructed by Somali women’s personal agency as well as by those in dominant
positions of power.
DEFINITIONS
In order to research this topic it was important to define the terminologies as follows in the
manner that they would be discussed in this thesis:
Skin lightening/whitening – temporary or permanent cosmetic practices used to lighten or fade
the pigment of one’s skin
Cosmetic – natural or synthetic substances that humans use to either temporarily or
permanently enhance their cultural conceptions of physical attractiveness, beauty or
desirability
White – a term used to define people with phenotypic traits that suggest a historical NorthWestern European origin
Black – a term used to define people with phenotypic traits that suggest a historical sub-Saharan
African origin including peoples of the Horn of Africa
Body adornment – temporary alteration of one’s physical appearance through the use of
material culture such as cosmetics, clothing, and accessories
Beauty – physical and psychological characteristics that people regard as highly attractive and
appealing to the senses
Globalization – late twentieth and twenty-first century flow of commodity products, global
media, and diasporas from diverse locations that move dynamically around the world
Feminine – physical and social characteristics predominantly ascribed to the female sex
Identity – the perceptions or self-image of oneself and of others as a member of a particular
cultural group based on gender, ethnicity, religion, class, generation, etc.
9
CHAPTER TWO
Somalis, Not Africans:
Somalis Historical Self-Perception as Non-African
It is necessary to investigate the historical background of Somali society in order to demonstrate
that a hierarchy based on skin tone and other physical features is not a new phenomenon in Somali
culture; in fact it began hundreds of years ago. In this chapter I strive to show that Somalis historical
conceptions of skin color connect to present day valorizations of fair skin complexions. Beginning in the
pre-colonial era I intend to examine ancient Somali origins and the establishment of slavery which
brought Bantu populations from Kenya, Tanzania, and other southern regions, north to Somalia to work
as slaves predominantly for Arab traders. The distinction made between slaves and non-slaves based on
ethnicity, as well as other factors such as religion, was further emphasized with the arrival of European
colonialists. The difference in ethnic features between sub-Saharan Africans, who were not from the
Horn of Africa, and Somalis was heightened by European notions of a race. The fact that many Somalis
possessed different physical features compared to other southern African groups such as having loosercurled hair, smaller lips, and narrow noses, resulted in the Europeans positioning the Somalis above
other African groups. I aim to demonstrate how this perpetuated the Somalis’ belief that they were of a
higher social rank than African Bantu groups in particular, a view which has continued throughout the
post-colonial era.
PRE-COLONIAL ERA
Linguistic, cultural, and historical evidence suggests that Somalis earliest known homeland was
in the highlands of present day Ethiopia (Somali Press 2009), a claim also understood as the Somali
language is a branch of the Cushitic language family present in East Africa. Most evidence of Somali
history found in academic literature was not produced by Somalis since they did not have a written
language until 1972. The information about Somalia’s past from Somalis themselves was largely
transmitted through oral traditions passed from generation to generation. Travellers, traders, and later
colonialists documented and recorded information about Somalia and its people, in writing and
photography. In order to study the origins of Somali folk dress, Heather Akou (2006) relied heavily on
ethnographic photo collections from Prince Roland Bonaparte to gather information about Somali
10
history. Although outside of the scope of this research, Akou’s (2006) methods could be considered
extremely useful in documenting the physical features of Somali females that may reveal potential clues
to social positions and their potential link with physical appearance. As well studying ancient artefacts
from North African and Middle Eastern regions may also produce clues. It is often argued that Somalia
was the land of Punt; the land of Punt was described in ancient texts such as the Bible, as well as in
Egyptian hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptians recorded trade with the land of Punt where goods like incense
and myrrh came from, suggesting it was an important region of early civilization. Abdullahi (2001: 14)
reveals that murals in ancient Egyptian monuments depict Egyptian trade and contact with Somalis in
the fifteenth century BC and that the Somalis were portrayed with the same physical characteristics as
the Egyptians such as skin color and hair styles. The ancient peoples that inhabited modern day Somalia
were in contact with a wide range of traders from Greece, Arabia, and from as far away as China and
India; it can easily be assumed that children were born to unions between these traders and Somalis,
thus contributing to Somali’s genetic and ethnic makeup. Genetic evidence indicates that Somalis are
closely related to Oromos, who mostly inhabit regions of Ethiopia, and that fifteen percent of Somalis’
genes stem from Eurasia while only five percent are from sub-Saharan Africa (Sanchez et al. 2005: 865).
Hierarchies based on skin color and other physical features, such as hair and the broadness of
one’s nose, were present in Somalia long before European colonialists arrived on Somalia’s shores.
Glenn (2008: 4) reports that “*s+ome historians and anthropologists have argued that precolonial African
conceptions of female beauty favoured women with light brown, yellow, or reddish tints”; a preference
that could have been easily exploited by lighter skinned Somali groups and then by Arab and later
European colonialists, placing further value on people with lighter skin tones. Besteman (1999: 117)
claims that in the pre-colonial era, North Africans and Arabs used the term white to characterize
themselves while black was used to refer to slaves on the basis that the slaves came from Africa south of
the Savannah on their way to Arab and Muslim nations including regions in North Africa. The Somali
people have had a long history with traders from the Arab world since the end of the first millennium
due to their strategic location in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. Arab traders intermarried and had
children with women of the local population and many Somalis verbally claim to identify with Arabs due
to this ancestry more so than with Southerly Africans. Somalis shared a link to the Middle East through
their early conversion to Islam in the tenth century BC and the capital city of Somalia, Mogadishu, was
also the first Arab settlement on the East African Coast. The Sultan of Oman instituted himself as the
Sultan of Zanzibar in 1804 and established large-scale trade networks all along East African’s coast
11
during the early 1800’s. The Sultanate imported slaves to Somalia from Bantu groups in Kenya and
Tanzania because Somalis were Muslims and thus they could not be enslaved.
Somali society has been stratified with darker skinned Bantu Somalis holding an inferior social
rank compared to other Somalis groups, even though they share the same religion and language. Somali
society is made up of a myriad of clan affiliated groups that have diverse identities and that occupy
numerous social positions with some clans regarded as superior over others. As Bantu Somalis are
ethnically different from the majority of Somalis, they were, and continue to be, seen as different or not
as true Somalis. They describe themselves as different because of physical characteristics that identify
them as Bantu such as “having dark skin, hard hair, and a broad nose” as one Bantu Somali man told me.
They are also referred to as jareer which means hard in the Somali language and is often used in
conjunction with the word for hair, tin; tin jareer means hard hair and is often used negatively. Somalis
of all backgrounds make a distinction between Bantu Somalis who are identified more as “African” and
descendents of slaves, while many non-Bantu Somalis identify as descendents of slave owners.
Specifically, Bantus with their “other” features from ethnic Somalis were delegated to lower and inferior
social ranks throughout the society, as well as maltreated and ostracized. Yet Maines and Kusow (2001:
135-136) suggest that skin color among Somalis did not structure social and cultural lines, or their social
identities, and that race relations were not apparent in Somalia during the period just prior to European
colonization. This could suggest that social lines were drawn more along clan lines and not necessarily by
the shade of a Somali’s skin color, or that Bantus, with their darker skin and different physical features,
were not included as part of the Somali social structure. However the evidence that I provide in this
thesis may suggest that Maines and Kusow’s (2001) claim that skin color did not structure social
positions could be challenged both in relation to the past and the present.
COLONIALISM
Somalia was divided by the British (who occupied Northern Somalia) and Italian (who occupied
the Southern regions) colonial powers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. France also
colonized a small Somali area which is now known as Djibouti. With the occupation of Somalia by
European nations, power was associated with the fair skin of the colonialists; “colorism is just one of the
negative inheritances of European colonialism” (Glenn 2008: 4) and refers to the discrimination of
people with darker skin tones or privileging those with lighter complexions above the people who have
darker skin color. In racist colonial ideologies, certain features such as dark skin and tightly coiled hair
were represented as barbaric and ugly, while other features like fair skin and blonde hair were
12
associated with modernity and beauty (Hunter 1998: 519). Colonialism and slavery served to convey the
values of the Europeans placing the most privilege and advantage with those who had white or light skin
(Hunter 2002: 177) and “throughout the period of European nation-building, exploration, and
colonization, female beauty types provided a symbolic shorthand with which to articulate perceived
social and cultural characteristics of different ‘races’ and nations” (Peiss 2002: 102). The Europeans
blatant racism against the local populations allowed the colonialists an easier time of exploiting people,
labor, and land. “The ideology of white supremacy that European colonialists brought included the
association of Blackness with primitiveness, lack of civilization, unrestrained sexuality, pollution, and
dirt” (Glenn 2008: 4). The subjugated peoples were exposed to a constantly reinforced message which
repeatedly told them how inferior they were to those of European blood.
Somalis sense of superiority over the ethnic Bantus prior to European colonization could have
been a factor that made the Europeans consider the Somalis as slightly less inferior compared to other
African groups. Declich (1995: 192) claims that “under British colonial rule Somalis preferred an identity
associated with the higher status ascribed to “Asians” over that associated with “Africans””, and
although Asians were also exposed to racist ideologies, their lighter skin tones and non-African origin
placed them above Africans in the European racial hierarchy which may have been a reason for Somalis’
desire to be identified in this way. Yet it wasn’t just the Somalis who did not want themselves to be
referred to as Africans; “*a+rchived colonial documents reveal the unwillingness of British administrators
to define Somalis as categorically equivalent to other Africans, whom they perceived through a racist
lens as distinctly inferior” (Besteman 1999: 119). Europeans also privileged those Somalis with lighter
skin and aquiline features, whether it was through administrative powers or through marriage to Italian
men. Epstein (2001: 58) claims that even Italian men owned young females as slaves, which also
disputes the belief that Muslims could not be enslaved. Reviewing the memoirs of an Italian official,
Epstein (2001: 58) notes that the official wrote of how he was smitten by a beautiful, ‘chocolatecovered’, Somali girl whose clan he praised for their quasi-European appearance and how the women
made good concubines.
Lower status, darker skinned people, specifically Bantus, were still subjected to inequality after
slavery was abolished; “during Fascist Italian rule, people with lower status, especially if they had been
slaves among their ancestors, were the first to be conscripted into forced labour” (Declich 1995: 195).
This forced labour allowed the Italian colonialists to create big plantations and develop large-scale
agriculture in the country; it was another form of slavery after slavery was abolished. The colonialists
also subjugated the Bantus who inhabited the Gosha Valley placing them in the European determined,
13
racially inferior category of African, heightening the inequality between Bantus and other Somali social
groups. Although most, if not all, Somali groups have a long history of discriminating the Bantu
populations, colonialism placed a further negative emphasis on the Bantus, their darker skin tones, and
other physical features like hair. In post-colonial Somalia, the dictator Siad Barre was elected leader. His
political ideologies based on scientific socialism renounced clanship affiliation, a major defining feature
of Somali culture. However, although state ideology promoted equality, Barre enlisted mainly Bantus as
soldiers because they were easily identifiable due to their “other” physical appearance from ethnic
Somali groups and this further created social difference between Bantus and other Somali populations
(Besteman 1999: 129).
14
CHAPTER THREE
Whiteness in a Post-colonial, Transnational World:
Theoretical Reflections on Whiteness, Beauty, Media, and
Consumption
In this chapter I aspire to examine how living in a post-colonial world is dominated by
transnational networks that link ideas, people, images, economies, commodities, and practices around
the globe. I seek to explore the theory of modernization that asserts Euro-American superiority above all
other cultures, a belief that has maintained global power in the control of white people. I aim to
demonstrate how whiteness is a social construction, works as a tool of exclusion, and when gendered
female is upheld as the ultimate standard of beauty that women around the world are measured
against. I suggest that feminine gender rests on notions of beauty as a woman is often only considered
valuable if she is beautiful. I propose that women’s cosmetic use works to heighten their social
desirability according to their culture’s conceptions of beauty which due to twenty-first century
globalization is increasingly homogenized. I aim to identify twenty-first century globalization as the
dynamic flow of people, goods, and communication that intertwines economic, technological, political,
and social activities in specific patterns that continues to consolidate power with affluent, white EuroAmericans. I propose that these global connections impact people’s self image and produce deep social
inequalities largely based on skin color. In addition, I aim to reveal how global mass media uses a
Eurocentric beauty ideal that is largely unattainable, especially for women who are excluded from the
category of white, in order to create a consumptive desire throughout the world specifically for beauty
and fashion products.
MODERNIZATION
Modernization theory played a huge role in post-colonial Africa as it suggested that all countries
in the world would go through stages of development until they ended up like Northern Europe and
North America. Modernization theory claims that progress in all cultural areas is linear and
unidirectional, and in order to be modern a country needs to end up in a state that reflects EuroAmerican ways of life. This ideology insinuates that non-Western Euro-American countries, especially
nations in Africa, are “primitive” and “traditional”. The modernization project asserted that traditional
societies needed to adopt Euro-American ways of life, socially, economically, technologically, and
15
politically, in order to become modern and thus a successful country with a high standard of living.
However, the handful of affluent Euro-American countries could not achieve their current standards of
living without having the majority of the world’s people oppressed and maintained in a subjugated
position. Modernization theory has its foundation in social evolutionary ideologies that were
transmitted worldwide in the days of European colonialism. In the post-colonial era, modernization
theory ultimately transformed and structured the lines of late twentieth century globalization. “Given
first European and now U.S. domination in globalization, no nation can industrialize, modernize and
globalize without reference to Eurocentric visions of what counts as modernity” (Adrien 2003: 13). The
development of twenty-first century globalization which, in particular, moves to integrate economies
worldwide, has allowed Euro-American countries to remain in an advantaged position while the rest of
the world’s countries predominantly remain in a largely powerless situation and in an increased level of
poverty, especially in Africa.
WHITENESS
Western culture, and its link to whiteness, is elevated to the highest standing in global discourse
while the non-West, and its association with people of color, is subordinated. Pierre (2008: 12) regards
“‘global white supremacy’ to be a system that emerged with the European colonial project and has led
to today’s racially inflected social, economic, and political culture ‘structured to advantage whites’”.
Examining British literature from the period of 1830-1914, Brantlinger (1988) demonstrates that
imperialist ideology (which coincided with the perception of the decline of power held by the British
aristocracy and bourgeoisie class that led to the aggressive expansion of British rule around the world)
was implicated in these texts perpetuating the ideology of British superiority over the “savages”.
Exploring such literature Brantlinger (1988) shows that when British authors wrote of their adventures
in Africa they positioned themselves as heroes against a backdrop of evil savages in a dark land where
there were no other beings around that were equal to that of the British man; obviously for readers this
description of Africa solidified their belief that whites were superior beings over black ones. In addition,
examining European art from the period of early European expansion, and prior to it, reveals values
placed on skin color; very white skin was regularly portrayed as a feature of women while men were
often painted a shade darker, but more importantly, in many religious paintings white skin toned people
were depicted as angelic and ascending to heaven in a light blue sky while people with darker
complexions were shown as scary and on their way to a dark hell. Such portrayals with heavy moral
underpinnings linked white skin to purity, goodness, and victory and dark skin to deviance. These values
16
have largely sustained; having a white identity symbolizes privilege (not to imply that all white people
are privileged and vice versa) while being identified as black or brown symbolizes disadvantage in global
and local social, political, economic, and technological realms. Mire (2005) states that “*t+he
“appearance of whiteness” is the key to accessing the exclusive cultural and economic privilege
whiteness accrues”. This indicates that “one’s proximity to whiteness often determines life chances in
any given society” (Pierre 2008: 22). Throughout the world whiteness has come to signify high social
class, wealth, and power, yet Leong (2006: 178) suggests that it “is becoming a complex notion that
transcends class and wealth and now extends into the realm of race and ethnic identities”. Winders et
al. (2005: 79) state that the category of whiteness is a social invention, positioned in the articulation of
power, and filled with meanings produced in relation to many aspects of identity such as gender, class,
and sexuality, which can be challenged just like any social sign.
Whiteness entails a social boundary that non-whites are prevented to cross; it works to exclude
people not just on the basis of skin color but on characteristics such as hair texture and color, eye shape
and color, as well as nose and lip shape. As a social construction its meanings can change over time.
Various ethnic groups that today can claim to be white may have been excluded from this category in
the past. For example, during mass European migration to the United States, Italians, Jews, and the Irish
were excluded from the category of white in which predominantly English, Dutch, French and other
Northern Europeans were able to claim. Recent structures of migration to affluent Euro-American
countries largely exclude Africans and this also plays a role in the construction of whiteness as power.
Whites are seen as citizens in these countries while non-whites are automatically defined as foreign
based solely on their appearance no matter how many generations a black person’s family has resided
there. “*T+he various distinct and localized articulations of race are all interconnected by the integument
of global white supremacy” (Pierre 2008: 12) and Somalis, like all people, “continue to be racialized
within a global political socio-economic hierarchy” (Pierre 2008: 11) that places the most advantage with
people identified as white. Yet in 2009, whiteness as power is being challenged, not necessarily in terms
of socio-economic power, but in cultural capital. One only has to look at the rise of multiculturalism in
the media, the global popularity of hip hop, which is associated with blackness, and the urban, young
white male’s tendency to move away from, or embarrassment of, a white identity associated with the
domination of all other peoples. In today’s Western popular culture being white, especially when
gendered male, is largely seen as “un-cool”. However this is not really challenging white dominance as
global power is still greatly held in the white man’s hands, and for people at the lower ends of Trouillot’s
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(1994) racial hierarchy, whiteness is still valorized as it continues to signify high socio-economic status
and especially feminine beauty.
Cosmetic whiteners, colored contacts, hair dye, and self-tanners, and most importantly, various
plastic surgeries, allow people to transgress their natural born appearance to try and take on a new
identity or self-image. One only has to look to Japan and China to see how other physical features
besides skin color are being altered in order to attain an image of whiteness; in these countries plastic
surgery is a popular means to try and transgress ethnic identity by permanently changing the shape of
the eye making it appear larger and rounder. However, the category of whiteness is still barred to these
people. In addition, the sudden and recent passing of superstar Michael Jackson also brings up race as
one of many issues; Michael transgressed his appearance going from a black male in the beginnings of
his career to an effeminate white male at the time of his death. Whether or not he was bleaching his
skin because of vitiligo (a skin pigmentation disorder) is often speculated, but reports that just prior to
his death his skin was paper thin and ghostly white, a common result of years of skin bleaching, suggest
that in fact he was. Michael’s possible attempts to transgress his blackness, not only through lightening
but also through extensive plastic surgeries, specifically on his nose, may suggest not only obvious
psychological issues but that it was a means to reach larger, global audiences than if he had remained
looking like a black man. At the same time, he may not have been visually seen as black but also could
not be regarded as white; he may have tried to change his appearance to look white but the social
category of whiteness still excluded him.
In global discourse, whiteness is often gendered as female and spatialized as urban. When
gendered female, whiteness comes to be valued in terms of aesthetics among other things, and it is
linked to discourses of cleanliness, purity, morality, and beauty. Rural women are often portrayed as
traditional with darker skin, while urban women are represented as modern with lighter skin color. “In
the case of lightness and darkness, Western culture attributes a set of meanings to each of these traits,
and these meanings are gendered in the sense that the meanings of lightness correspond to various
dimensions of stereotypically feminine gender roles” (Baumann 2008: 3). White women are often
represented as pure and virginal, women of the home, while black women are portrayed as sexually
available and as laborers; these notions reflect the differences in the historical (and current) patterns of
work and poverty experienced by women based on their skin color. Pierre (2008: 20) suggests that “the
desire for, and the various attempts to attain, real whiteness is virtually universal. Within the context of
global white supremacy, whiteness/lightness – in terms of its symbolism, corporeal representation, and
material benefits – is desired by most, including those who already have membership within racial
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whiteness”. Even though white women are currently spending huge amounts of money and risking their
health to have tanned, brown skin, which is regarded as more attractive than pale skin, they are not
trying to obtain a non-white self. Obtaining an identity of whiteness is not the same as obtaining a black
one; based solely on physical appearance, the children born to a white and black couple cannot claim a
white identity. The category of whiteness is largely an un-crossable social boundary that cannot be
achieved through one generation of miscegenation as attested by the “one drop rule” (one drop of black
blood makes you black, not white) characteristic of the United States.
GLOBALIZING BEAUTY
Beauty is regarded as something that is unique and rare, not something that is granted to all
humans. What is considered beautiful is culturally specific; however, certain features have been
identified as universal beauty ideals. Characteristics of universal beauty ideals include shiny hair, clear
skin, bright eyes, and facial symmetry, and are all signs of reproductive success as theorized from a
biological, evolutionary perspective. To be regarded as beautiful is a major preoccupation of females in
particular and women for thousands of years have been altering their appearance in order to be
considered desirable. Those that were deemed unattractive had less access to acquire potential mates
and from an evolutionary perspective this is understood to be a sign that limits their reproductive
success. Yet currently, with the influx of cosmetic surgery, anyone with the right amount of money can
achieve a state of beauty which, in today’s world, is a representation largely created and dictated by the
media. It can easily be suggested that when people gain access to increased economic mobility they
have the means to consume plastic surgery to remake them in the artificial image that is often regarded
as beauty in this day and age. Cosmetic surgery is now the norm in Euro-American countries, a practice
which will ultimately expand to far corners of the world as long as they have the economic means. Even
so, Euro-Americans frequently flock to less affluent countries, such as Mexico and Brazil, for cheaper
cosmetic surgeries, such as breast implants and liposuction, because they cannot afford to pay the more
expensive surgeons in their home countries. Altering their appearance in an extreme form is still used as
an adaptation to acquire social desirability, and thus, social power.
From a feminist perspective, beauty is understood as a form of oppression against women that
maintains patriarchy and power in the hands of men. Women are thus not considered valuable unless
they are beautiful and in order to gain power, they have to be beautiful in order to catch the attention
and desire of men, who are the ones who hold power. If most women can only gain power to men
through beautifying themselves, then women also need to compete with other women to secure
19
attention from men in order to gain access to higher social status. Women must conform to a specific
beauty ideal to be culturally acceptable and if one has features which the dominant discourse labels as
ugly, then society tells them that they must make changes to their appearance in order to become or be
considered attractive. Again, in 2009, this can be understood with the ever-growing cosmetic industries
which capitalize on people’s feelings of inadequacy and propose to transform them in order to meet the
standards of what is considered beautiful. Those who occupy a dominant position of power, such as
wealthy white men, have the authority to dictate what features are deemed beautiful. What is currently
regarded as beautiful is now based on simulated images that place value on women whose likeness has
been artificially reconstructed. Through white men’s position in the global racial hierarchy they need to
maintain the notion that white is best. “Since beauty is highly racialized...beauty operates as a tool of
white supremacy and a tool of patriarchy by elevating men and whites in importance and status”
(Hunter 2002: 178). Women that are excluded from the social category of white are made to feel that
they are lacking and will never be able to be considered beautiful. “Hierarchies of skin color that
systematically privilege lightness persist in their effects on women of color” (Hunter 2002: 175).Thus,
Somali women occupy a double form of oppression by having dark skin and by being female in a world
largely controlled by white men.
Women, in particular, use cosmetics to emphasize their beauty in order to secure higher social
value over others within their community. “Physical attractiveness by itself influences success, power,
happiness, and satisfaction in life” (Oumeish 2001: 375) and a woman’s attractiveness depends more on
visual, quantifiable physical characteristics rather than aspects like status or money which are more
important for a man’s social attractiveness. Hunter (2002: 177) suggests “that light skin works as a form
of social capital for women... [as it] is interpreted as beauty, and beauty operates as social capital for
women”. Skin tone, physical facial characteristics, and hair texture impact the lives of women and
largely determine if they are considered beautiful, desirable, or even feminine. In most places, women
are largely prevented from accessing power through other means not related to their sexuality, such as
education and employment, especially when they are positioned in a highly patriarchal society that
largely prevents women from entering the political and economic realms such as within Somali society.
Due to the subordination of females within Somali society, marriage becomes one way for a woman to
achieve higher social status, increased wealth, power, and even opportunities to gain new forms of
citizenship (such as getting an American passport). Hall (1995: 176) suggests that because only light skin
is regarded as beautiful those with darker skin tones are disadvantaged in terms of marriage and wealth.
Having darker skin can result in not acquiring a higher status marriage partner, although not in all cases,
20
and may limit the chances to transgress social class. “The marriage market, the conceptual space where
people negotiate power, emotions, social norms, and status, is yet another important space where skin
color may act as a stratifier” (Hunter 1998: 522) specifically within African and black communities.
The cosmetic practices that women engage in reflect their cultural constructions of beauty as
well as gender. Since beauty and gender roles are linked, it is important to investigate expectations of
Somali women and what this means for the construction of not only Somali women’s identity, but for
the entire community’s identity. The migration of Somalis has led to new constructions or expectations
of female gender roles; women’s roles and practices act as symbols of group identity, especially in the
context when a society is uprooted due to conflict (Abdi 2007: 185). Since the Somali Civil War, feminine
gender roles have become increasingly restrictive. Prior to the war, women were not as constrained in
their choices of clothing as they are now today. Abdi (2007: 203) states that “*t+he previous dress
guuntiino, has already been rendered deviant, at least when worn outside the home” as it is too
revealing for the conservative Islamic values that organize Somali society in Eastleigh (the guuntiino or
guntina is worn by wrapping two large squares of cloth around the torso and upper body, tied over one
shoulder). In addition, the shareer, a conservative veil that covers the entire face except for the eyes,
was a constant feature of Somali women’s public attire in Eastleigh, which was not part of their styles of
dress before the war. Abdi (2007: 192) regards that the increase in violence experienced by Somali
women as a result of war and displacement has resulted in the adoption of conservative dress which
makes women appear more pious and less likely to attract attention. Somali women’s bodies and
sexuality are often regarded as immoral features that need to be under strict control. Almost all Somali
women undergo Pharaonic circumcision (the excision of the clitoris, labia major, and labia minor, and
the stitching shut of the vulva with only a small hole left for urination and menstrual flow) which is seen
as a state of cleanliness, beauty, and superiority, yet represses their sexuality and causes extreme pain.
Women are often regarded as the cultural keepers and are responsible for teaching their children about
their cultural identity in order to maintain it. Feminine gender roles in Somali society largely restrict
women to the household and Abdullahi (2001: 122) states that Somali women are taught to “occupy
themselves more with their personal beauty” rather than preoccupy themselves with work or education.
Although many women in Nairobi’s Somali society held jobs and some were highly educated, it is
predominantly men in Somali society who hold power as most women are delegated to the realm of the
household. Abdi (2007: 203) argues that there are rising conservative views about the education of girls
and women as a result of the economic insecurity they experienced as refugees. Examining Somali
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feminine gender roles as they occur in Easteigh may reveal why light or white skin is valorized and
regarded as a symbol of beauty and darker tones are not.
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GLOBALIZATION
Twenty-first century globalization, which I characterize as the dynamic movement of people,
goods, and communication around the world, has greatly impacted people’s sense of identity in even
the most remote regions of the globe. “Globalization is a set of processes, human processes – constantly
being made, unmade, and remade by human actors” (Adrien 2003: 12). Diasporas, conspicuous
consumption, and mass media are defining attributes of today’s current expression of globalization as is
the interconnection of political, economic, social, scientific and technological activities that link distant
aspects with local forms. Through developments in transportation and communications, commodities,
as well as people, money, and images are circulated throughout the world at a rapid pace previously
unseen at any time in history. Yet large parts of the globe, predominantly in the Southern hemisphere,
are bypassed and are left out of experiencing the benefits of globalization such as increased wealth,
health, and education, while the affluent West, mainly Northern Europe and America, maintains the
dominant hold on power. Globalization has implications for how groups maintain their distinctive
identities when people are exposed to cultural ideas from around the world (Kidd 2002) and this impacts
how they self-identify. Identities become fragmented and disconnected due to global flows of people
and information which has produced deep social inequalities, and in the global scheme of things skin
color becomes one of the defining features of such inequality. Skin color carries socially meaningful
messages of identity and people make skin color important in the spaces in which they live. The
importance of skin color and other physical traits such as hair texture, eye shape, and bone structure
largely depends on the position one occupies through social and political circumstances.
MEDIA AND CONSUMPTION
Twenty-first century globalization has greatly impacted the choices people make as the majority
of consumer products and global pop culture is produced by a handful of the world’s most powerful
individuals. By the 2000’s, multinational corporations have largely merged together to create what
Trouillot (2001: 129) identifies as the rise of global “oligopolies: a few firms *that+ now control the world
market for most major commodities”. Examining the goods that are available for sale on the world
market as well as in local markets reveals dominant power structures as well as personal agency.
Consumption practices also reveal a community’s values, even though these values may be largely the
22
values of those in power. Peiss (2002: 101) argues that the success of developing countries in the global
economy is also based on the promotion and consumption of American beauty products. American
beauty products ultimately promote American values, which may be in conflict with local values.
Regarding this notion, American values related to beauty also come to be performed in local contexts
which further perpetuate the value placed on women with fair skin color. Oligopolies dictate what goods
are available for sale and use media to create a consumptive desire among people around the world;
Trouillot (2001: 129) argues that “oligopolies in media and entertainment help to project the same
image of the good life all over the world”. To create such a desire in order to sell products the media
creates specific images of what they define as ideal and beautiful women; thus media works hand in
hand with business. “Man has been making idealized imagery that a woman could never live up to”
(Oumeish 2001: 381) and as a result women around the world have been consuming products that claim
to be able to help them reach a state of beauty, which can never be attained no matter how much time,
effort, and money is spent on transforming their appearance. The standard of beauty has become so
unattainable that it must be computer generated or altered through means such as photoshop,
airbrushing, lighting, and photography techniques; the portrayal of women is completely artificial. In
addition, global mass media is also targeting younger and younger audiences increasing the market of
women who desire to conspicuously consume cosmetic products to help them reach the narrow image
of beauty that the media and corporations define.
As people today have become more and more interconnected over larger areas of space,
cultural practices and beliefs of beauty, among other things, are diffused around the globe faster than
any other point in human history. Global media, controlled by a handful of powerful individuals in
affluent countries, portrays a predominant, homogenized standard of Eurocentric feminine beauty that
the masses worldwide are subjected to. Although “*c]ulture will continue to play a vital role in shaping
and influencing human beauty” (Oumeish 2001: 375), our diverse cultural concepts of what we define as
beautiful are becoming more homogenized through twenty-first century globalization. Mass media
exported around the world has broadened the influence of the Eurocentric beauty ideal across all
geographies and social classes. Standards of beauty represented in global media reinforce the notion
that all women, especially women of color, are not good enough. “Because advertising relies on images
that embody ideals, it provides an excellent opportunity to observe the ideal complexion in its gendered
and racialized variants” (Baumann 2008: 6). When black women are portrayed in advertisements for
mass audiences they are predominantly represented with fair skin, straight hair, and light eyes. This
representation is decided by the media which places the ultimate value on fair skin and represents it as
23
an object of desire (Shankar and Subish 2007: 102). Recently light skinned African-American female
entertainers, such as Beyoncé and Rihanna, who are almost always stylized in a Eurocentric image, have
been used as endorsers to sell all sorts of beauty and fashion related products (in addition to their
music) to women around the world. Their image is created in a specific and intentional way by
oligopolies in order to expand the brands’ target audience resulting in further increased capital to a
selected handful of conglomerate companies.
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CHAPTER FOUR
Skin Lightening Narratives
The Skin Lightening Industry and its Health Effects
In this chapter I seek to explore practices of skin lightening as an ancient tradition that has
evolved into a cosmetic and beauty industry phenomenon that is practiced across social, ethnic, and
gendered lines around the globe. I intend to show that the current skin lightening cosmetic industry uses
calculated advertising to play on cultural conceptions of race and ethnic identity, which results in the
devaluation of non-white identities. In addition, I aim to investigate the impact of skin lightening
cosmetic practices on people’s health and illustrate the most extreme practices. I aspire to reveal that
although the health risks are so great that governments around the world have banned these toxic
products, their illegal trade is booming which puts customers at an even greater risk as they attempt to
lighten their skin by any means possible.
COSMETIC LIGHTENING PRACTICES
A considerable amount of research exists in the social and dermatological sciences, as well as in
the field of advertising and marketing, on the practices of cosmetic lightening and their link to beauty.
Cosmetically lightening one’s skin color is by no means limited to Somalis and is a practice that has been
recorded around the world for hundreds or thousands of years. Oumeish’s (2001: 380) work on
cosmetics, beauty, and skin lightening, claims that Ancient Greeks used to use white lead carbonate to
lighten the appearance of their skin tone, while later in history French women used wheat powder, and
Victorian women in England used lead and arsenic for making their skin appear bone white. Having very
pale skin was associated with aristocracy as these women were not exposed to sunlight and labor in the
fields. This notion linking pale, fair, skin with higher social classes came to be a defining aspect that was
emphasized during European colonial conquests over people with predominantly darker complexions.
Today the feminine, and increasingly masculine, cosmetic practice of skin lightening, whitening,
bleaching, or fading, refers to a variety of temporary or permanent cosmetic methods that people use in
order to lighten their natural skin tone. Temporary methods include using makeup, such as face
powders and foundations, and also herbal, plant-based, remedies. More permanent or semi-permanent
methods include using toxic whitening soaps, creams, gels, pills, as well as bleaching products on the
25
skin. An interview conducted on skin bleaching in Jamaica reveals the process some women go through
to alter their natural skin pigmentation; a Jamaican woman claims to wrap plastic around her body after
using the bleaching creams to help her sweat, as heat makes the product “work”, she then takes a bath
in warm water and her skin rinses off and then she says “Later on at the dance and on video nobody can
say anything; we are white” (Youtube 2008a). Her statement may also reveal the social pressure to
bleach as people may gossip if women do not appear “white” (“nobody can say anything”), especially for
settings such as dances and videos, often sexually charged atmospheres, where it would be important
for women to look more socially attractive.
GLOBAL INDUSTRY
Skin lightening through cosmetic use is popular in many regions around the world where most
of the population has dark skin. At present, cosmetic skin lightening is widely practiced in most postcolonial societies, across social classes and ethnic lines, and has effects on health, identity, self esteem,
and racial superiority. Stemming from ideologies of white supremacy, “the development of the
cosmetics and skin bleaching industry was based on a set of accumulated knowledge about race and
aesthetics on a global scale” (Pierre 2008: 90). Somali women are definitely not unique when it comes to
their consumption of skin lightening cosmetics as these products make up a multi-billion dollar global
industry with many consumers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (DeMello 2007). Skin lightening markets
and the desire for light skin are excelling in regions where the power of Western capitalism and culture
is esteemed and where modernization ideologies are still highly influential (Glenn 2008: 13). Mire (2005)
reports that in 2001 the skin lightening cosmetic market in Japan was worth US$5.6 billion and in China
it was worth US$1.3 billion. In the Philippines, fifty percent of young women reported to use skin
lighteners as they associate light skin with modernity and social mobility (Glenn 2008: 11). Skin
lightening is just as popular in Africa, if not more, and Pierre (2008: 11) claims that “the skin bleaching
phenomenon in contemporary Africa is associated with the racialized aesthetic mores that attach value
to whiteness”. Glenn (2008: 6) reports that over fifty percent of women in Senegal engage in this
practice while an even more disturbing seventy-seven percent of women in Nigeria do. However, these
cosmetics are not only used by people with darker skin tones, or who were historically colonized by
Europeans, but also by older fair skinned (white) women who use it to fade “age/brown spots”. Skin
lightening cosmetics direct women to apply the products twice daily, guaranteeing the companies
frequent future sales. The great variety of skin lightening products has been incorporated into
transnational flows of capital, goods, people, and culture; by following these cosmetics, found in both
26
formal and informal economies, it reveals the powers of the global economic system and its control by
the West (Glenn 2008: 2-3).
The current global skin lightening cosmetic industry uses calculated advertising to sell a
homogenized image of beauty that places the most value on having light or white skin. Leong (2006:
178) determines that advertisements for skin lightening products “are racializing the aesthetics of
beauty” and feature a Eurocentric image of attractiveness by portraying “westernized visual signifiers to
evoke atmospheres of purity, cleanliness, and sophistication” (2006: 169). When marketed in affluent
Western countries, expensive cosmetic lighteners are advertised to help reduce and fade the
appearance of scars, freckles, hyper-pigmentation, sun damage, and other discolorations, and claim a
lighter and brighter skin tone usually within a few weeks of daily application. They may be marketed as
skin lighteners or brighteners often under the title of anti-aging therapies but rarely do they explicitly
insinuate that they should be used by darker skin tones to change the overall appearance of skin color.
However, when these products are brought into markets where most of the population is dark, the
messages are drastically altered. Advertisements for skin lightening cosmetics in places such as Asia,
Latin America, and Africa, use explicitly racist methods and perpetuate the belief that darker skin is ugly
and needs to be changed in order for a woman, or man, to be considered attractive. Advertisements and
commercials regularly portray an unhappy, single, woman with dark skin; then she uses the whitening
cosmetic which results in her becoming lighter skinned, happy, and successful in love and life. “American
firms have aggressively marketed skin lighteners to African and Asian women, implying that the use of
these products will Westernize the body and enhance class mobility, by making women more attractive
to higher-status men” (Peiss 2002: 108). Somali women may be influenced to try and emulate the
advertisements geared toward beauty consumption by buying products that claim to lighten the skin
and make darker skinned women beautiful by fading their natural color. They may buy into the
messages that claim that just by using a specific whitening cosmetic brand they will become successful
in all areas of their life, a very strong motivator to purchase these lightening products.
Colorism in Africa is ever-present and although Africa is often looked to as a source of black
beauty, within Africa blatant discrimination against people with very dark skin tones is obvious. Men
often encourage their girlfriends or wives to use lightening products because the men, and the women,
think it will make the women more beautiful. Wipper (1972: 330) noted that “lighteners...attempt to
change basic physical attributes. Thus African standards of beauty are rejected for western”. Skin
lighteners are predominantly marketed for use on the face, but there are also whiteners specifically for
body treatment. In addition, some of these cosmetics are intended for use on dark knees, elbows,
27
armpits, and even nipples; pink nipple creams are especially popular in Asia, claiming to turn brown
nipples to a soft shade of pink (while researching on the Internet for pink nipple cream I was shocked to
see that many bloggers and brand statements link pink nipples to virginity and “fresh sex”, calling them
angel nipples, baby nipples, fresh nipples, etc., and are also recommended for use on the genitals).
Wipper (1972) wrote about skin lightening practices in the early 1970’s which indicates that generations
of African women have been consuming this beauty ideal; although the skin lightening market was not
as expanded as it currently is, the practice has been occurring throughout many parts of Africa for
decades. Emulating whiteness has led to the development of huge skin lightening industries worldwide
(as well as other industries that can change natural born attributes such as hair) which capitalize on
changing natural African, and other non-white, appearances while putting users at great health risk,
both emotionally and physically.
KENYAN BAN AND HEALTH RISKS
Skin lightening soaps, creams, and other lightening cosmetics may, and most often do, contain
severely toxic chemicals including bleach, hydroquinone, and even mercury. Hydroquinone is a
substance that inhibits melanin production, is regularly used in photo processing, hair dye, and even in
rubber, and is a potential carcinogen. It is marketed to white women in low-doses, such as two percent,
as a method to fade facial discolorations. However, in some unregulated cosmetics, which are often the
cheapest and not marketed to white women, Pierre (2008: 17) states that they can contain as much as
thirty percent hydroquinone, making it a deadly commodity with frequent use. As well, mercury, due to
its highly poisonous properties, has been commonly reported as an ingredient in lighteners that have
been tested due to related health risks. Glenn (2008: 5) claims that many skin lightening soaps
containing mercury are actually produced in the European Union mainly for export, and ironically Italy,
one of Somalia’s colonial powers, is a leading producer of such toxic cleansers and creams.
Dermatologists and other scientists have extreme reservations about the ingredients found in these
cosmetics and many countries have banned the sale of such lighteners within their borders. Even though
many European countries have banned the sale of these cosmetics, due to consumer demand they are
continuously smuggled back across European borders and can be found on the shelves of many ethnic
grocers who cater to African and Asian communities. Many of these cosmetics are unable to meet the
health guidelines in European countries and end up being dumped into African (and other subjugated
nations) markets that do not have as strict regulations for product ingredients. Realizing the risks
28
involved and the detrimental popularity of this cosmetic practice, Kenya banned the sale of skin
lightening products and the Kenya Bureau of Standards (2007) issued that:
“All skin care preparations like creams, lotions, gels, soaps, etc.,
containing hydroquinone, steroids and hormonal preparations should
be registered by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board of the Ministry of
Health for medical use. Their use in cosmetics was prohibited through
gazette notices 4310 of 14th August 1998 and 7169 of November 2000”.
Due to the largely unregulated distribution of skin whitening products, these products are easily
found for sale in most markets around the world, especially illegal ones. People may mix together
unknown substances and sell them on the black market as whiteners without any knowledge of what
could happen to the body by using them. Many poor women may be tempted to buy such illegal and
dangerous products because of the low price. Home recipes may see people combining various
lightening cosmetics as well as adding cap full’s of cleaning bleach to their concoctions. Coming across
comments posted on Youtube (2008b) regarding skin lightening, I was horrified to read that a woman
from Zimbabwe, who also said she was a prostitute which was one of the reasons why she needed to
lighten, claimed to use “a deep penetrating skin bleach made out of paint thinner, car battery acid and
gasoline”! In Kenya, pharmaceutical grade and prescription skin lighteners are also easily available for
sale on demand in local pharmacies and in back streets (De Souza 2008: 28). De Souza (2008: 28) even
reports that some physicians have been “known to give out concoctions with no known formula of
contained ingredients”. Often the cheapest products are the most dangerous and toxic as the cheapest
ingredients are often illegal and banned.
Using whitening cosmetics in conjunction with exposure to various environmental factors
increases the risk of destroying one’s health. Melanin, the substance that makes skin color darker,
protects the skin from sun damage and was a biological adaption for people that were living where the
sun’s rays were the strongest. “Fairness creams halt the production of melanin to bring about an
artificially-enhanced and genetically-unnatural whiteness” (Shankar and Subish 2007: 102) which thus,
especially for women who have darker skin tones, increases the risk of sun related damage and disease.
Many women do not want to be exposed to the sun, not only because the skin becomes sensitive to
sunlight when using lighteners, but also because racism and advertising helps them to think of the sun
as an enemy which only makes them darker and uglier; thus, they take preventative measures to limit
sun exposure such as wearing many layers of clothing or only going outside at night or in the early
morning. In addition to the sun, other environmental conditions can also aggravate the negative side
effects. De Souza (2008: 28) claims that charcoal fires, pollution, dryness, and lack of fresh air also
29
heighten the damage caused to the skin and these environmental conditions were a part of life for
women living in Eastleigh, Nairobi. Shankar and Subish (2007: 103) report that sixty percent of those
who practice skin lightening suffer at least one health complication, yet women continue to use skin
lightening cosmetics without little regard for their bodies and the detrimental side effects associated
with this practice.
Many women continue to use lightening products and by doing so place themselves at physical,
psychological, and emotional risk. They risk their health in order to conform to mainstream ideas of
beauty and femininity in an interconnected world where light skin is valorized over darker complexions.
In order to actually lighten the skin, these cosmetics need to be applied frequently and for long
durations, increasing the person’s exposure to toxins. Applying these toxic substances to the skin, which
is the body’s largest organ, means that the chemicals are also entering the body at a much faster rate.
Through daily application of certain whitening products that contain topical steroids, the skin turns
wrinkled (like the neck of a plucked chicken), red (which happens to be more pronounced on male
users), and thin, and becomes highly addicted to the cream (Olumide et al. 2008: 350). When people
stop using the treatment the skin feels like it is burning, an extremely uncomfortable and painful
sensation that can only be relieved by applying more of the steroid-based cream (Olumide et al. 2008:
350). De Souza (2008: 28) reports that “*s+ide effects are more pronounced on thin, highly vascularised
skin and in the folds of the face, eyelids, axillary areas and groin” and other effects include fungal and
bacterial infections, among a great variety of others. Women also often increase the use of lightening
products to suppress the related physical side effects that they exhibit such as rashes, sores, viral warts,
and even darker re-pigmentation that appears as blue-black marks on the skin. Olumide et al. (2008:
347) report that the extensive use of skin lightening products results in a loss of skin elasticity and that it
delays the healing of wounds and causes “difficulty in apposing the edges of the wounds when stitching,
hence the skin often tears through the suture material”. Olumide et al. (2008: 347) also determined that
“*a+fter major abdominal surgeries like Caesarean section...there may be catastrophic wound
dehiscence, burst abdomen, and death from overwhelming infection”. In addition, Pierre (2008: 16)
found that Ghanaians would often remark about a terrible odour coming from people who bleached;
this smell is characterized as common to the odour of rotten fish (Olumide et al. 2008: 347). The use of
these creams is very risky; it has completely disfigured some people, caused many users to be socially
ostracized by their communities, and has the potential to cause organ failure and death.
30
CHAPTER FIVE
“Little Mogadishu”
Eastleigh, Nairobi and the Somalis I Learned From
In this chapter I aim to demarcate the field where I conducted research, the physical place of
Eastleigh, in the city of Nairobi, Kenya, and highlight the methods I used among the Somalis I learned
from. I intend to show why Somalis came to Nairobi and how space in this city is constructed as a tool of
exclusion and that the struggle, access, and control of space is an ever-present issue of rights and
citizenship and how this has important implications for Somalis self-image. In the context of Nairobi’s
urban space, I aim to describe how Somalis reterritorialized their homeland in Eastleigh, or as it is often
called “Little Mogadishu”, and strive to give a description of its spatial dimensions and character, as well
as show how it is now situated within the global economy as it is now considered the largest trading hub
in East Africa. As it is considered the Fashion District of East Africa, with cosmetic and fashion products
being sold in demand, I aim to show that it is an important place to observe beauty consumption
practices and performance. I propose that Somalis have adapted to the local economic conditions,
utilizing their links to the Somali Diaspora around the world, and have achieved great success. I propose
that Somali women are subverting the discourse of their marginalization which they have been able to
do so because of their transnational links. I intend to depict crime and safety issues in Eastleigh and how
they are a daily part of life. Providing a sociography of Eastleigh I intend to demonstrate that space plays
a significant role for how people construct and maintain their identities. I aim to highlight the
ethnographic fieldwork methods I utilized in conducting this research and also provide a representation
of the Somali community and my informants I was in contact with. Using pseudonyms to conceal the
identities of my informants was important as they requested that I not use their real names in order to
protect their safety as many do not have citizenship rights in Kenya. Lastly, I aspire to present how I
gained access to the Somali community and the limitations that I experienced due to my position, not
only as a student researcher, or a white female, but also as my host-family’s new daughter-in-law.
SOMALI MIGRATION TO NAIROBI
Fleeing the Somali Civil War that began in 1991, Somalis migrated to diverse regions all around
the globe; it is commonly suggested that the largest Somali Diaspora community resides in Kenya. Of
31
those who live in Kenya, 270,000 Somali refugees are living in the completely inadequate Dadaab
refugee camps, originally built to shelter 90,000, with reports of 5,000 additional refugees arriving each
month (Médecins Sans Frontières 2009). This camp is notoriously overcrowded and many Somalis
bypass this camp and head straight to Kenya’s capital city and the neighbourhood of Eastleigh in
particular. Since most Somalis come to Nairobi as undocumented refugees, population statistics are
unable to account for all the Somalis that are living there; however, I would propose that there are close
to 100,000 Somalis living in various regions of Nairobi. Many ethnic Somalis who migrated to affluent
countries have come back to Nairobi in order to set up businesses or buy real estate because investing in
Somalis is too risky. As a huge number of Somalis have been migrating to Nairobi for over twenty years,
many have had children there; these children are called sijuyi, which means “I don’t know” in Swahili, a
term possibly used to reflect feelings of disconnect to the Somali homeland.
Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya and a site of African modernity. It is the largest cosmopolitan
city in East Africa with many international organizations and agencies located there, foreign embassies,
as well as the Kenyan government and all its affiliated ministries. Due to pop culture, development aid,
government services, and consumer and trade markets, Nairobi is exposed to many global influences
coming from America, Europe, China, India, and the Middle East. Spaces within Nairobi create difference
between social and cultural groups and dictate who is included and who is not. “Relations of power,
structures of inequality, and practices of domination and subordination are embedded in spatial design
and relations” (Tickamyer 2000: 806), and spaces in Nairobi mark difference and demarcate one’s social
rank. There are large discrepancies between social class and absolute wealth in this post-colonial city; it
is spatially segregated with many of the affluent areas inhabited by non-Africans, such as European
expatriates and wealthy Indian merchants, while Kenyans often occupy the most subordinated positions
and places in Nairobi. Nairobi is also home to the largest slum in Africa, called Kibera. Crime is common
and car jackings are on the rise, as is kidnapping. As many Somalis in Nairobi are non-registered refugees
with no legal documents, they have no national citizenship or legal rights in Kenya. They are not
supposed to work, even though many do, especially in the informal sector. Although Somalis were
constantly targeted by Kenyan Police in the past, facing harassment and corruption, as my host-family
frequently experienced, it was regularly commented to me that since 2006 it has gotten better and
Somalis can now walk freely downtown without interrogation or bribery. President Kibaki realized the
economic benefit that Somalis were providing, and began to support instead of oppress them by issuing
more national identity cards. Many Somalis coming from the Europe and North American Diaspora have
been successful in establishing businesses throughout Nairobi and in Eastleigh and the Central Business
32
District in particular. However, there is hostility between Kenyans and Somalis; many Kenyans I spoke
with about my situation living in Eastleigh made derogatory comments about Somalis, claiming that they
took jobs from Kenyans, priced locals out of the housing market, and brought increased crime due to
their importation of guns and other violent weapons.
Since Nairobi is the city for many International and non-governmental agencies’ headquarters,
foreigners are a common site in certain regions, specifically the wealthier areas of Nairobi. The fair skin
color of European expatriates residing in Nairobi immediately identifies this group as powerful and
affluent. Whites are mainly found in middle and upper class areas as well as in the Central Business
District, regions that reflect power and are often inaccessible to many city residents. Traversing the city
with a Somali man who came from the North American Somali Diaspora I quickly realized how
differently we were being treated. In affluent and poor areas people treated him as if he was my
employee. One afternoon we went by car to a new and affluent Western-style shopping mall, called
Westlands. I was sitting in the passenger’s seat and when we pulled up to the security gate, the security
guard did not address or look at the Somali man. Even when the Somali tried to communicate with him,
the guard only addressed me. Local Somalis and Kenyans, as determined by their own perceived sense
of poverty and prosperity, commonly associate white people with wealth and largely do not think that
white people can be poor. Eating at restaurants with Somalis I was often handed the bill, even though
most of the time I was in the company of males (from my previous employment as a waitress I was
trained to hand the bill to the male customer and not the female when they were together). When I
would come out of retail shops or would be walking through streets in Eastleigh, children and women
would approach me for money or food but would not ask the Somalis I was with. On one occasion I was
followed for about four or five blocks by a small boy who was begging for money. On this occasion I was
walking with a Somali male informant who expressed regret that the boy was following me because my
skin tone equated me with money; he noted that the boy was not asking him for money, only me.
Nairobi has a significant ethnic Indian population which also values a feminine, light skinned
beauty ideal that has been a part of Indian culture for thousands of years. As well, ethnic Indians in
Nairobi largely regard themselves as superior over Africans and exploit the differences between their
skin colors and ethnic features. Many ethnic Indians are successful business owners and also represent a
significant proportion of Nairobi’s affluent. One of the most popular skin lightening brands in Nairobi,
Fair & Lovely, is based out of India, and this conglomerate uses what can be considered racist symbolism
in their advertising depicting women with dark skin as unworthy of success in life. The value for Indian
women to have light skin and the discrimination of those who do not is obvious; this preference further
33
pressures ethnic Indian women in Nairobi as they try to “other” themselves from the African population.
This is similar to the behaviour I saw Somalis engaging in against Kenyans and the Somalis may be
emulating the ethnic Indians with their sense of superiority over the ethnic Kenyans. The Somalis, having
greater access to capital, hire Kenyans to do the work that the Somalis do not want to do or feel above
doing (similar to the patterns of work between Americans and Mexicans in the United States).
RETERRITORIALIZING SOMALIA IN EASTLEIGH
The majority of Somalis in Nairobi live in Eastleigh, a place that Kilner (2008) regards as a low to
middle class neighborhood that transitioned from a colonialist suburb to an area with a predominant
Indian and Asian population, to now being home to tens of thousands of Somalis. Migrants settled in
Eastleigh due to its previous inexpensive living costs and recreated their homeland in a new territory
that local spatial discourse identifies as “Little Mogadishu”. The Somalis have reterritorialized Somalia in
Eastleigh as means to enhance their identity in order to feel more secure in a new place. Many Somalis
told me that they wanted to return to Somalia but were unsure if it would ever be safe enough to do so;
therefore recreating Somalia in Nairobi was a viable method in order to maintain their identity in the
face of displacement. As space is produced by people, what they do, and the way in which they connect
with others, it becomes very important in determining how people negotiate their identities. The spatial
and social landscape of Eastleigh that Somali women are embedded in dictate what these women are
and what they can be; they are constantly being made by the social and spatial relationships they find
themselves located in. Space also reflects hierarchies amongst social groups and defines people’s roles
and how they are regarded in society.
Eastleigh is recorded spatially on Nairobi city maps as Eastleigh First and Second Avenue, which
are two of its handful of paved roads, although it has many more streets and avenues than just the ones
depicted on the maps produced by the city. It is made up of Sections 1, 2, and 3 and most of my time
was spent in Section 2, on Eastleigh First Avenue which is the main commercial street running from First
to Twelfth Street. Eastleigh is very densely populated and is constantly congested with people, goods,
and traffic. Cars speed down the streets honking for pedestrians to move out of the way while young
Kenyan men pull carts jostling for space, they do not stop for people, and it is important to keep aware
of all the commotion to prevent being run over or hit. Eastleigh is not taken care of by the Nairobi City
Council to any large degree. There is garbage and mud everywhere which characterizes most walking
spaces; although in some areas Somalis are taking the initiative and paying to build sidewalks as more
roads are slowly becoming paved. Water main breaks are common with raw sewage flowing into the
34
streets, and when it rains the streets become swamp-like. If not a mess of mud, the streets are dry and
dusty and garbage is thrown out on the public streets and often burned; however, a few times I did see
some Kenyan men shoveling piles of garbage onto truck beds and assumed this was Nairobi’s garbage
disposal service. There are not many trees or green spaces except for a few spots at schools and in a
couple of traffic roundabouts. Water shortages are a normal part of life and once a week my host-family
would have to walk a few blocks to collect water in dozens of big, ten liter, plastic oil jugs, a process that
could take up to four hours. There are a handful of street lights and a mesh of telephone wires and
electricity cables hang from the sides of buildings and power cuts are frequent. There is a constant
stream of noise in Eastleigh with beeping car horns, Somali music blaring from illegal taxis, people
talking, kids yelling, calls to prayer, matatu (local, public minivan and bus transportation) horns and
music blaring, as well as their drivers yelling for customers. The Somali language has almost completely
replaced the Swahili language and I also heard many Kenyans using basic Somali in their interactions
with the Somalis. The smells of charcoal, burning garbage, exhaust fumes, cooking oil, spices, perfumes
and incense, as well as sewage, all blends together to characterize the scent of Eastleigh.
This neighbourhood in East Nairobi is a mixture of commercial and residential buildings with
some of Nairobi’s highest real estate prices that are comparable to affluent Northern areas, such as
Runda, where international embassies and organizations are located. There are gated communities with
large, Western-style houses, and a variety of buildings that may either be on the verge of collapsing or
stretching twenty-plus storeys high, including condominiums, apartment blocks, shopping malls, and
hotels. In addition, there are a variety of small, street-side stalls made from shipping containers
(characteristic in all parts of Nairobi to various degrees) that are lined together in any available space
often in front of people’s apartment gates. Space is an expensive commodity and even areas on the
street are sold to hawkers who want a piece of the action, a risky investment that can be lost at any time
as the police often crackdown on these informal setups where goods are often displayed on a
wheelbarrow or some wood or cardboard pieces that can quickly be dismantled and removed. Kariuki
(2008) reports that space on the actual tarmac is being sold (especially common on First Avenue where
hawkers compete for space with the pedestrians and traffic) and a spot big enough for a wheelbarrow to
fit can cost Ksh50,000 (US$650). Buying a commercial plot in a shopping mall is only for people that have
access to large amounts of capital. For a 5x5 plot in a shopping mall, an entrepreneur has to pay the
owner of the building a non-refundable fee just for the lock and key, in addition to the monthly rent; it
was reported to me that the price of the key for this size of plot was US$10,000, a cost that rises to
reflect larger spatial dimensions. The stall can then be resold at any price by the person who paid for the
35
key if they want to move out of the shopping mall, but if the owner of the whole building decides to
demolish it, the price for the key is lost. People are willing to pay such a high price for the key because
they can quickly make the money back. Buying residential properties can also be risky as many new
apartments were put up without legal authority from the government. People that invested in these
properties may easily lose their money as the housing authority claimed to demolish these structures
built on land that was not officially purchased. Overhearing some conversations in English, one person
claimed they were paying US$1500 for rent each month in a new apartment building in Eastleigh, while I
heard other informants paid an average of US$600 a year for old and outdated, two or three room
residences. The rise in housing costs and real estate has out-priced many local Kenyans and is often
attributed to funds gained from piracy, even though many Somalis discredit this claim and accuse
Kenyans of jealousy. Many owners of Eastleigh’s shopping malls, apartments, and condominiums have
increased rental prices but have not fixed or updated the quality of the infrastructure. Housing is
extremely difficult to secure and many housing complexes were being demolished to make way for new
shopping malls and apartment buildings. An informal taxi driver I took on a regular basis and my
research assistant, Homeboy, who are also Kenyan, had been told they had a week to leave their
residences because the places they lived in were going to be demolished for the construction of highrise buildings. I increasingly heard comments about Somali property owners moving out of Eastleigh and
purchasing or building houses in other parts of Nairobi where space was more available, such is in the
up and coming neighbourhood of South C which borders Nairobi National Park, a wilderness preserve.
However, although they may move to inhabit cleaner, greener, and more spacious surroundings, they
still conduct business in Eastleigh.
Eastleigh was a prime location for doing an ethnographic study on cosmetic adornment as this
place is considered East Africa’s largest trading hub and Fashion District. In the last two decades,
Eastleigh has transformed itself into the busiest trading district in Kenya (Kariuki 2008) and this brings
huge revenue to the country. Without Somalis the Kenyan economy would suffer as Somalis have
created many jobs which are few and far between in Kenya. Eastleigh is a thriving business community
and is considered to be a “multiethnic marketplace” (Goldsmith 2008) characterized by global trade
networks that expose residents to material culture and ideas from around the world. Most people do
not have to leave Eastleigh as almost everything is available there, not only commodity goods, but also
banking and government services, as well as illegal ventures such as gun trade. It boasts a financial
center larger than Nairobi’s Central Business District and is home to many foreign banks only Kenyan
location. Due to Eastleigh’s transformation from a low-income residential area into the chief consumer
36
market in East Africa, it has now become spatialized on the global map of the world economy. The main
commercial area, along Eastleigh First Avenue, is considered the Fashion District as this is where the
most goods like clothing and cosmetics are sold, as well as where most banks are located. This avenue is
also the main route for traffic to enter and exit Eastleigh; however it is unpaved in areas and has huge
potholes, which can be up to a meter deep and long, making traffic snarl along the way. People come
from all over the city come to shop in Eastleigh where prices are the lowest in all of Nairobi for the same
goods that are sold in other regions. Not only do Nairobians come to shop in Eastleigh, but also people
from all over East Africa. Any day of the week but especially on Saturdays (the busiest shopping and
delivery day of the week), walking within a two block radius of Eastleigh First Avenue one can see many
East African license plates; buyers from countries such as Tanzania and Uganda purchase commodity
products in Eastleigh exporting them to sell in their home countries. In Eastleigh, as common in many
other post-colonial regions, there is a huge market of, and for, cosmetic skin lighteners; global cosmetic
brands are represented in a high degree with most products imported from China and India through
middle men (who are also often Somalis) in Dubai. Global media and advertising reinforces an idealized
light skin standard of feminine beauty in which Somalis are exposed to on a daily basis. Conspicuous
consumption of such a beauty ideal is largely made possible by remittances sent from the Diaspora, thus
further revealing the transnational linkages that characterize this community. The market of skinlightening cosmetics found in Eastleigh is mostly controlled by a handful of multinational conglomerates,
and as a commodity trade hub, the global brands that are for sale in Eastleigh also reveal dominant
power structures as almost no locally made products are for sale.
SOMALIS’ ECONOMIC POWER
The Somalis particular refugee circumstances have meant that most Somalis have access to
greater financial capital from the huge Diaspora living in numerous countries throughout the world,
much more so than the Kenyan population that has not had to flee their country in large numbers. Many
Somalis receive money to survive on from their relatives and friends who may each send US$100 every
month, a sum that can quickly expand depending on how many relatives are contributing. The Somali
migrants have adapted to the local economic conditions and because of their increased wealth they are
easily able to compete against locals for resources and services. By examining the spaces of Eastleigh it
is possible to see that the people with little income are restricted: spatially, as in where they can go and
where they can live; and socially, as in whom they can associate with, and what opportunities are
available to them, in addition to much more. An individual’s position in the city, dependent on
37
socioeconomic class, as well as ethnicity and gender, determines what rights they will have within the
city’s society and institutions; those in power have the right to the city, while marginalized groups do
not. Somalis, largely being refugees who are regarded as a marginalized group, are actually subverting
the discourse of their marginalization and are situating themselves in a higher social position than many
of the local Kenyans due to the Somali’s financial links with the Diaspora outside of Africa; these links
have allowed them more economic and investment opportunity. Through remittance networks called
hawala, Somalis can bypass banks and receive money from various parts of the world as they are
nervous about having the banks freeze their accounts (something that happens often, not so much in
Nairobi, but with foreign banks due to fears of money laundering or terrorist support). In addition, the
black market in Eastleigh is probably the busiest and most lucrative trading point and gives the best
exchange rates for cash in Nairobi. On entering the small area that is situated between two large
shopping malls, one has to pass through heavy metal doors that are open just wide enough for one
person to pass through (making it very dangerous to escape). Many men stand behind small stands or sit
on stools holding huge bundles of numerous kinds of foreign currencies for exchange. The hundreds of
thousands of dollars that make up this chaotic, crowded, and hot place are not only made up of cash,
but also of gold. My host-relative worked there selling gold jewellery that came from India and Dubai;
women sit crowded together along the edges of the tiny walkway with boxes sitting on their laps filled
full with gold necklaces, earrings, rings, and other adornment items. Security did not seem to be an issue
and it was highly secure (security was invisible to me yet I found out that there were men watching
every movement). With the amount of money flowing through the market and the calmness and
openness of the traders, it appeared that the dealers did not seem to worry about theft because
security was so controlled; nobody would dare attempt to steal in the black market because they would
face certain and immediate death. Yet with the vast amount of capital that was present, there were still
young children and older women begging for money who stand right behind people making an
exchange, pull on clothing as the person walks away, or who wait right outside the market doors to
catch the buyers when they leave, all of which I experienced.
Somalis were the predominant business people, running retail stalls and selling various goods in
any available space, including on the sidewalks, yet unemployment was still vast. There were always
huge groups of men congregated at local cafes, on benches outside of retail stalls, and on the sidewalks
outside of mosques, and many men sit and endlessly chew the stimulant leaf called miraa or qaad which
narcotic effects that are common to cocaine can only be felt after chewing the leaves for hours. Women
also sell and buy miraa, which is legal to do in Kenya yet illegal in most Euro-American countries, but it is
38
not socially acceptable for them to chew it in public. Somali women were never seen spending extended
periods of time on the public street, only if they were selling or buying something like food or clothing;
space is a producer of social relations and Eastleigh is a highly gendered space that produces an idea of
gender relations which are highly segregated. Kenyan women were often seen spending a lot of time in
the public street waiting for Somali women to hire them for small amounts of housework; the Somali
women were never seen spending time in the public realm in this way. An informant said to me, “You
always see the Kenyans outside sitting with not much to do; they wait for work from the Somalis to earn
a few shillings”. Many Somalis have a part-time Kenyan maid who comes and asks the Somali women if
they can do some washing or cleaning. About four to five times a week, my host-family hired a Kenyan
woman to come and wash their clothes and clean the kitchen, front room, and bathroom, but never the
two bedrooms due to the potential for theft. My host-mother would sit in the entrance doorway to
make sure the Kenyan, who was in the courtyard, was doing the washing properly. When she felt that
the Kenyan did not do a good enough job, she would tell her to redo it. My host-mother would pay
about Ksh50 to Ksh100 to the Kenyan for an hour’s work (the equivalent of about US$.65 to US$1.30).
While Kenyan women were often hired to do housekeeping in Somali homes and work as cleaners in
Somali workplaces, Kenyan men that were employed worked in construction, at local kiosk stalls selling
fruit or small household goods, as street hawkers selling random items, or as unofficial taxi drivers.
However, the majority of Kenyan workers in Eastleigh seemed to not earn enough income to increase
their social mobility above the Somalis. The Somalis often expressed that they were above the type of
work they hired the Kenyans for, although many Somali men also operated unofficial taxis as some
Somalis did not want to take Kenyan drivers. The moral judgements and economic power of Somalis are
used to maintain the spatial categories in Eastleigh. The structure of work that has Kenyans working for
the Somalis may be culturally embedded and linked to historical stereotypes and judgements that have
perpetuated since the Bantus were enslaved in Somalia.
CRIME AND SAFETY IN EASTLEIGH
Crime is a very real experience for those living in Eastleigh. Many of Nairobi’s taxi drivers refuse
to go there, and when they do, they often told me they could only go to a certain area or only down one
main street. Fear consolidates boundaries and enables control; even Nairobi gangs (not from Eastleigh)
do not enter into Eastleigh to terrorize like they do in other regions. Some of my male informants told
me that the Somalis are not threatened by large, organized, Kenyan gangs because Somalis are not
afraid of death and are used to constant violence as they experienced it for most of their lives in
39
Somalia. My host-brother told me that when Somalis come to Eastleigh “They feel it’s like Beverly Hills”
in comparison to the violent life filled with hardship that many experienced in Somalia. Thieves regularly
roam the streets at night; if they attempt to steal during the day they will most often be caught and
killed, although not by the police, who are not habitually seen in Eastleigh’s main retail locations, but by
regular citizens carrying out their own form of justice. When locals hear the shout “Toog”, the Somali
word for thief, they will drop everything and chase him; people often told me that they would light the
thief on fire or beat him to death once he was caught as they don’t appreciate when thieves steal from
people who have struggled to acquire possessions. One late afternoon while shopping, I heard the
shouts of toog and saw a group of men run down the street, I got scared and quickly left and went home
because I did not want to be around to see what happened. A toog must be extremely desperate to
steal with the near and real possibility of being murdered as the Somalis take justice into their own
hands. My host-family told me to yell “toog” if I was ever in trouble or someone tried to steal from me;
one informant told me that if I was not dressed like a Muslim, the way I was, I surely would be a target
for crime. As well, people constantly expressed that due to theft I should not be digging through my
purse or talking on a cell phone while walking through Eastleigh’s streets. One morning during my last
month of fieldwork I was riding in a taxi a block or two away from my host-family’s residence and I saw a
dead body lying on the street covered with an Islamic prayer mat. When I got inside my host-residence
and told my host-brother that I had just saw a dead body outside on the street, he barely reacted. I
asked him if that was a normal thing to happen and he said yes and that it was probably just a thief.
Eastleigh is often referred to as the center for illegal arms trade in Kenya, with weapons being
smuggled in from war-torn Somalia. The proliferation of cheap guns, which can even be rented by the
hour, is thought to be contributing to the increasing violence in Nairobi (Okwembah and Wabala 2009).
Many men that sat outside the gates of my host-residence were involved with this trade, a fact that I
found out after I left Nairobi. For a more in-depth look at the apparent criminal identity of Somalis and
the scapegoating of refugees, see Murunga (2005) and the documentary film “Devil’s Bargain” by Shelly
Saywell (2008). In addition to the illegal trafficking of weapons, young males in Eastleigh are being
trafficked to Somalia to fight with the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group, the Al-Shabaab, which is in
control of Southern Somalia and trying to enforce strict Sharia Law. Young men and boys are targeted by
the Al-Shabaab that either force the youths or offer them money to join the group. Members of the AlShabaab are found in Eastleigh and my host-relative Mary had been beaten by them for dressing in too
tight of clothing, not that I ever saw her or any other Somali women in Eastleigh wear tighter styles of
clothing in public. A few young people, male and female, made comments in front of me about their like
40
for the Al-Shabaab, while others disliked them and had fear of them. My host-brother told me not to
talk about the Al-Shabaab in public and that they were known to call people telling them that they
would die the next day. Recently in June 2009, the Al-Shabaab stated that it would carry out terrorist
attacks in Nairobi if the Kenyan government got involved with military intervention in Somalia
(Somalilandpress 2009); if such an attack were to occur it would surely increase the hostility between
Kenyans and Somalis.
OPERALISATION AND RESEARCH METHODS
During the course of my ethnographic research I focused on themes such as beauty, adornment,
femininity, gender roles, consumption practices, cosmetics, and Somali identity, in order to document
the socio-cultural world that Somali women in Nairobi are embedded in. Questions and ethnographic
observation points linked these themes to practices of cosmetic skin lightening and I made detailed
notes of the responses that I received to my questions and of the things that I observed. Some of the
answers to the questions were based solely on observation while others were based on personal
conversations with Somali women in Nairobi in which these questions were either asked directly or
indirectly, in formal and informal interview settings as well as in discussion groups. I made audiorecordings of semi-formal interviews as well as the daily sounds of Eastleigh. I aimed to identify patterns
of beauty performance and consumption, as well as concepts related to feminine Somali identity, and
noted how they verbally and non-verbally expressed their values and ideals of femininity and
attractiveness. I kept a detailed daily journal of all the things I did and what I experienced, including my
feelings, emotions, and senses, as well as what people said to me or to others in my presence. I made
notes on the daily appearances of women, mostly of my host-family, to document the ways in which
they adorned themselves on a day to day basis. I made video recordings and took pictures, although it
was often difficult since many Somalis do not like to be on camera and cover their faces as soon as a
camera is pulled out. However, I was able to get specific photos taken, such as on the streets of
Eastleigh and at bridal showers, as some of my informants took the pictures for me. In addition, I used
unconventional research methods such as looking through fashion and beauty magazines; these
publications came from Europe, North America, and Kenya, and were either produced for worldwide
consumption or specifically for black audiences. Looking at these magazines with my informants was a
method I used to reveal what images they found attractive. I used my background in professional
makeup artistry and cosmetic retail as tools to gain information about women’s beauty preferences,
ideals, and how they want to be represented.
41
By living with a Somali host-family I also gained information about feminine gender roles and
the daily forms of advertising and media that the women are exposed to that play a significant role in
their consumption of a beauty ideal valorizing light or fair skin. I regularly spent time in a cosmetic shop,
a retail stall selling women’s clothing, and a beauty salon, in order to investigate beauty consumption
habits among Somali women. I observed how Somali females of all ages use commodity products to
alter their appearance in diverse locations such as beauty salons, clothing and cosmetic shops, shopping
malls, markets, schools, homes, special events such as weddings, and at other public and private places.
I attended large social gatherings including bridal and dance parties, places where men were not
present, and a Somali wedding in downtown Nairobi which was the only place where I saw male and
females socializing together to the greatest extent outside of the private/household sphere. Weddings,
bridal parties, and dance parties, were events in which many women significantly altered their
appearance in order to make their skin look as light as possible; it was very obvious to see that most of
the young women and even a few older ladies wore a visible and thick application of white powder on
their face. I also created social situations that brought female informants into different public spaces in
Nairobi such as Uhuru Park in downtown Nairobi, the Central Business District, the University of Nairobi,
Westgate Shopping Centre, South C, Milimani, and Village Market.
INFORMANTS
During the three months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted predominantly in the
neighbourhood of Eastleigh, I was in personal contact with a mid-size group of Somali women. In
addition to my female informants, I was also in frequent contact with young Somali males who were the
predominant speakers of English and who mostly accompanied me during public outings in Eastleigh.
My informants came from a wide range of social and ethnic/clan backgrounds and they all shared the
Somali language and Sunni Muslim faith. My informants had migrated to Kenya over a diverse time scale
with some coming from Somalia in the early 1990’s with others coming more recently as a few had
arrived during my stay. Some had been born in refugee camps in Kenya such as Dadaab and others were
born in Nairobi; like most ethnic Somalis born in Kenya, they were frequently called sijuyi. A few of my
ethnic Somali informants had lived for various periods in the Diaspora, including the United States of
America, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands; some were visiting Nairobi for a shorter time period
and others had relocated permanently or for the near future.
I resided with my Somali fiancé’s family who I had never met before; however because of my
personal relationship with him they accepted me as part of their family. Most of my time was spent in
42
the company of members of my host-family yet I also spent time with a woman who operated her own
beauty salon, a small group of University students in their early twenties, a young woman who operated
her own cosmetic retail shop, local neighbours of my host-family, students of a diverse range of ages
who were learning English, and with other friends, family, and acquaintances of my main informants. In
addition to these informants, I obtained information from observing Somali female members of the
public in a wide range of formal and informal, public and private, situations in Eastleigh and other
regions of Nairobi’s Metropolitan Area. I was accustomed to being approached by strangers and shop
keepers in Eastleigh who were interested to know why a white woman was living in Eastleigh, a place
where I only saw three white people during my three months stay. I turned some of these interactions
with shop keepers into learning opportunities and asked them questions related to women, beauty,
fashion, and shopping.
At the request of my informants I will use pseudonyms for them in order to conceal their
personal information and identity. There were nine people living full time at my host-residence
household, all of who are female except one twenty-three year old male who I refer to as Aabo (the
Somali word for brother). I am only able to estimate their ages since many Somalis do not know the
exact day of their birth. Of the females, Su was born in Eastleigh and is three years old; her father is an
old man in his seventies and her young mother, I was told, abandoned her due to a drug addiction (my
host-mother is Su’s father’s sister). Sari is about twenty years old and a recent migrant from rural
Somalia as she arrived at the house the day after my arrival. Fatima is around the age of twenty-two,
comes from rural Somalia and has lived in Eastleigh with the host-family since 2004. Fatima is the main
person who takes care of Su and maintains the household, doing the cooking and cleaning. Mary has
lived in and out of Eastleigh and Somalia since 2001 and also spent a short time in Saudi Arabia during
2005; she is twenty-eight. Zain is in her early thirties and has lived in Eastleigh since the mid 1990’s.
Hooyo (the Somali word for mother) is head of the household, in her late fifties, and has lived in
Eastleigh since 1993. In February, twenty-year old Halle arrived and was spending most nights and
irregular days at the house. At the end of February Halle’s mother Eedo (the Somali term for aunt) came
to live at the house; she is also in her late fifties and rarely left the house except to go to Hooyo’s shop
or to accompany her daughter to meet with friends or go to the market. Only a couple of these women
were able to speak a few words of English, the rest spoke no English. Fatima and Halle began English
classes in the first week of March and went mostly five days a week for two to three hours each day;
they were able to speak a couple of words in English by the time I departed for my return to the
Netherlands. All the members of my host-residence are single; however, Hooyo is still legally married
43
although her husband resides in Somalia with a new wife. The members of my host-family do not leave
Eastleigh often and in five years Fatima has only been to Village Market (a small, affluent, Western-style,
shopping mall with many foreigners) twice and once to Westgate Shopping Centre (a recently built,
multi-storied, affluent, Western-style shopping mall open 24 hours); the only reason why she went to
these malls was because she was either accompanying her relatives from North America or me. I also
brought Sari to Village Market, which was her first time being there in the 3 months that she had lived in
Eastleigh. When the members of my host-family do leave Eastleigh, they predominantly go to South C, a
spacious and clean neighbourhood with a growing Somali population, where Hooyo owns property. In
addition, I also spent time with a male cousin of my host-family, Ahmed, who I had many conversations
with.
My host-family lived on a very popular and busy street in Eastleigh across from a newly built
mosque and among many residential apartment buildings, retail shops located in multi-storied shopping
malls, restaurants, hotels, retail stalls constructed out of shipping containers, and mobile street vendors
selling numerous goods. The nine members lived in a two bedroom home in a two-storey apartment
complex sharing a main courtyard with seven other households, all of which had more than five
members living full-time with many other friends and relatives constantly coming and going. My hostfamily’s home, located on the ground floor, had a kitchen with a Western style refrigerator (usually
stocked with only one or two items), a sink with mostly running water, and a charcoal stove. There was
also a non-flushable toilet located in a small closet and small sink in the main entrance room, as well as a
washing/shower/laundry room. Hooyo, Aabo, and Su slept in one room fitted with a single and double
bed, a couch, two small side tables, a TV, and a storage closet. The remaining women all slept in the
other room which had one double bed and five single foam mattresses that were set up only at night
across the entire space of the floor. Someone always had to remain in the house due to fears of a
potential burglary, even though there were bars covering all the windows, a security guard at the front
gate, and two metal front doors with four locks on the inside door and one lock on the outside door.
There was tension between Hooyo and Mary and they were not on speaking terms until the last
couple of days of my stay. The tension was created because of an insult Mary directed toward Hooyo, as
well as because nobody claimed to know where Mary was going and sometimes her whereabouts was
unknown for days. Mary comes and goes as she pleases without too much responsibility. She did not
speak English but showed me many of her photo albums that gave me a few hints into her social life but
did not reveal anything that I thought could be considered controversial behaviour. Mary uses a lot of
white makeup powder on her face and also uses a locally produced, herbal facial mask, called qasli that
44
temporarily lightens skin tone. She is the only female resident that wears makeup on a regular basis (five
times a week or so), applying it heavily (compared to other makeup styles I saw) before she goes out in
the early evening; she puts a lot of white makeup powder all over her face and then lines her eyes and
her lips with black kohl. She was also directly and indirectly referred to by members of the family as
“sharmuuto”, which means prostitute in Somali. However, this term may not be used by everyone in a
negative light every time it is said; sometimes the family would call each other sharmutto in a playful
and teasing manner and the three year old began to use this term especially to someone who did
something she did not like, including towards me when I would not let her play with my camera.
I was introduced to other Somali women who were in their early twenties through various
people that I met. Bi operated her own beauty salon out of the front room of her two room residence.
At the end of March she was in her final month of pregnancy and had two small sons (twenty-one and
eleven months). Bi is twenty-five and married to Mohamed, a man who teaches English classes five days
a week to a wide age-range of male and female students, also whom I went to teach and interact with a
few times while in Eastleigh. Mohamed once told the students not to be scared of me because they had
never seen a white person in real life before; “she is a real white person, you can touch her, don’t be
scared because you have never seen a white person in real life before”. Bi and Mohamed, who I came to
be close friends with, are Bantu Somalis, a marginalized and often stigmatized group within Somali
society. Mohamed as well as his brother who I met a couple of times speak English very well and also
provided me with a male perspective on Somali feminine beauty. I also regularly frequented a cosmetic
shop for observation and the shopkeeper, Sua, is twenty-three, single, and lives with her father, mother,
her siblings, and her father’s two other wives. Her English skills are basic and through her I met many
young women who were University of Nairobi students, who I also came to be friends with and who
included me in social events that they were a part of. Sam was one of the students who I had the most
contact with and who also included me in social gatherings with her family. She is twenty-four, single,
and lived with her older married sister, her sister’s husband, and their three children. She also sold a
cosmetic line called Oriflame through catalogue orders. Mo and Ray were twenty-three years old, single,
and University of Nairobi students who lived with their relatives across the street from my host-family. I
met them in March and spent a couple of occasions in public and private situations with them and their
friends, and in formal and informal interview settings. I met them through my Kenyan assistant called
Homeboy who spoke English and Swahili but not Somali; he had lived his whole life in Eastleigh and
spent time outside the host-residence gates. I met him through my host-brother and he accompanied
me in many public outings in Eastleigh during February and March; he acted as my bodyguard, arranged
45
transportation for me and accompanied me during taxi rides in the late afternoon and early evening,
and also negotiated prices for material items I wanted to buy.
Many informants regarding the sale of cosmetic whitening products, consumed by women and
young girls, were males in their twenties who worked at the retail establishments selling cosmetics and
Western and Islamic fashions (imported mainly from China). They were predominantly of Somali or
Indian origin, with many middle-aged Ethnic Indians as the owners of the shop or of the entire shopping
mall. The young men with who I communicated with in the shops were very welcoming and curious
about me, and most spoke English at a basic to fluent level, in addition to fluent Somali, basic to fluent
Swahili, and various levels of Arabic, with some also speaking Italian or French in addition to the
aforementioned languages. From the shops that I would walk past daily I would hear “Welcome sister”,
“Hi sister” and “Good day sister”, the shop keepers always wanted to show me things they had for sale
like long skirts and scarves. A few seconds after I would walk into retail establishments the entire store
would know that there was a muzungu (the Swahili word for a white person) present and would stop
what they were doing to watch me throughout the store. By the end of my stay many shopkeepers knew
my name and men at the grocery store would walk with me to get big bottles of water and carry it to the
check-out for me. They would regularly tell me how “smart” I looked in my ethnic Somali styles of dress.
More men worked in the Fashion District’s retail enterprises than women. Most of the women working
in retail wore conservative Islamic fashions with most wearing a niqab, locally called a shareer or ninja,
which is a black veil that covers the entire face leaving a small opening for the eyes, which part can also
be covered by an additional thin layer of fabric.
As Eastleigh is considered a Somali community, Thursdays and Fridays are regarded as religious
days which are observed as weekends; many people do not work on these days so they can enjoy
religious and relaxing familial activities. Although many businesses in Eastleigh do not close during any
day of the week, if they do, they are closed early afternoons on Thursdays and for the whole day on
Friday. Most other days, unless special events occur, businesses and commercial enterprises open
between 8 and 9 am. Some businesses, especially those that do not have more than two workers, close
for lunch for about an hour, usually after afternoon prayers around 1 or 2 pm. Some retail shops close
for a short period so that employees can go to the mosque to pray. However, if they don’t close,
employees pray in the tiny quarters of the business premises for passersby to witness and for customers
to wait until the employee is finished; it would be totally unacceptable to approach and begin speaking
to someone while they were praying. Hooyo sometimes came home to pray during the day but many
times she just set up her prayer mat in her shop to pray there.
46
ACCESS
My fiancé put me in contact with his family who lived in Easteigh and made arrangements for
me to live with them. I arrived in Nairobi with my fiancé and we were picked up at the airport by Hooyo
and Aabo, his mother and younger brother. This was the first time I had met my fiancé’s family and they
greeted me with big smiles and handshakes. Having my fiancé to introduce me to the family was
important and made my introductory experience to the Somali community and my new living
arrangements more comfortable than if I would have arrived alone. I also feel that by him accompanying
me it put the family’s potential concerns with me at ease. His short stay helped me adjust to life in
Eastleigh even though I felt that I adapted to the social settings very quickly, even more than he did.
When he explained to his mother that he was leaving and I would be staying, his mother and the rest of
the family did not seem to really believe it. When he left without me they seemed surprised that I was
going to stay for three months by myself with them. I was nervous too but had made friends and had
many plans and data to collect so I knew it would be fine. The three months of fieldwork went by very
fast and I was sad to leave. My host-family also seemed very sad for me to leave but they held a fun
going-away party for me on my last day in Kenya. When I left the house to go to the airport for my
departure, Aabo and a few of the neighbour boys cried while they said goodbye to me; this made me
feel that my presence with my host-family was well-received.
The day of my arrival I wore a long-sleeved, ankle-length, turtleneck dress, and a scarf over my
hair, to show respect for the Islamic values of the Somali community I was entering into. When we got
to the house my host-mother immediately gave me a local Somali style of dress to change into. She gave
me a masar that is a piece of fabric used to cover the hair on top of a female’s head, a googarad that is a
polyester ankle-length slip with an elastic waist and which is embellished on the bottom hem and worn
under a dirac, which is a loose fitting short-sleeved, ankle-length dress, and a garbaasar, a 1x1.5 meter
piece of fabric worn over the head and around the upper body; these should be regarded as ethnic
Somali styles of dress since they are worn by Somali females on a daily basis around the world. I
immersed myself in Eastleigh’s daily life and tried to follow the behaviour of the women I was around. I
dressed in ethnic and Islamic styles of dress and behaved in a culturally acceptable manner while in
Eastleigh, such as eating with my right hand only and not shaking men’s hands unless they initiated. The
first few times I went out alone in public in Eastleigh I was told to wear a shareer so that people would
not bother or stare at me. However three informants, and surely surrounding locals, recognized me on
the street while I was wearing it. My informants said they could tell it was me by the way I moved or
that they could still see my white hands and feet, and that it was a lighter shade under the veil where
47
my eyes were. As well, Mohamed said he could tell it was me by the way I walked. After I had gotten to
know more locals and was spending an increased time with my new friends and informants, I was
unexpectedly put into a few situations where I had to walk home alone, from a few blocks to a mile,
without a shareer. I received just a bit more attention than when I wore it, and although I felt
uncomfortable with the amount of attention I got, I also felt that I was not trying to deceive the locals
which I sometimes felt like I was when I was wearing it. I also felt that if most people could tell it was me
anyway then why would I wear it in an attempt to disguise myself. When I began to walk alone more
often without a shareer along Eastleigh’s First Avenue, many shopkeepers were directing comments
toward me such as “bella” (the Somali term for beautiful, also borrowed from Italian due to Somalia’s
colonial history), “smart”, “nice”, “masha-allah” (meaning God is good), “muzungu” (white person), and
also “a Somali-muzungu!” every time I would walk by.
It is known that Somalis in Eastleigh are distrustful of outsiders and foreigners (specifically white
people) are determined to be American spies (Americans agents came to Eastleigh interrogating people
thought linked to Al-Qaeda after 9/11). I believe that by dressing in a culturally appropriate way it
allowed me to gain more access to community members than if I had not. My host-mother’s co-worker
also told me that if I was wearing jeans nobody would talk to me (I only saw a handful of women
wearing pants but always underneath a long skirt). It was also remarked to me by Mohamed that the
reason nobody was trying to steal from me or harass me when I walked by myself was because of the
way I was dressed. He said “If you were by yourself and not dressed like this, you would be in danger”.
During my three months stay in Eastleigh I only saw three white people, all female, walking in Eastleigh
who were also wearing t-shirts and shorts just above the knee (two were walking with a Kenyan woman,
and another was looking around in one of the shops I would often go to). I was very surprised that they
would feel comfortable walking around Eastleigh dressed in such a manner. Talking with the American
woman in the shop, as I was dressed in my Islamic style including wearing my shareer, I expressed
surprise that she was not conservatively dressed and she responded that she did not even think about it.
Then she remarked that maybe she should get a scarf because it would be better and people might think
she was being more respectful; then I told her that is why I was wearing this particular style and also
because I felt more comfortable and did not want to shame my in-laws (I never went outside in Eastleigh
without a skirt on, or without a head scarf or garbaasar covering my neck and upper body).
When I arrived I was positioned not as a foreign student researcher but more as a new
daughter-in-law or close family friend; people would regularly express how they kept forgetting I was
there to do research (this may also indicate what they think of women and education). Placed in this
48
situation I was confronted with their expectations of what I, as ‘family’ and as a woman, should do, how
I should behave, and who I should be, or not be, with. It was intended that I remain in the household for
much of the day, often in a separate room, where they thought I would not be bothered, specifically by
Su, so I could do my journal writing. I was not to be hanging around outside in the public eye, a space
mostly reserved for males to spend social time. I was not prepared for the expectation that I would
remain mostly inside the household; I wanted to spend time outside of the compound gate to watch the
street life that was constantly bustling. The reasons that were provided to me by my host-family for why
I should stay inside include: girls do not hang around outside unless they are prostitutes especially if
they are in the company of other men, everyone will be staring at you, it is not safe, people will follow
and beg you for money or food, and it is too dusty and not good for your health. At times I felt locked up
and unable to meet people independently. Being on the public street I always felt that the men in the
neighbourhood were keeping an eye on who was going where, with whom, and so on; it felt that they
were performing a form of public social control. When I would greet men that I knew on the street I felt
self-conscious about such behaviour; it felt that other men would gossip and I would possibly bring
shame to my host-family and I started to understand how restricted women’s movements in public
could be. I often felt that I had no freedom and could not leave the house. When I would stay some
nights in a hotel outside of Eastleigh, some of my Somali informants like Sua and Sam were very
surprised that I wanted to stay alone by myself. Sometimes I felt that I needed to have time alone and
outside of Eastleigh where I was free to do what I chose to do, unlike in Eastleigh. In addition, it was
often expressed that I was not to go out after dark and never travel by a matatu after 4 pm due to safety
concerns. However there were a couple of instances when I was out in Eastleigh’s streets after dark.
After attending a bridal party with Hooyo late one afternoon, we walked home for fifteen minutes
through the dark streets; I was worried and pulled down my head scarf in front of my face to cover my
skin colour so not to draw attention to us, but Hooyo said to me “Iskadhaaf”, a Somali term loosely
meaning forget about it or never mind. After another bridal party I attended at Sam’s house, I was late
leaving and had to walk home alone over a mile at dusk. I was very nervous and hid my purse under my
garbaasar pretending it was a baby so that maybe people would not bother me. Once I got to Eastleigh
First Avenue I went to a shopping mall and had to call Homeboy to come with a taxi and pick me up
because I felt it was too risky to be walking by myself in the early evening. All of my host-family
members stay inside after 10 pm due to safety concerns except Mary and Aabo as well as my hostcousin Ahmed whose risky behaviour of being out late at night was often complained about by my host-
49
family. They worried because there was not only the potential of crime but also the potential of being
arrested for not having proper documentation such as an identity card.
For the first two months of research when I did go in public I was always with an
accompaniment, which was almost always male. One afternoon when Homeboy was going to take me
shopping, Ahmed, who was over at my host-residence visiting, was questioning me about Homeboy
such as who he was and if he was Kenyan or Somali. When I said he was Kenyan, Ahmed said he had to
meet him before I could leave to go shopping. Ahmed said he had to make sure that Homeboy knew
that I was not leaving without people knowing who I was with in case anything happened to me, even
though I had left with Homeboy dozens of times before this incident and most members of my hostfamily did not know I was with him, or at least I thought they did not know. One day Bi’s husband
Mohamed came to the household to ask if I would come to his school to teach English to his students.
After asking me, he quickly added “We won’t be able to walk together *to the school+ because in Somali
culture it’s unacceptable for a man to walk with his best friend’s wife”. However, every time I went to
teach English he would pick me up from my host-residence and walk me to and from the school, as well
as to and from his house when I would visit Bi. If he was concerned about us walking together I was
unsure why he always picked me up and I had an inclination that my host-relatives had asked him to do
so to ensure my safety.
I had the intention of having Somali female interpreters to help me conduct interviews and ask
questions to those Somali women that did not speak English. However it became quickly apparent that
this would not be the case. None of the female members of my host-family spoke English except for a
couple of words. One young woman had previously lived at the host-household (before my arrival) who
spoke English fluently; it was my intention that this woman would be my main informant and translator
and that I would be able to ask the other female members of my host-family questions about their lives
through her. However, just prior to my arrival she departed for the Kenyan Coast and did not return
without notice until the middle of February. After her return, I would approach her to discuss some of
my questions and she would often give short answers and say “well, I think you have a lot to work with
what I just told you”. I took her to different locations a couple of times and out for lunch (which I paid
for) but when I did not buy her items which she heavily tried to influence me to buy, she cut off any
further detailed contact and avoided me until she left the country because she was migrating to Asia.
The family also had a lot of problems with her behaviour which they regarded as immoral such as
smoking, drinking, and staying out late and perhaps she resented my freedom and was why she was
distant with me. When I was corresponding with the women of my host-family, it was usually done
50
through Aabo or Ahmed who spoke English. Having to rely on male translators also happened
sometimes at Bi’s salon, Hooyo’s retail stall, and Sua’s cosmetic shop. I quickly began to learn basic
greetings and actually learned the most from corresponding with the three year old, Su, who I also
formed a special relationship with. By the end of my stay, my Somali language skills improved so that I
could attempt to communicate with the vocabulary that I had learned during my three months in
Nairobi and was able to loosely follow conversations in Somali (I was also able to understand what
people were saying in Swahili although I communicated less in Swahili than in the Somali language).
While I began to quickly pick out words of sentences in Somali I could understand that when my hostfamily was talking about me they would use the word “Adan” instead of “Alisa” (the Somali term for
white is adan, while black is madow, and are used to describe skin color). They never called me adan to
my face, only when I was not part of the direct conversation.
Most instances when leaving Eastleigh without members of my host-family I would change my
clothes on the matatus or in taxis. I would remove my outer Islamic styles of clothing including hijab, or
jilabaab, which is a conservative head and body covering worn by almost all Somali women in public
Eastleigh, and always my shareer if I was wearing it, revealing my Western-style of dress. Entering into
Eastleigh I would put on my Islamic clothing and feeling self-conscious had to make sure my hair was
covered before getting there. Altering clothing styles was something I saw three Somali girls do at
different times while on a matatu. I felt very comfortable in Eastleigh wearing local Islamic-Somali styles
of dress and wore hijab and long skirts every time I was in public in Eastleigh. However, outside of
Eastleigh, such as in the Central Business District, I felt uncomfortable wearing this style. One day I met
Sua and Sam downtown at Nairobi’s biggest mosque. I was unsure of how to negotiate my appearance
around my friends and around members of the Somali community outside of the context of Eastleigh. I
did not know if I should veil or not, as I wanted to be seen as respectful but not fake. When I asked the
girls if I should wear it or not they said, “Yes, wear it, it’s smart”. When I was wearing Western style of
clothing in South C, a neighbourhood with a significant Somali community, two Somali women (one
middle-aged and the other in her twenties) made a negative remark about the way I looked wearing
pants and having my hair showing; my host-brother confronted them about the remark and in English
said “come on auntie, have some respect, this isn’t Somalia”. In addition, arriving or departing from a
hotel in downtown Nairobi wearing my Somali style of dress was a great way to start conversations with
Somalis that were frequently staying there.
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CHAPTER SIX
“Somali Girls Like White”
Following Eastleigh’s Somali Women and the Valorization of Light Skin
In this chapter I aim to highlight and interpret the information that I gathered over the period of
fieldwork in Eastleigh in order to demonstrate the valorization of light skin as a Somali feminine beauty
ideal. By collecting both women’s and men’s narratives and opinions on beauty I strive to identify what
features they regard as beautiful and why. Through creative and unconventional methods of looking at
images in magazines and makeup artistry, I aim to show what Somali women claim to think is beautiful
and how they construct their appearance through cosmetics, as well as how they desire me to construct
their makeup look. I intend to highlight the daily media forms and advertising that Somalis are exposed
to which perpetuate a beauty ideal that values fair complexions above darker ones. By identifying the
commodity goods that are available for sale in Eastleigh and Somali women’s beauty consumption
practices, I aim to show that the global economy is implicated in the choices that women make
regarding the construction of their appearances. I also intend to draw attention to the stories of health
risks and side effects linked to the use of certain whitening products. I propose that girls from a very
young age are taught to construct their appearance to look lighter in skin tone and valorize fair skin over
darker complexions. I suggest that weddings are significant social settings where it becomes important
for women to construct a light skin tone appearance in order to attract potential marriage partners. In
addition, by documenting feminine gender roles I also aim to show that a woman’s beauty is an
important means to increase her social mobility in a society largely controlled by men.
STORIES OF SOMALI FEMININE BEAUTY
It was expressed to me by my informants that feminine beauty in Eastleigh’s Somali culture is
associated with physical appearances such as having lighter skin and eyes, having long “soft” hair, lining
the eyes with kohl eyeliner, being slightly overweight, wearing henna designs on the hands and feet,
having henna-dyed hair, having pierced ears, wearing gold jewellery, having her hair concealed, and
dressing in loose-fitting clothing; with spiritual characteristics such as a having a strong faith in Islam,
fearing Allah, following the pillars of Islam, fearing the “evil eye” (so as not to attract jealousy); and
mental characteristics such as being quiet, naive, undereducated, and subservient to men and elders,
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coming from a good family, being content with staying in the home raising children and taking care of
the family, and not being jealous (including when new wives are introduced into the family). As Somalis
are devout Muslims it is also interesting to note that the term beauty is one of the ninety-nine names
for Allah, thus being beautiful could be regarded as a way of honouring Allah. Having white or light skin
was always remarked to me as a feature of Somali beauty and high social status and was almost always
provided as the first answer when I would ask questions about beauty. When asking what was
considered an unattractive or ugly physical appearance to have, my informants expressed that dark skin
and “hard” hair were unappealing features, even though many in the Somali female population have
these so-called devalued characteristics. Other physical aspects considered unattractive included being
too skinny or too fat, having acne-prone skin, a broad nose, and also having yellow stained teeth (which
may be linked to immorality as it is a common, permanent result of chewing miraa). Only one informant
stated that she thought it was ugly when women tried to lighten their skin.
The color of a Somali woman’s skin immediately communicates symbolic meanings and within
Nairobi’s Somali community ideas of ‘pure’ or ‘bad’ relate to skin colour; if one has white skin some
people considered that to be a sign of purity, while darker skinned individuals were seen in a negative
light. Descriptions associated with light skin tone were identified to me as “pure”, “bella”, and “good”.
Strangers would approach me and say how they thought white people were pure and how white people
had “good heads and pure hearts”. Somalis use the word white to characterize Somalis with fair skin
tones, and this may reflect certain aspects of a white identity held by many Euro-Americans, like higher
social status and advantage as described by Trouillot’s (1994) global racial hierarchy, aspects that may
also be experienced by Somalis who appear to have light skin. Trying to explain to me the symbolisms
that the English terms for the colors white and black hold, my host-brother asked me why I thought that
in English dictionaries meanings lined to the words for white, light, and fair, reflected positive qualities
while black and dark terms were associated with negative things. I was unable to answer why and it
would be interesting to look at a Somali-English dictionary (of which I tried to find but it is extremely
difficult and very expensive when for sale) to see if the meanings of such terms also express positive and
negative descriptions.
When I asked informants during an informal interview at a cosmetic shop in Eastleigh what is
considered beauty to Somalis, the typical responses were “light skin” and “white”, or “the lighter, the
better”. Many Somali informants in Eastleigh commented on how women want to have fair, “white”
skin, yet they could never tell me why they desired it. “You have nice skin color”, “White girls look
better”, “Girls want to be white like you”, and “I want a white wife like you” were comments made to
53
me regarding my fair (white) complexion by close contacts. Somali women and men could never tell me
why they thought white skin was regarded as beautiful, only that it looked better. This response is
comparable to the responses that many white women give when they are asked why they want to be
tanned – “It just looks better”. One young woman told me “If you walk past a group of people and you
have dark skin, no one will look at you, but if you have light skin, everyone will turn their head”. This
suggests that light skin receives positive attention and people turn their head in attraction possibly
because very light or fair skin is not a common natural feature among Somali women, making it a rare
attribute. Comments like “they just like white better”, “it looks nicer”, and “it’s a sign of beauty” reveal
distinguishingly little of why they valorize fair complexions. I went to a very wealthy Somali family’s
home outside of Eastleigh in an affluent neighbourhood with my host-mother for a semi-formal
interview. I asked the matriarch who we were visiting, “What kind of beauty is valued in Somali
culture?” She replied “White skin. Somali women use a lot of products and chemicals to whiten their
skin. Today they use a lot of chemicals but in the past they used herbal products to lighten”. The
popularity of using chemical based lighteners is likely a result of the expansion of multinational cosmetic
corporations into markets previously untouched, as well as due to the more permanent and faster
lightening effects that chemicals can cause unlike the more gentle herbal lighteners. The Somali women
that I was in contact with came from a range of social, clan, and ethnic backgrounds, yet they all valued
light skin above dark. However, the ways in which women consume and perform a light skin beauty ideal
may differ; affluent women will be able to use the more expensive, and often safer, whitening
treatments while women with less access to financial capital may resort to using cheaper and more toxic
methods that may also not work as effectively or as safely and could leave the women’s faces in ruin.
During a conversation with Ahmed about what he thinks is a beautiful Somali woman he told
me: “They use Diana; all that stuff. They become white, they like white but they don’t like black”. I
responded “Yah, but what do you like for beauty, how do you like Somali women, or what do you think
is attractive?” He laughed awkwardly “If you see her face. But most Somali girls, they like white, they
use all that shit”. “What, whitening cream?” I asked. “Yah, whitening cream, yah” he answered. “Yah but
what do you like? What do you think is pretty or attractive?” I probed. He laughed again and went on to
tell me “Somalis like white, that’s what they like. Somalis want to be white. If you go to weddings, stuff
like that, you don’t think these girls are Somalis, they’re all white. If you go to wedding at KCC (Kenyan
Conference Center in downtown Nairobi) you see all the people are white, most boys are black, some
are white, but the girls are one hundred percent white. If you go to Somalia, my place, everywhere, they
are white, most people are white people, and most Somali white girls use Diana. You can get it in
54
Hargeisa, most of them use that shit from Hargeisa” (Hargeisa is a city in Somalia). “What is it? Diana?” I
questioned. “Yah, Diana, that’s what they call it. Diana. D-i-a-n-a” he spelled it. “Is it like a product? Like
a brand?” I asked him with the intention that he would continue with the conversation. “Yah, I will show
you, you can get it here, you can buy it in the shops. If you say do you have Diana, they can show you,
you can buy it there”. The conversation was interrupted by my host-brother Aabo and afterwards
Ahmed did not go back to the beauty topic and instead started talking about his desire to migrate to the
US, something he frequently stated. At another instance talking about beauty with Ahmed, he
mentioned “I think most Somali girls like to be white because Somali guys don’t like black girls, eighty
percent don’t like black girls. And that is why every Somali girl is using Diana. For example, like me, I
hate black girls, if she is brown it is ok, but if she is ugly, I will run away” he laughs.
I conducted a formal interview at a popular coffee shop in downtown Nairobi one Saturday in
March with four young Somali women, including Mo and Ray, who I met through Homeboy. Homeboy
told them that I wanted to talk about Somali beauty and he arranged our first meeting. After
introductions and informal talk about myself and my experience in Eastleigh, one girl asked me if I
wanted to know more about physical or mental beauty. I said “Which one do you think is more
important?” and in unison they all responded “Mental”. Ray, who was the most opinionated informant,
claimed “If a Somali girl has a good character that is what makes a Somali woman beautiful, also if she
follows Islam and does not bring shame to her family”. Then they switched the conversation to discuss
physical beauty and said “having light skin is beautiful” and “people like when girls have really light
skin”. I commented on how I was surprised that there were so many cosmetics used to make the skin
appear lighter, like whitening soaps and creams, and they quickly pointed out that they did not like to
use those types of products. One of the girls who had the darkest skin out of the group said “I think it’s
ugly when girls try to change their skin color”. In order to generate more discussion I gave them some
examples of beauty ideals in Europe and North America such as being skinny and having perfect, white,
straight teeth, big or fake breasts, and tanned skin. I told them, to their surprise, that I usually use
tanning creams because I don’t like how white my skin looks. They said “People are funny, they are
never happy with what they have. They might have curly hair and they want it straight” and I replied,
“Yes, a lot of women in North America with straight hair wish they could have curly hair or the other
way around”. The discussion continued and we explored topics related to fashion and expectations of
women that I will discuss in a later section.
One afternoon I was having lunch and conducting a semi-informal interview at the home of my
Somali Bantu friends. I was asking Mohamed to ask Bi (who did not speak English) what she thought was
55
beauty and I kept hearing her say “Adan” so I knew she was talking about white skin. I then talked with
Mohamed’s brother who came over for lunch. He was single, in his early forties, and had a lot to say
about white women and how he could never imagine a white woman falling in love with a Somali man. I
told him how in Canada interracial relationships and dating are common; and he knew I was engaged to
a Somali man whom I referred to as my husband while in Nairobi. He said that this made him happy and
that he really supports multiculturalism like in Canada because the world is changing and he thought
people needed to integrate. He told me about how one time in his village, when he was eighteen, an
Italian woman who temporarily lived there waved at him from across a courtyard. He then went on to
say how he was love sick for days and that was the happiest moment for him because she waved at him;
he never imagined that it would be possible that a white woman would wave at him. This man said that
he could never believe in having a white wife because then he would “have the best”. He said “If you
were my wife and I brought you back to my village, people from all around, from different villages,
would come to see you. I’d be famous like the president”. He continued to claim that white women are
so beautiful and that it is good in Somali culture to have a lighter skin tone. It was good because it was
linked to wealth; “A lighter skinned girl can get a better husband, which means he is wealthy”. Only a
rich man could obtain a wife with light skin, a woman who would be regarded as very prestigious and
would require a substantial bride wealth (a feature of marriage custom in Somali culture). He told me
that what men desired most was a woman “who was not usual” and that Somali men wanted an
“exceptional and extraordinary girl”. He then made a reference to me being unusual and that that was a
good thing. He went on further to say that it was important for Somali girls in love to deny the boy and
the boys needed to be patient. It was important for girls to play shy and show that they don’t have
feelings for the guy too soon. He also discussed how having male children in Somali culture was the
most valued, although it is starting to change and now people also like having girls. He expressed to me
that if a family cannot have children they are often viewed as cursed; most families want to have a lot of
children and it is regarded as a blessing from Allah. This man, who was a bachelor and had no wife or
children, then said “If a woman cannot have children, why would a man want to marry her?”
“The lighter you are the better your chances of getting the husband you want”, “I want a white
wife”, “I want a white wife with blue eyes like you” and “Darker skin limits your chances of marriage”,
were all comments I heard by Somali men and women linking marriage ability or preference to lighter
skinned individuals. Women stated that the type of husband they wanted was a Somali man from the
Euro-American Diaspora or one who has wealth living in Nairobi. It was explained to me that if a girl’s
skin is darker, males will not look at her as much, if at all. Although Somalis prefer to be endogamous
56
within their clan, choosing a partner based on skin colour is also a factor that needs to be considered
based on the comments I heard. Preference to marry among certain clans is still present within Somali
society and Bantus, with their dark skin and low social status, are still largely regarded as inferior
marriage partners. However, the preference for marrying within one’s clan or among affiliated clans is
changing. Men from overseas come with more financial resources and have more selection to marry
who they desire regardless of clan affiliation but based more on a woman’s physical appearance. None
of my informants made comments about, or told me about, their own clan membership, though they
did ask what clan my husband was from, which I do not know. The men from the Diaspora are largely
able to choose whoever they want because their bargaining power is money earned in the Diaspora;
with money they can have a lighter skinned wife and thus, even more status. Not only that, but the
wife’s family also gains status if she can move to North America or Europe, and then potentially either
bring her family or send money to them. It is also important to note, although many people do marry
among their own or affiliated clans, men frequently commented about their personal preferences for
white women and remarked that “having a white wife would be the absolute best” and that they would
be highly respected among their peers if they did. However, comments about marriage (men always
asked me for marriage or for me to help them find a white wife) with a white woman or foreigner could
also be for the potential to migrate to Western countries such as Europe or North America. Men also
joked about wanting to “make an Obama” since there had been a lot of talk in Nairobi regarding the
recent election of the American President Barak Obama.
Somalis living in affluent Northern countries are also associated with fair skin. Their skin
becomes lighter as they are not as exposed to the intensity of the sun’s rays as people who reside near
the equator are. I noticed that Somalis from the overseas Diaspora were visually lighter at their arrival in
Nairobi compared to their departure, as most people tan as they become more exposed to the
increased UV rays. Some comments I overheard associated the increase in wealth and living standards of
those who migrated to Europe and North America with the increased fairness that their skin tone
experienced. However, it was never talked about or replied during these comments that the reason why
Somalis who lived in Northern countries returned to Nairobi with lighter skin complexions was due to
limited sun exposure.
Conversing with a young man of twenty-two at Sua’s cosmetic shop revealed his preference for
girls with light skin. He approached the shop and said “Do you remember me? I was the one who
wanted you to find me a wife with blue eyes”, to which I replied laughingly, “Sorry, a lot of Somali guys
ask me that”. People in the shop laughed and then he said “I am serious; I want a white wife like you”. I
57
took the opportunity to ask him why he desired a white wife and he replied “I just do, they are better”.
“Yah” I responded, “but why?” “They look nicer” he claimed. Then Sua chimed in and said while smiling
“Yah, a white man looks better than a Somali man”, trying to insult him a bit. I asked the young man
“Why don’t you want to be with a Somali girl?” to which he replied “They are mean”. “What makes
them mean?” I responded and he said “Somali girls are evil”. “Evil?” I questioned, “What do you mean?”
“They’re mean and their cooking is terrible!” Sua gave him a stern look and said to him “Waryaaa (a
Somali term for you or boy and only directed to males in a negative connotation), you’re being mean!” I
was not sure if he was being serious or just teasing Sua, but I believed his responses that he desired
women with fair skin over those with darker skin tones were true. I showed him my photo album and he
kept asking me if I had any relatives that he could marry. I said “All my female cousins are either too old
or too young for you”. He said “How young?” I said “Ten”, to which he said that I found disturbing,
“That’s ok, I’ll take them”. A picture of my young cousins came next and he pointed to the girl with fair
skin and blue eyes, and not to the other girl with darker skin and brown eyes, and said “I’ll take her”.
The young man passed on his email address to me and was very stern about me finding a white wife for
him, “I will be mad at you if you don’t find me one” he said seriously before departing while me and Sua
continued to look at my photos. Sua then saw a picture of my brother and began to tell me how she
thought he was handsome and wanted to marry him based on the picture alone; on another occasion,
she asked me again to set her up with my brother and how she wanted a white husband because she
thought they were good-looking.
The performance of a more Eurocentric beauty ideal is not limited to lightening the shade of
one’s skin, but also extends to temporarily or permanently changing the natural texture of Somali
women’s hair. Women claimed to not want to have very curly or coarse hair called tin jareer, features
that are associated with Bantu Somalis, Kenyans, and other sub-Saharan Africans. Ahmed was telling me
how to spell jareer and made a comment about hair textures. “Like Kenyan people they don’t have soft
hair, they are jareer” he said while laughing. Frequenting Bi’s beauty salon I noticed that when women
would come in for hair services, Bi always straightened the women’s hair as the preferred style. After
shampooing and conditioning the hair, she would wrap the entire head of hair in one-inch rollers and
place the client under an extremely hot, professional, hair dryer, of which she had two in her salon. This
dryer was set on the highest degree and the client’s hair was dried for twenty minutes. After the hair
was dry, Bi used a big, round brush and brushed out all the curl while also blow-drying the hair by hand.
This resulted in a straight hair style, curled under at the ends, with a bit of volume at the roots. After the
hair was styled, the women would immediately tie their hair in a bun and put on their masar and
58
jilabaab, which may have easily ruined or altered the finished hairstyle. I had the experience of having Bi
style my naturally curly hair a couple of times in the same manner she did with her other customers, yet
I found the extreme heat of the dryer unbearable and I had to ask her to turn the temperature down
after five minutes because it hurt so badly. The first time I requested this, as I shrank further in the seat
to limit the burn, Bi glanced at the other customers and raised her eyebrows and turned the heat down,
what I felt was barely a fraction. I had the feeling that she thought I could not handle physical pain that
the Somali women could manage with. When I asked Bi through Mohamed what were the most popular
hair styles that Somali women asked for, he said her response was that they like long straight hair and
that for weddings they like to get their hair done in big curls or with one curl on each side framing the
face and the rest of the hair either tied back or straightened and left loose. In Bi’s beauty salon there
were styling products made by the brand Motions, as well as a few boxes of chemical hair straightening
products made by Dark & Lovely and Carlson Soft Sheen. These products are multinational cosmetic
brands that were represented to the most extensive degree in all retail locations across Nairobi; Dark &
Lovely and Carlson Soft Sheen were often the only brands of hair relaxers found for sale, thus controlling
most of the chemical hair straightening market.
MAKEUP AND MAGAZINE NARRATIVES
By narrating women’s responses on what they regarded as beautiful images of women found in
magazines and how they wanted me to construct their appearance through makeup, I intend to further
demonstrate the perpetuation of light skin as the dominant standard of beauty among Somali women. I
often offered to do makeup on female relatives and friends in exchange for allowing me to be present
and talk with them about beauty. However, many women I asked, including Sua and Sam, who said they
wanted me to do their makeup declined whenever I tried to make arrangements to do so. The first
couple of times I asked to do the makeup on the women of my host-family they did not seem to be too
interested. When my host-brother told his mother that I worked as a makeup artist in Canada and that I
should do her makeup, her reaction was less than enthusiastic. At first I thought it was because she did
not wear makeup but a few days after my arrival (after she began to get ready for her day in front of me,
something she did not do initially) I realized that she wore kohl eyeliner daily to work. It was not until I
asked the younger women in their twenties if I could do their makeup as an important part of my school
work that they agreed, but only after fifteen minutes of talking about it amongst themselves and Aabo.
Sari volunteered first and then Halle, but Mary and Fatima declined because they said they had to pray
and go out. Fatima did get ready and left soon after to go to her English lessons, but Mary remained
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home for the entire afternoon. As soon as we sat down and I brought out my makeup kit everyone
appeared and was sitting around us looking at all my makeup products, including Aabo, and Mary kept
pointing to the ones that she liked. I felt she wanted some of the makeup but I did not give it to her at
that time. I then brought out local and international fashion magazines and asked Aabo to tell the girls
to look through them for a style that they would like me to do on them. When I asked the women what
colours they would like me to use, and they said “Adan”. I asked them if they saw a picture of a makeup
style in one of the magazines and they pointed to a series of photos depicting a very pale girl with
straight, blonde hair, modelling a variety of lingerie in a wheat field under the bright sun. The ironic
thing is that the makeup on the model was hardly visible. I felt uncomfortable about them wanting to
have light or white skin. I negotiated by saying “How about I just do what I think looks good” to which
they said ok. I felt uncomfortable about using the same shade of face powder on them that I would use
on myself; however, I did put a light application in certain areas on their faces such as down the center
of the nose, and on the upper cheekbones and temples, areas that I flatteringly highlight in my makeup
art on many women with diverse shades of skin color. Once I finished applying the makeup they were
very enthusiastic and kept saying “Bella, bella” (a commonly used term used by Somalis to express that
something is beautiful, good, pleasant, etc). However, Sari washed her makeup off before twenty
minutes had passed and before I finished applying makeup on Halle. I had wanted to take pictures of
them with their makeup designs, so I told Halle not to take the makeup off until I photographed her.
After I took her picture she said “Bella” when she looked at the digital photo, but shortly after she also
washed the makeup off and said she had to pray. Makeup was often seen as a barrier to prayer, but I
never fully determined which sorts of makeup were barriers or not, or if it was dependent on the
person. I figured that kohl eyeliner was not a barrier because most women wore it frequently and all
day, as well as lipstick which Sua always wore; when I saw Sua washing for prayer she never took her
lipstick off, but I had also seen her brush water over her socks instead of actually washing her feet which
she should have done. It was directly told to me that nail polish was a barrier to prayer; one day at Bi’s
salon, her sister was taking her nail polish off with paint thinner and I commented to her that she was
the first Somali I saw wearing nail polish. She told me that it cannot be worn during prayer because the
nails will not be clean if they have the barrier of the polish and that girls can only wear it when they are
menstruating; women who are menstruating are seen as impure and whether or not they should pray is
disputed among Islamic scholars.
When reading Euro-American fashion magazines the girls of my host-family pointed to pictures
of American R&B singers Beyoncé and Ashanti and said “Bella, I like, I like”. A couple of female
60
informants, who spoke English and had more contact with the Somali Diaspora in Western countries,
said they liked Tyra Banks and Oprah Winfrey after seeing their images in the magazine. Looking through
magazines with Zain and Sari was a fun way for me to learn Somali words and for them to learn the
English translation. I would point to something like colors, clothing articles, etc, and say the English term
and they would give me the Somali equivalent; it helped me learn some of the beauty related words
which I later used when trying to communicate in Somali. Examining an American magazine targeted to
black audiences, which I bought in the Netherlands, I also noticed that most of the models were
represented with light or medium skin tones; I did not come across one single model with dark skin. The
representation of black women with lighter features is common in the media, a fact that also sways
what choices of female beauty women have to look to or can choose from.
Looking through the girls’ makeup collections I gained information for what items they use to
construct their appearance. In both Mary’s and Fatima’s makeup collections, there were very light
(white) face powders made by Covergirl (pressed powder #235, a makeup powder suited for fair skin
with a pink undertone), mascara, herbal kohl eyeliner (the brand Shaeyes from India that Hooyo has for
sale in her shop), an eye-shadow, and lipsticks and lip glosses of a few shades. I had given them the lip
glosses, as well as perfumes, shower gels, and sparkly body creams, which were also in their makeup
bags, as small gifts when I arrived. Sari did not have a makeup bag, possibly as a result of her recent
migration, and put the cosmetics I gave her in Fatima’s case. One afternoon I made arrangements to
take Mary, Fatima, and Sari to Uhuru Park in downtown Nairobi so that we could take some pictures
together. I was intending to use this outing as a way to see how the girls would adorn themselves for
this particular and infrequent outing. However, instead of constructing their own appearances, they
asked me to do their makeup which I happily agreed to. I first applied makeup on Mary who asked that I
only do her eyes. After she was done, Mary started applying white face powder all over her face as well
as Fatima’s. Then Sari applied it on her face before I started to do her makeup. After we were done, I
gave the three of them a makeup palette as a gift containing blush and eye shadows and they were very
happy. When Mary, Fatima, Sari and I left the house and were on the public street, the girls were very
shy, huddling together, giggling and looking at the ground while we walked. I immediately noticed the
difference in men’s reactions toward the girls as if they all knew, which they probably did, that they
were looking different than usual. I was not sure if the men’s attention was a direct result of the girls’
lighter appearance due to the white face powder or if it also had to do with the makeup I applied on
their eyes and lips, or even due to their behaviour. We had a lot of attention as we walked a few blocks
to get a taxi and at Uhuru Park the girls and I had a lot of fun posing for pictures.
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MEDIA, ADVERTISING, AND A LIGHT SKIN BEAUTY IDEAL
In a world where global pop culture is subjecting billions of people around the world to the
same images, it also makes these people desire the same products, ways of life, and symbols of status in
an ever connected world. Images of pop culture found in Nairobi are selected versions of social and
political life that are produced for mass consumption. Many Somali women spend their days inside the
family home, and after household chores and responsibilities are completed, the women I lived with
enjoyed their main form of entertainment – the TV. “Since the beginning of movie making and
television, the screen has been the perfect in-your-face beauty propaganda medium” (Oumeish 2001:
381), thus the images of beauty that women are exposed to on the TV also become valued and
appropriated. All the actresses and most of the actors on TV movies and programs have light skin unless
they are playing an undesirable character. My host-family mainly watched Bollywood movies, Indian
cable channels, Somali music videos, Latin American and American soap operas, Somali news, and the
Al-Jazeera news channel, on a daily basis. Bollywood films, Somali music videos from around the
Diaspora, and Latin American soap operas, in particular, featured women (and to a lesser extent males)
with fair, clear, smooth skin. Except for the news programs, women in Hindi media are predominantly
portrayed having light skin tone, dressed in sexy clothing with large breasts, thin waists, long, thick,
shiny black hair, and big eyes lined with kohl. Bollywood is very popular with many Indian movies
dubbed in Somali. When there was electricity, most afternoons and late evenings were spent watching a
variety of Bollywood movies on TV. I was surprised to realize that most of the time love interests were
characterized by people with very fair skin tones while villains were portrayed visibly darker. Bollywood
movies not only play a significant role in perpetuating the fair skin beauty ideal, but also feminine
gender roles; they portray women as subservient to men, being quiet voiced, unsuccessfully fighting off
the sexually interested man, or as vixens whose job it is to seduce the man by teasing or flirting with
him. Most of the actresses are also dressed in revealing Western fashions or alternate between Western
styles and Indian saris. Latin American soap opera productions feature only light skinned actors in a
positive or dominant position while darker skinned individuals are positioned as negative or subservient
characters. “Throughout Latin America, skin tone is a major marker of status and a form of symbolic
capital” (Glenn 2008: 13) and this is reflected through media portrayals. The clothing that the women
wear in the soap operas is very tight and revealing, and women are most often presented in a
subservient manner. Somali music videos that are viewed daily by my host-family are produced mainly
from, and in, the Euro-American Diaspora. They all showcase lighter skin toned female singers, with no
representation of females with a medium to darker skin tone. The women are often portrayed with their
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hair exposed and when I asked Zain why they don’t have their hair covered, she responded that they
have no fear of Allah. The Somali singers also wear clothing styles that I only saw worn during weddings
and bridal parties. Even on internet sites dedicated to all things Somali, a light skinned feminine beauty
ideal is perpetuated. Advertisements on these sites feature fair skinned Somali female singers,
interracial dating sites that show lighter skinned women in romantic poses with darker skinned black
males, as well as Muslim matrimony sites that only feature women with fair skin and light eyes.
Many Somalis travel by matatu to get around the city. Matatu drivers are known for their crazy
driving and unsafe but cheap riding conditions. The fee between Eastleigh and downtown Nairobi on the
#6 or #9 routes costs Ksh20 per ride (about 20 Euro cents), and one can expect the unexpected; you may
arrive at the destination after running out of gas in the middle of a traffic jam, being stuck in a traffic jam
for over an hour, having a flat tire, to being held up by thieves, being pick-pocketed, or being harassed
by the police. Matatus play local and international hip hop, R&B, and gospel music; some are “pimped
out” and many are equipped with at least one or a handful of flat screen TVs, expensive base speakers,
and may have Christmas lights and other festive decorations embellishing the interior. Both the inside
and outside of matatus are mostly decorated with pictures, paintings, and graffiti designs of American
music artists like Tupac, The Game, 50Cent, and female R&B singers, as well as other internationally
recognized figures, such as President Obama, Osama Bin Laden, Jesus Christ, George W. Bush, Fidel
Castro, and even Hitler. Neon colored tape is sometimes used so that the pictures will stand out at night.
When women are portrayed in the images they are represented by a small selection of lighter skin toned
American celebrities including Rihanna, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Ashanti, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey,
Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Katie Holmes, Keisha Cole, Ciara and Jennifer Lopez. Light skin is the only
representation of beauty and desire, whereas darker skinned women are not portrayed at all. In
addition, Mary J. Blige and Kelly Rowland, who possess medium skin tones, were not depicted to as high
a degree as the stars with lighter skin tones. Colorism, which favours lighter skinned individuals over
darker ones, is a feature embedded in American media; thus, it also affects how status and beauty come
to be measured and valued by Nairobi’s inhabitants through repetitive viewing of these American
celebrity images. It is also important to note that in American Hip-Hop media, women are also portrayed
in a standardized sexual manner; in the videos played on the matatus, women are either provocatively
dancing or are selling female sexuality to advertise the music. These Hip-Hop images on matatus also
represent images of upward mobility for black males in particular; a rags to riches tale that is regularly
featured within the Hip-Hop discourse. I took matatus on a regular basis and did not see one single
white person, or mzungu, riding on any of the city’s matatus (however, this could be a result of the
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routes I travelled); it was ironic to see images of people with light skin color surrounding the travellers
who mostly had dark skin.
When women travel throughout Nairobi they are bombarded with images that reinforce a
specific representation of how they should adorn themselves to be deemed socially desirable. From
picture billboards that advertise global brands like Fair & Lovely and Coke, to smaller paintings created
locally which advertise services in one of the tens of thousands of home-based enterprises and street
side stalls, they all overwhelmingly project a fair skin beauty ideal. Large billboards that line Nairobi’s
most congested streets advertise products for huge multinational conglomerates which use
psychological methods in order to entice people to consume the specific item. Nivea is a cosmetic brand
that uses the most advertising space in Nairobi and is even advertised on people’s cars. However, not to
the extent that Toyota is advertised on a large amount of the cars I saw driving throughout the city.
Although most billboards do not depict white people, they also do not depict people with very dark or
black skin. Driving out onto Mombasa Road leaving the middle-class neighbourhood of South C (a
residential area with a significant Somali population), one could not miss a large billboard advertising
Fair & Lovely fairness creams The advertisement depicts three African women who represent three
different skin types (dry, normal, oily) in order to market the product to as many people as possible. The
slogan reads “Fairness that’s fresh and beautiful”, implying that only fair skin can be beautiful. Most
beauty consumption sites in Eastleigh advertise their businesses on signs which are mainly painted on to
the business’s walls or doors (although there are a few businesses that use professionally created plastic
signage), in order to advertise and sell beauty services. Entrepreneurs use socially meaningful
representations of what beautiful women are considered to look like; images of women were portrayed
with lighter skin tones and rarely featured dark skin. The majority of images that are painted on metal or
concrete often depict feet and hands with henna designs, women with curlers in their hair, and even
women in white wedding costumes; the important observation is that the majority of these women are
intentionally painted with a lighter skin tone while women with brown coloring were hardly ever
painted in these types of signs. The more expensive, plastic signs featured photographs of women and
again, only of women with lighter skin tones.
When Somali women are embedded in Easteigh’s Fashion District they are also bombarded
with specific images on the material goods found for sale. Product packaging for fashion and cosmetic
merchandise, among other goods, uses images of beauty to create a consumptive desire among the
people it targets. Advertisements on packaging, which aim to sell products, often use white women with
blue eyes, and thick blonde hair, Indian women with fair skin and thick, long dark hair, East Asian
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women with snow-white skin and dressed in traditional garb, and Emirate women wearing a black hijab
and often a niqab, and portrayed with fair skin and dramatic, heavily eye-shadowed and kohl-lined eyes.
In addition, pictures of women on clothing and fabric labels never depict African women but mainly
Chinese or Japanese women wrapped in flowing, colourful, fabrics. Some of the Western style t-shirts
(also called baby t’s) produced in China, were designed with a picture of a fair skinned Chinese girl’s face
on the front of the shirt. Pictures of women on perfume packaging, perfume being an item that is
frequently consumed by Somali women, always feature women with lighter skin tones such as blondes
wearing Western clothing and staring provocatively at the camera or at the male gaze, light skinned
Emirate women wearing a niqab, or fair skinned Indian women with long, thick, straight, black hair. The
portrayal of straight hair is another symbol that tells African women that their natural characteristics are
not beautiful and may explain why Somali informants desired long, dark, shiny, “soft” hair. Islamic
advertisements found locally depict light skinned Middle Eastern Muslim women, not Somali. I did not
find any image advertisements on commodity goods that used Somali women to sell products. Islamic
images, posters, cell phone art, computer images, and calendars, reproduce images of light skinned Arab
girls with their hands shown in prayer and wearing a white al-almira, which is an Islamic female head
covering worn mainly by pre-pubescent girls, and even retail stores have fair skinned mannequins
displaying Islamic hair coverings. Product packaging presents a specific image which Somali females are
excluded from, yet try and emulate and embody in their identity performance. The portrayal of fair
skinned models (mainly Caucasian, Arab, or Indian) as a main standard of beauty persuades women to
consume skin lightening cosmetics. It is also important to realize that the global youth are increasingly
entangled in what Trouillot (2001: 129) calls “the production of desire” which has an effect on the
consumption practices of younger Somali women and girls who are the main consumers of skin
lightening cosmetics.
COSMETIC CONSUMPTION
Commodity products that Somali women are able to purchase flow through global trade
networks due to Eastleigh’s transformation as the major consumer market in East Africa. They are sold
in Eastleigh’s numerous shopping malls and by street-side vendors and are predominantly imported
from Dubai, India, China, and Japan. The cosmetic shops do not have much variety between each other
and largely sell the same brands and merchandise. There are many international cosmetic brand
products for sale in Eastleigh shops such as Fair & Lovely, Nivea, St. Ives, Dove, Johnson & Johnson Baby
Lotion, Vaseline, Lux, Palmers Coco Butter, and Lady Diana. These brands are operated by huge
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conglomerates which control most of the world’s most popular food, home, and personal care items,
and thus, they also control what is available for sale in consumer markets. Trouillot (2001: 128) states
that “the spatial distribution of capital is increasingly selective” and that “a few firms now control the
world market for most major commodities” (Trouillot 2001: 129). Fair & Lovely skin lightening cosmetics
formed a large part of the cosmetic inventory for sale in Eastleigh and was a popular brand consumed by
many of my informants. Hindustan Unilever, based in India, is the parent company of Fair & Lovely and
Lux brands. It is under the umbrella of a Dutch-Anglo company, Unilever, which controls fifty-two
percent of HU brand. Unilever also owns the brands Vaseline, as well as Dove. St. Ives is another highly
visible brand also sold in Eastleigh; its parent company, Alberto Culver, also owns Motions and Soft &
Beautiful, two hair care brands that dominate the hair care market in Nairobi and were available
everywhere for sale in Eastleigh shops. These products mark the local landscape in a very visible way,
servicing the identities and lifestyles of local women in Eastleigh and the greater Nairobi area, as well as
in other East African countries as goods are often exported. My Somali informants were not passive
victims to the culture industries but active and discriminated consumers who think before consuming
products; Fatima and Sari directly requested fairness creams when I offered to buy them some
cosmetics, an example illustrated further on, while Hooyo specifically requested me to buy her “No adan
cream”.
In the cosmetic shops that line Eastleigh’s Fashion District, fairness products were well stocked
and represented a large percentage of the goods for sale. Clothing retail shops, fabric stalls, and almost
every other retail location had at least one skin lightening cosmetic for sale such as whitening face wash,
soap, cream, and powders, as well as colour maintainer creams (containing spf 4 sunscreen) that are
also called anti-tan creams that protect the skin from further tanning. In a fairly new grocery, a wide
range skin lighteners and brighteners were strategically placed where most customers would pass by.
Huge 750 ml tubs of whitening creams were stocked on the horizontal ends of the cosmetic isle making
them highly visible in the store. In Eastleigh a tube of face lightening cream can cost between Ksh300
and Ksh1300 depending on the brand name. The most common brands I saw being consumed by
informants in Eastleigh were Fair & Lovely and Lady Diana. Fair & Lovely is the more expensive brand,
costing between Ksh800 and Ksh1300. I observed it being used by some of my informants who lived in a
spacious new apartment, as well as by members of my host-family who received it from people who
came to visit from overseas and bought it for them. Many Somalis wait for US$100 every month sent
from relatives abroad and use that money to survive on in Eastleigh, and most likely also purchase skin
lightening cosmetics with this income. Time of migration impacts how gender is consumed as many
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women who have just arrived from Somali do not have access to financial capital to spend on
commodity consumption. The only forms of skin whitening cosmetics that I observed purchased and
consumed were fairness soaps, serums, and creams, the traditional herbal facial mask called qasli, and
makeup powders intended for fair skin tones. The observation that most women used white face
powders may also be due to the fact that powders suited for darker skin tones were almost non-existent
for sale in Nairobi. The powder called qasli used to make the traditional herbal facial mask was not
found easily and was only found sold in shops which sold other Somali goods such as wedding and
nationalistic paraphernalia (items like flags, wedding beads and henna powder from Somalia, etc); it was
not represented in the selection of commodity goods for sale in Eastleigh to any great extent unlike the
cosmetic skin lighteners produced by multinational corporations which were for sale in almost every
retail location.
The predominant cosmetic products that the women of my host-family used included scented
bar soap such as Fa and whitening soaps made by brands called Rose and Chinese Mother of Pearl,
deodorants, perfumes, and body sprays, moisturizing face and body creams produced by the European
brand Oriflame which is sold by Sam through catalogue orders, as well as Johnson & Johnson Baby
Lotion, Fair & Lovely and Oriflame whitening cream, kohl eyeliner, lipstick, and henna which is called
ilihan in Somali. Ilihan is an important cosmetic that most Somali women are adorned with all the time.
The skin is stained by the henna and lasts for about two weeks until it fades. Women use henna to dye
the tips of their fingers and toes, to create designs on areas of their hands, feet, lower legs and arms,
and sometimes collar bone, and also use it to dye their hair. Men can use henna but only to dye their
hair and beards in line with the practices of the Prophet Mohammed. I had never seen Hooyo without
henna on her fingernails, the bottoms of her feet, or on her toes. Although the other women of my hostfamily had their finger and toe nails dyed most of the time, they only got detailed henna designs applied
on their hands twice because we were having dance parties. Ilihan, is applied in elaborate styles for
parties, Islamic festivities such as Eid, weddings, and bridal parties, and black hair dye mixed with paint
thinner (as Bi did in her salon) was often used to outline the designs and make them stand out more. In
addition to the elaborate designs, new adornment items such as glitter and rhinestones are used to
further enhance the henna creations done mostly for brides. Another cosmetic regularly used by Mary
and Sari was qasli, a traditional, finely ground, green powder mixed with water to make a paste. This
herbal facial mask was reported to brighten and temporarily lighten skin color and also to prevent sun
damage when one was using fairness creams. It was applied to the face a few times a week in the
comfort of the household and left on for a half hour to an hour. I only saw Sari and Mary use it and they
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are also the ones who have lighter skin tones compared to the rest of the family. The members of my
host-family get a lot of their cosmetics from two relatives who come to visit from overseas, but also buy
kohl eyeliner and perfume from Hooyo’s shop, and facial and body creams from other stalls nearby.
Most material culture, including real gold jewellery, fabrics, Islamic and Western style clothes, in
addition to the cosmetics, is bought at local stalls and shops within a three block radius of my hostfamily’s residence.
My informant and good friend Sam gave me her Oriflame cosmetic product catalogue to take
home to my host-residence for a few days in order to choose some products to purchase. I showed the
catalogue to Fatima and Sari and told them to pick out a product they would like. They stopped on the
pages advertising whitening/fairness products and pointed to the fairness cream. I said “Adan cream” as
I wasn’t sure if they realized that it was fairness cream. They nodded saying “Ha” which means yes in
Somali. I asked my host-brother to tell them, which he did and then said “Yes, they know what it is”.
Fatima went into the girls’ closet and brought out an almost empty tube of Fair & Lovely Fade Cream
and pointed to it and said “Same”. I was not sure if ordering these creams would be ethical because of
the social and health consequences that are associated with using such cosmetics. Since this is what
they asked for, I did not want to say no and ended up purchasing two fairness creams as a gift for them.
These skin whitening creams were intended for use on the face, as most are, although I also came across
whitening soaps and creams specifically marketed for use on the body; the emphasis placed
predominantly on altering the color of the face may be because Somali women cover most of their body
except for their face. After I received the products I went to my host-mother’s shop and met the two
girls. There were other older women around so I stepped to the side and got the girls to come over to
me. As I was taking the bag out of my backpack, my host-mother came over and grabbed the bag and
looked inside. The girls looked surprised at her actions and then she passed it over to them and walked
back to the group of women with a slight smile on her face. The young women of my host-family do not
get to conspicuously consume as they wish to, because their spending capabilities are completely
dependent on Hooyo; therefore I took them shopping for beauty and fashion products a few times
which they seemed to enjoy. After further research on the detrimental side effects of using these
cosmetics, I felt that buying these whitening cosmetics was unethical and on my next trip to see my
host-relatives I intend to try and convince the girls to stop using all these skin lightening products. I had
not fully realized the health effects that I was contributing to and I did not want them to suffer from ill
health, physical or mental. Fortunately, after researching more on Fair & Lovely, I found that they do not
use hydroquinone or other highly toxic chemicals. However, as a company they engage in extreme and
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blatant colorism within their advertising which can be argued to be just as detrimental as the physical
consequences. Fair & Lovely is one of the more expensive skin lightening cosmetic brands available in
Nairobi which may be a reason why it does not use highly harmful ingredients.
I regularly went to my friend Sua’s cosmetic shop in Eastleigh to observe what products people
were buying, as well as to communicate with Somalis about beauty in what I thought was a nonintimidating environment (I knew that Somalis could be xenophobic or suspicious of foreigners but my
presence generated great interest and people were always coming to talk to me). Sua claimed that
perfume was her best selling product and it was used as a daily part of life just like cream and soap.
However, during my times spent at her shop I noticed that it was actually phone cards that she sold the
most of. She said her parents owned the shop but only she and her brother work there. She told me that
her parents go to Dubai twice a year to buy enough products to last the shop six months, but she had
not been able to go yet. Some of the shop owners I met in the shopping malls were Somalis who had
moved to Nairobi after time spent abroad in Europe and North America. One man from the USA said
that he owned a shop in Eastleigh and one in Minnesota, but that he made a lot more money in
Eastleigh than he did in the US. He told me the rent is cheap in Eastleigh and that he did not have to pay
for insurance which saved him a lot of money. Many shops that are situated next to each other are
operated by the same family. One young male informant that worked at a women’s clothing shop
introduced me to his sister who worked at the shop on the right side of his and then he introduced me
to his male cousin who ran the shop next to him on the left side. Family members work together to keep
the profits within their family and the proximity of male relatives to the female workers may be a
method used to make sure the women are not conducting immoral behaviour or are protected from
harassment. Sua commented to me that she wore her shareer within her shop so that men would not
bother her, as well as to prevent her skin from exposure to the dust that blew through the open doors of
the shopping mall.
Although men also use cosmetic lightening soaps and creams to make their skin lighter, this
practice was not nearly as popular among men as women. This could have to do with men having more
power than women and not having to be as physically attractive to woo potential partners. However,
this statement may reflect the fact that although I was in contact with men, I was not looking through
their material culture to the extent that I was with women. Cosmetic companies are realizing the
potential of the largely untapped male cosmetic market. The skin lightening cosmetic brand, Clear
Essence, advertises commercials featuring a light skinned male boxer who claims to use Clear Essence
Fade Cream to fade dark spots and clear blemishes. The commercial ends with the statement “give
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yourself a champion look” as a tool to market the creams to men. Fair & Lovely, the most popular skin
lightening cosmetic brand for sale in Nairobi, has also tapped into the men’s market by offering Fair &
Handsome, skin lightening products suited specifically for men. However, Ahmed incorrectly told me
that “There are no products for men. We use the lady’s stuff, like Diana”, but maybe he was just talking
about the brands that he used. Aabo told me that he wants to have lighter skin and found it hard to
believe that many white people want to have tanned skin and spend lots of money on tanning creams.
He said that he sometimes uses fairness creams and did not like to spend time in the sun due to his skin
becoming darker.
NEGATIVE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES DUE TO COSMETIC SKIN LIGHTENING
Skin lighteners often contain toxic ingredients; two of the most popular are hydroquinone and
mercury. Due to such ingredients, whitening products understandably make the epidermis and dermis
extremely sensitive and can even cause burning to the skin, especially when the skin is exposed to
sunlight. It was expressed to me by a couple of women that some women wear a shareer specifically to
protect their face from sun exposure, and not necessarily for religious purposes (there were many
reasons provided to me for wearing the ninja which included religion, criminality, sexuality, gender, and
skin tanning prevention, as a barrier to unappealing smells, attention, and dust, and as a fashion style
due to Saudi Arabia’s influence in Eastleigh and on its Somali female consumers). Realizing the harmful
effects of the sun on lightened or bleached skin, the widespread use of shareers by Somali women may
in fact be due to their common practice of skin lightening. One informant told me a story about a
woman who used whitening products all over her body. When she was in childbirth she had
complications and required a Caesarean section. When doctors cut her skin open, the skin was so thin
that it was unable to be sutured and the woman bled to death. Another story presented to me was
about a woman who used whitening products on her body parts that were frequently exposed, such as
her face, neck and arms. She looked really white and on her wedding night her husband asked her to
undress; she stood in front of him in the dark with no clothes on and he again asked her to take off her
t-shirt, she said that she had, and when he turned on the light he saw that the skin on her body was
much darker than the skin on her face and arms. It was as if she had a t-shirt on because the skin tones
between the different body parts were so drastic. The husband was very unhappy at being duped into
believing she was lighter than her natural complexion. Although this was related to me as real, these
stories could be told as an urban legend or myth that is used to persuade women to not to use skin
lightening or bleaching cosmetics.
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There were many inexpensive skin lightening and bleaching cosmetics available in almost every
single Eastleigh shop. The cheap and toxic fairness products that contain such harmful elements are still
widely available for consumption in various regions of Nairobi, even though Kenya has banned them.
Some of the banned products listed on the Kenyan Bureau of Standards website (2009) were easily seen
for sale in plain view, suggesting that the ban is widely ignored and authorities are not spending
resources in making sure these harmful products do not end up for purchase on store shelves. The
health complications that have been recorded by doctors and dermatologists are common to what
people told me in response to why skin lightening cosmetics are bad or why they do not personally use
them. People, who use the cosmetics with toxic ingredients, can also end up with disfiguring black
marks; I saw a few young Somali girls with such side effects on the sides of their face in addition to boils
and severe acne which are also considered a result of using harmful and abrasive skin whiteners.
VALORIZING LIGHT SKIN FROM AN EARLY AGE
I didn’t realize at how young of an age that a fair skin ideal begins to be embodied through
feminine body adornment practices until the last week of my fieldwork. This realization occurred when I
went to a Somali bridal party taking place at Sam’s house. I arrived before other guests and she and her
female family members were adorning themselves in preparation of the party, a social event that was
only to be attended by females and younger male children (less than ten years of age). As I was
observing their adornment practices, I was shocked that my friend began applying white face powder to
her two year old niece. This observation led me to conclude that altering a female’s appearance in order
to appear more fair skinned is engrained in Somali society as part of feminine identity and this
embodiment begins much earlier than after puberty as I had originally thought. In addition, it is not only
used to attract male attention, as I first assumed, as this form of body adornment occurred for an event
to take place only in the presence of women.
In addition, young girls may be socialized to value white skin through play. Su played with an old
baby doll missing an arm and legs; it was stylized with white skin and blue eyes. Since it was falling apart
I wanted to buy a new baby doll for her. I searched all over Nairobi and to my surprise I could not find a
single baby doll stylized with black/brown skin and brown eyes. All the baby dolls I found available for
sale were white with blue eyes and most of them also had long, straight, blonde hair. Since this was all
the selection I could choose from, I ended up purchasing one of these white dolls instead of what I had
intended to buy – a doll that Su could identify to. While gathering information on the internet for this
thesis, I came across a short documentary film, called “A Girl Like Me” (Davis 2006) that presents how
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young African American girls are socialized to valorize light skin over dark. In this film the creators
reproduced a psychological test by putting both a black and a white baby doll in front of small black
children. They then asked the kids questions, such as which doll they would rather play with, and which
doll they thought was nice and which one was bad. Fifteen of the twenty-one children chose to play with
the white doll; the kids also picked the white doll as the nice one and also said that the black one was
bad. When children are unable to play with dolls that they can identify with it, it creates a significant
impact on their self-esteem and self-worth.
PERFORMANCE OF LIGHT SKIN AT SOMALI WEDDINGS
Weddings are the time when Somali women adorn their bodies in significant ways different
from any other time. Weddings are a social event in which males and females are more able to freely
socialize without serious consequences; during weddings were the only times I witnessed young men
and women socializing in a relaxed and open manner. The only other place where I saw young men and
women interacting in a larger group-setting was in schools (a setting where post-pubescent females
rarely sat next to males and where at least half of the girls were wearing a ninja). There is a lot of
material culture that is only used during the wedding event. Weddings occur all the time in Eastleigh’s
Somali community and they are regarded as the main social event that people, especially young, single
people, look forward to as everyone is able to express themselves more freely compared to most other
times. During weddings, girls and women can have their hair exposed and it is the main time when
women and girls wear more expressive makeup, clothing, and other adornment items such as jewellery
as well as more elaborate henna designs; particular wedding adornment styles are also dependent on
the female’s age. The majority of teenage and young women wear either a satin or brightly coloured
masar, a sheer garbaasar draped around the shoulders, a very wide, dirac tucked in to a googarad at
the waist. The wedding style dirac is made of very thin material and many are transparent as a woman’s
bra can be seen through it. The young females wear high-heeled, strappy sandals, or other fancier high
heels that are normally not worn in everyday life. The girls usually match all the colours in their dirac
with their masar, googarad, garbaasar, handbags, shoes, and jewellery, and a few girls can be seen
wearing gold which is a sign of wealth and prestige. This popular, cultural wedding style worn by young
women is also complimented through the girls’ use of cosmetics. All the young girls at weddings had
very fair to light-brown skin and usually white powder could be seen on their faces from one meter
away. They all wore kohl eyeliner and a few wore mascara. A few of the girls were wearing more
makeup such as blush, eye shadow and/or red, pink or brown lipstick or gloss on their lips. Only a
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handful of females had their hair exposed including the bride and bridal party (three additional females).
Age, as well as place, plays a role in how gender is embodied and consumed. It was mainly the teenage
or unmarried women who were performing a light skinned beauty ideal. They may perform a
heightened standard of beauty during weddings more than other occasions because of the looser social
boundaries that are present among young males and females at these events. Performing to have light
skin and thus be considered as beautiful draws attention not only from the guys who may become
potential suitors, but also from a male’s family who may also be present at the wedding and who have
an opinion in potential marriage partners.
SOMALI FEMININE GENDER ROLES
Feminine gender roles impact the self-image of Somali women and their community. It is
important to highlight some of the expectations, values, and rules that govern Somali women’s lives in
order to demonstrate the choices that are or are not available to them. Feminine gender becomes a site
of oppression in a patriarchy society, a defining characteristic of Somali culture in Eastleigh. Feminine
identities are even more precarious when women become refugees, and although women throughout
the globe are experiencing greater rights and freedoms, such emancipations are not equally distributed
around the world; one of my female informants stated that she thought “Equal rights will come to
Somali women in about ten years”. Gender roles are rigorously upheld in Eastleigh and segregation
between the sexes is a blatant feature guiding rules of social conduct and behaviour. During semi-formal
interviews in a classroom setting where both males and females of various ages attended English classes
I learned about some of the feminine gender roles that are expected to be followed by Somali women.
Some of the older men expressed that in Somali culture a woman stays home, takes care of the kids, and
cooks. The teacher and other men claimed that Somali men don’t like when their wives are working for
other men; they referred to such a situation as being “a terrible curse from God”. Men told me that
women should only be with their husband and not working with other men. They also claimed that a
man would never stay at home and take care of the kids while the wife went to work. Mohamed, the
English teacher said “We’d ridicule him, it would be absurd and we would say what a foolish man, he is
like a female, what kind of man stays at home? The kids should be raised by the mother”. The female
students did not respond to my questions regarding feminine gender roles so I tried a different
approach. I asked female students what they like to do for fun and a thirty year old woman replied “I like
to read the Holy Koran” and another said “I like to cook”. I noticed in the classroom that when it was the
girls turn to respond to a question they spoke very softly and mostly giggled; they turned their heads to
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the wall or down and also many covered their faces and mouths with their jilabaabs. During many
interactions I watched between young men and women, in school and in other public places, I often
noticed that when a woman would laugh she would cover her mouth with her jilabaab, or bury her face
into her shoulder, so that the guy would not see her smile directly. The majority of the students in the
classes were men and young teenage boys, while only a handful out of the twenty or so students in each
class were female. The students mostly sat gender segregated though in close proximity due to the small
size of the classrooms. Female students did not like to stand up and answer questions and the younger
ones appeared very nervous when speaking in front of their classmates.
In Eastleigh being female means that one is socially and sexually restricted and clothing is used
as a tool to legitimize patriarchal control, as well as an expression of a woman’s faith in Islam. Even
though I am not Somali I was also subject to the feminine gender roles and clothing practices that must
be observed within my host-community’s society (this may also be a result of my relationship to the
family). I felt that I was restricted in my movements and I felt great social pressure to observe customs
of female dress in particular. Somali women’s dress habits are under strict rule; how a woman dresses
greatly depends on where she is and who she is with. In the family home, the women did not wear the
same outfits and styles as they did in the public sphere, except when going just a few meters outside of
the residence gate in order to buy fruit or drinks. In the early mornings, the women would not always
have their hair covered although sometimes they slept with their masar on. Women did not leave the
house without wearing a garabaasar or jilabaab and dirac, or a hijab with a long-sleeved shirt and long
skirt. On the public street a large amount of women could be seen wearing a shareer/ninja, and only
Mary wore it most times she left the household. Although pants were not worn by women in the past,
since the displacement of Somali women and experience of sexual violence due to war, many Somali
women have incorporated pants into their wardrobe, which are never worn without a skirt or a buibui
(long-sleeved, black, ankle-length, embellished overcoat) overtop. Su mainly wore pants in the
household realm, including in the courtyard, and many young female children, in particular school
children, could also be seen wearing pants under a skirt or a jilabaab. Pants, as well as white hijabs,
were part of school uniforms worn by Somali girls under knee-length jumpers. Jeans were very
uncommon in Eastleigh, but were a regular site worn under a buibui by Somali-Canadian and SomaliAmerican girls going to private school in the neighbourhood of South C. Talking with them I asked them
if they dress the same as they do in Canada and they exclaimed “No! We wear skinny jeans”, something
I never saw or could imagine seeing in Eastleigh where the tight style of skinny jeans would be
considered shameful. Su played in the household courtyard without a hijab but sometimes, when we
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took her out in public, my host-family would put a small jilabaab on her; however, dressing her in this
way was inconsistent and a few times she would just be wearing a t-shirt and a long skirt with pants
underneath. When I took Mary, Fatima, and Sari to Uhuru Park to take some pictures of us together, to
my surprise, Sari removed her buibui, masar, and head scarf, and we took a couple of shots of her with
her hair exposed in public. I thought that maybe she felt less restricted in the way she dressed since we
were out of Eastleigh even though there were plenty of Somalis at the park (although many of them
appeared in less conservative styles). Fatima, who I always saw dressed conservatively in public with
many layers underneath her long jilabaab, also removed her buibui and jilabaab to pose for a few
pictures yet she kept her masar on and her hair covered; both girls were wearing tight long-sleeved tshirts. Mary did not alter her clothing for the photos, but once we arrived at the park she told me to
take off my masar and garbaasar and tried to remove them, which I did. The altering of their clothing
may reveal that they felt they had less social restriction in Uhuru Park than in Eastleigh, just as I did, and
could push boundaries that they were unable to do so in Easlteigh. Mary may have not wanted to
challenge this due to her previous attack by the Al-Shaabab for what they considered her unacceptable
way of dressing in too tight of clothes.
Looking at pictures of Mohamed’s family in Somalia that he took during his trip there in
February, I was very surprised to see how exposed the women’s bodies were. In his pictures that
depicted scenes of the village center, I noticed only one woman wearing a jilabaab which is the most
common public attire for females to wear in Eastleigh. I was shocked when I saw his mother wearing the
traditional nomadic attire called guntina, which is made of two large squares of fabric and tied around
one shoulder and also around the waist; dressed only in her loosely-tied guntina, her breasts were
almost fully exposed. When I commented on my surprise he said “Those in the village are less civilized,
they are unlearned in Islam”. One night when I stayed in a hotel outside of Eastleigh, I invited my hostfamily over for a pizza party as another method to see how they would construct their appearance for a
different social situation. Hooyo arrived wearing a tightly-tied guntina, as I previously told her that I was
interested in traditional forms of Somali dress. However, she was wearing a bra underneath as well as
having a large garbaasar wrapped around her upper body, unlike the photo of Mohamed’s mother; this
was the only time I saw any of my host-relatives wear a guntina. When we had the first dance party at
the house one afternoon and evening, Hooyo gave me the traditional guntina, designed in red fabric
with multi-colored stripes, to wear to the event; when Mohamed and his brother saw pictures of me
wearing it they said that it was the most respected and beautiful style of dress for Somali women to
wear. At bridal parties I attended, the bride and bridesmaids would also be wearing this style of guntina,
75
but I never saw it worn in public on the streets in Eastleigh. The differences in clothing practices
depending on space and place suggest that women’s clothing practices have become more conservative
and socially controlled in conjunction with their migration to Eastleigh. In addition, conservative styles of
dress may be regarded by Somalis as a result of becoming more educated in Islamic values, as a way to
assert their religious identity in the face of displacement, or as a way to heighten the social differences
between Somalis and Kenyans.
My host-household was under the responsibility of Hooyo, and she and Zain were the only
women of the home who worked to support the family (in addition to remittances sent from family
overseas). Since someone always had to be at the host-residence due to safety concerns, Fatima, Sari,
and Su almost always remained home. It was not until March that Fatima began to leave in the
afternoons in order to attend English classes. A Somali female visiting from abroad told me that “Girls
are very isolated here, and since many of them are refugees they need to be hidden and that is why they
stay inside the house all day. They don’t have money and have nowhere to go. They help take care of
the house, cooking and childcare. Sometimes the people that have been here for a long time will be able
to work, but the girls who are not working are still being supported so they need to help out in other
ways”. Women who do work or go to school have more freedom, financially and/or socially, than those
who do not. Sua told me that she had gone to high school and she frequently commented to me how
she wanted to go to University like many of her friends. I asked her that if she wants to go to school so
bad why wasn’t she? She responded “My parents think what I have now, the shop, is enough for a
woman”. Talking with other Somali women and men that attended the University of Nairobi I realized
that many of their parents were educated and held degrees. The majority of my informants revealed to
me that girls usually stop their educations in high school when they are around the age of sixteen. Girls
are not really encouraged to go to school and my host-mother asked my fiancé why he wanted to be
with a woman that was more educated than him. According to one informant, an educated woman is
not desired by most men because then she will not be as subservient to her husband as if she would be
if she were uneducated. Going to school is also expensive, and for women that were uprooted, access to
education was limited during migration, and getting into school in Nairobi without basic education or
English language skills, let alone proper citizenship status, is extremely difficult.
Not all Somali women are stuck inside the house at all times but this does not indicate that they
are free from the control of men. Many young Somali women were present at various Nairobi night
clubs, with some appearing to be working girls (sex workers). The girls leave their homes in Islamic dress
and when they arrive at the night clubs they change into Western styles and I saw this occur three times
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in a nightclub parking lot during a few hours. Usually one or two girls are sitting in a car with three or
four men who sit in the car chewing miraa for the whole night; the girls put their Islamic clothing in very
large purses and walk in the clubs showing their hair and bodies like I had never seen Somali women do
so before. Some Somali girls in the nightclubs were wearing tight jeans and small tank tops or short
dresses while others wore tight jeans with tight long-sleeved t-shirts or tunics. All the Somali girls I saw
in these locations had their hair exposed and were wearing lots of makeup, including white face powder
and had their eyes, and sometimes lips, lined with black kohl. At one point sitting in an area designated
for talking, on the level below the dance floor, with tables, brighter lighting, and lower levels of music, I
sat at a table across from a young Somali man and woman who were having a conversation. Since I was
accompanied by a Somali man, my fiancé, the man at the other table struck up a conversation with us in
English. As the guys talked, I looked at the woman, who appeared to be in her late twenties, and could
see a layer of white face powder on her face. The man said that he lived in Tanzania and the woman
didn’t say too much except for introducing herself. When we left, my fiancé commented to me that he
thought she was a working girl as the particular nightclub was popular for sex workers and most women
did not appear to be there just to have fun. It seemed to me that when I would leave the dance clubs at
around 1 am more Somali girls would arrive as the night clubs are open until 7 or 8 am and 1 am is when
most people start arriving at the clubs. If I would have stayed longer I might have seen more Somali
women and may have been able to further determine if they were all performing an appearance of
having fair skin while also wearing clothes and behaving in ways that would not be accepted in Eastleigh.
Appearing to have fair skin may be a method of sex workers to gain more clients who are attracted to
the beauty of the light skinned woman.
Almost all Somali girls undergo Pharaonic circumcision. The removal of female genitals is an
extreme method of social control and denies women sexual pleasure while causes excessive pain
throughout her life. It also subjects women to male dominance and makes sex an uncomfortable,
anxiety filled, and painful experience. Nobody talked to me about this practice and I did not bring it up
as I did not know how to negotiate this topic. Some people are trying to eradicate it based on Islamic
teachings that do not condone it, but rather view it as a sin as it interferes with Allah’s creation.
However, as it is such a salient feature of Somali feminine identity, stopping this practice will not happen
quickly. One informant decided to tell me about what she regarded as men’s attitudes toward women as
well as sex in Somali culture without my prompting. First she found it important to clarify to me that she
was practicing celibacy and then told me of a common phrase related to sex within her community –
“stick it in and flip the hood” (referring to having sex with a woman who was also wearing a shareer, the
77
hood). I had previously heard this phrase expressed by young men sitting outside my house-residence
gate. She told me that some women wear shareers during sex because “Girls do not want to be seen
because they feel like objects and the man is just having sex to pleasure himself, and the girls feel shame
so they don’t want to show their face; they just want to pretend they are not really there. Somali men
think women are just sex objects; they don’t think Somali women have any feelings, no emotions”.
Describing men’s negative attitudes about women she went on to say that “Somali men just want a
woman who is quiet and doesn’t talk back and just do what the man says. They think if they make a
living the woman should just stay in the home and take care of the house and kids. They think it’s ok if
they pay the bills; maybe they give the wife a few dollars a week. She doesn’t have any financial stability
and has to depend on the man; they want their woman to be in the dark and not know anything or
question them”. This informant went on to tell me that she has “never dated a Somali guy before
because they are ignorant and just treat women as objects, I’ve only dated white guys”. “Somali guys
just judge me and don’t understand me; we are from two different worlds, they are all the same no
matter what age or if they are straight off the boat or not, they all have the same mentality, even the
men with PhD’s are the same, they just want a woman who will do what they say”. She found it
important to tell me that “There are a lot of Somali girls that are in hiding. They cover up in Eastleigh,
but uncover themselves when they hang out with different people, not Somalis. I don’t hang around
Somalis too much because they just gossip and talk and nothing ever changes. When you see a lot of
girls chasing after white guys, it’s for more than the money because white guys realize that women have
feelings and emotions and Somali men think women don’t have feelings, they don’t get that women
want to feel special and cared for”. Her opinion on Somali men compared to white men may be a result
of her own personal experiences in Eastleigh. She was often in trouble and shamed for her immoral
behaviour such as drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, as well as for her inappropriate styles of
dress, like pants, which she no longer wore (she also told me that she used to wear shorts in Eastleigh,
something I found incredibly hard to believe without her suffering from a violent attack). She may have
found that Somali men were not accepting of her behaviours, where as white men were, and her
statements may not reflect an accurate opinion of most men’s attitudes toward their wives.
One Eastleigh morning I was walking near the host-residence with my host-brother. We walked
past a young Somali man standing in a group with three other men against some retail kiosks behind
some street cart vendors. The young Somali man made a comment at the “mzungu” when all of a
sudden my host-brother exploded in rage and wanted to fist fight the man who made the comment. An
older middle aged woman tried to help me pull my host-brother away from the other guy who was
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standing back with his friends. My host-brother was spitting at the guy, calling him a refugee; I was very
scared. I managed to pull him away but soon we had to pass them on our way back to the house. I was
worried what drama would occur next. As we walked by, the young harasser apologized to my hostbrother and tried to make amends but my host-brother kept walking and then said “How would you like
it if someone said that about your wife?” When we got home I asked my host-brother what the guy had
said to make him so mad. My host-brother just responded, “He said something sexual about you, he
would have never said it to a Somali girl, it’s just because you’re white”. The sexual objectification of
white women may be allowed in public whereas sexual comments directed towards Somali women
would not be tolerated or acceptable. Not being able to sexually objectify Somali women in the same
ways one can publicly objectify a white woman does not necessarily contradict the statements of my
informant in the previous paragraph because women in both instances continue to be objectified.
Many Somali women marry when they are in their late teens to early twenties; this age group is
also the most frequent consumers of skin lightening cosmetics. It was often expressed to me that one’s
parents often make the final decision on who a girl will marry and arranged marriages seemed to be
very common and told outright to me. During an interview at an informant’s cosmetic shop, a young girl
in her early twenties invited me to her wedding in May. I asked if he was from the United States to
which she replied unenthusiastically “Yes”. “Are you happy about it?” I asked her as Sua giggled. The girl
rolled her eyes and responded “It’s my cousin I have to marry” indicating that it was not her choice but
that of her family. This may also reveal that Somali men living in affluent countries have more access to
brides than local men who cannot offer new and highly valued forms of citizenship or that a man living
overseas marries a relative to bring her to a new country. I asked them if cousin marriage happened a
lot to which they responded yes and then went on to tell me how men in Somali culture can have four
wives (Sua told me her father had three wives). When I was teaching English classes and told female
students that in Canada a woman can divorce her husband and a man can only have one wife, they
raised their eyebrows, while men who heard me say that would always laugh.
Somali bridal parties occur seven days after the wedding takes place. I went to a couple of such
parties that only women go to (besides young male children) and which occur during the late afternoon
and evening. At both the parties, the new brides both looked very unhappy. At the first party I asked Sua
why the bride did not smile for the whole evening and looked so miserable. Sua said “She’s fearing”; I
was not expecting that young women would be unhappy to be married and this was even more
apparent at the second bridal party that took place at Sam’s house. When the bride came in her eyes
were swollen to the point that it looked like she had been punched in the eyes. The bride did not smile,
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and she kept her head down, and cried during the festivities; when I asked Sam about it she also replied
“She’s fearing”. All the other women at the bridal parties were having a great time dancing and singing.
At the bridal parties I went to, all the guests brought a gift; however, it was not just any gift. The bride
sat in the middle of the room while the guests sang and clapped their hands; going in turns, each
woman gave the bride a gift. The only gifts that I saw given, as well as what Hooyo told me to bring,
were either a shash, which is a specific type of masar made of printed sateen fabric that only married
women are supposed to wear, or bed sheets .
A Somali woman, who was from overseas, told me about her friend who married a white man,
which was the first time I heard of a Somali woman married to one. She told me that “they had the most
beautiful children. Mixed children are so beautiful, you will have beautiful children”, which she said to
me because of my relationship with my Somali partner, a distant relative of hers. Many Somali women
may feel that having children with a white man will result in having lighter skinned children, thereby
helping them to achieve intergenerational social mobility and/or transnational mobility. Her daughter
later told me in a private conversation “A lot of women are stuck here and they have to marry men they
don’t want to because their families say so, or they find white guys who may just use them and not
support them whenever they feel like it”. This comment may have been due to her personal experience
as she told me she had dated a few white guys in the past, but also contradicts other statements she
made to me about how she thought that white men understood that Somali women had feelings and
were more caring than Somali men. The ability for Somali women to choose their husband is heavily
influenced, if not chosen directly, by their families. The financial resources that potential husbands have,
which women are largely prevented from accessing, are a governing feature that sways choices in
suitable marriage partners.
Somali feminine gender roles play a significant role in how gender is embodied and consumed;
the social value for Somali women to have fair or light skin is magnified by the cultural expectations that
shape women’s lives. Having significant less power than men within their society, women are positioned
to focus on their beauty as means to gain access to power and status within their community. Clothing
practices and gender norms such as having many children, being undereducated, not being able to
participate fully in public life, being sexually repressed or controlled, and having less individual choice in
marriage partners, further emphasize a woman’s subordinated position within a male centered society.
Young Somali women’s status and security is largely dependent on marriage prospects, and those
women that appear to have fair skin are regarded as more valuable to potential marriage partners, thus
increasing their social mobility.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Light Skin is Social Power
Concluding Remarks
Beauty is a form of social power for women; humans the world over are socialized to value
beautiful women above those who are deemed unattractive. What people consider beautiful is shaped
by a biological drive, as well as cultural values that have been shaped by historical, political, economic,
social, and technological processes. Women’s adornment practices are like a language that we can read
and interpret symbolic messages from. How women adorn themselves articulates their society’s cultural
standards of beauty and cosmetics are used to heighten beauty and signal social identity. The embodied
performance of feminine beauty and its related social practices interact and are shaped by the space
and place in which women are situated. Many young Somali women in Eastleigh use cosmetics to make
their skin appear lighter in color. They use cosmetics to alter their appearance for specific places,
particularly in social spheres, to communicate and manipulate social values that are tied to skin color as
they assert their Somali identity in a new country.
This thesis focuses on Somali women in Eastleigh and the worth that is put on light skin tones
which perpetuate a fair skinned, and Eurocentric, beauty ideal. Appearing to have a lighter skin
complexion is regarded by Somalis as beautiful and Somali women use cosmetic products to help them
attain and dominate a standard of beauty as a way to gain both local and transnational forms of social
power. Cosmetic skin lightening, although practiced around the world, is made complex by Somali
women in Nairobi. The preference for females in particular, to have a light or fair skin tone is verification
to the impact of dominant global, national, and local forces, related to wider social processes that
include post-colonialism, migration, and political, social, and transnational mobility, as well as global
mass media and consumption practices. Skin lightening practices are tied to larger circulations of power
within a global context and make up one of many dimensions, such as clothing (Akou 2004), in a process
of identity formation. Somalis, like all people, are situated within what Trouillot (1994) identifies as a
global racial hierarchy which is structured to advantage and maintain power in the hands of those who
occupy a white identity. Such a hierarchy has resulted in systematic racism that has helped to shape the
inequality experienced by people that are positioned within a black identity. Although dark skinned
people make up the majority of the people living in Nairobi, differences in skin tone and physical
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features like hair texture, eye colour, and bone structure, are exploited and come to mark the social
relations and positions that one comes to experience.
Reasons for Somali women to consume and perform a fair skinned beauty ideal are
multidimensional. Through cosmetic use Somali women are able to emphasize the differences in
physical appearances between themselves and Kenyans. They do this in order to dominate and
appropriate supremacy even though global and local discourses claim that female African refugees, who
are also Muslim, are one of the most marginalized social groups in the worldwide configuration of
power. Somali women are subjected to global transnational forces that heavily influence them to
consume and perform this specific representation of beauty. At the same time transnational links to the
Somali Diaspora have economically emancipated Somalis and have increased their social position in a
region where they continue to have little access to basic citizenship rights. The economic advantage has
also allowed them to be able to consume cosmetic lightening products that may be seen as luxury items,
which local Kenyans are not as able to do; creating difference between themselves and the Kenyan
population based on skin color works as a tool of exclusion. In addition, although Somali women are
subjugated by white supremacy, twenty-first century globalization, men, and their often illegal
citizenship status in Kenya, women perform and consume a light skinned beauty standard in order to
appropriate a level of power and to dominate over other women who have darker skin tones.
During the three months of fieldwork that I conducted among the Somali migrant community in
Nairobi, Kenya, I realized to what extent beauty based on a light skin tone was valorized in everyday life.
A range of explanations were revealed by Somalis on the topic of beauty and cosmetic skin lightening
and for their desire of “white” skin that ranged from aesthetic preference, to racism, both towards
Kenyans and in relation to themselves by Indians. My observations regarding the value placed on fair
skin tones and the embodiment of light skin through adornment practices, provide important answers
to how Somali feminine beauty, as well as Somali self-perception, is constructed, consumed, and
performed by Somali women living in Eastleigh. In narratives collected from Somali women and men
across social and clan/ethnic lines, white skin was always identified as the standard of beauty, and thus
a sign of social success and high status. As beauty is power, women used cosmetics to make their skin
tone appear lighter as a method to increase and emphasize their social as well as transnational mobility.
Beauty standards encourage women to conform and the preference for light skin complexion is an
aspect of social control. Restrictive feminine gender roles that Somali women experience
As well, some women who are lightening their skin may be trying to dissociate themselves from a black
identity that is often viewed, globally and locally, in a negative manner. Lightening as a method to
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increase social power is regarded by many Somali women as a viable option for those who are
positioned in a subjugated position within, as well as outside of, their society. However, even though
many young women are consuming this practice there is also a counter-discourse against it as stories of
health risks and complications were told to me, as well as women’s own claims that they were against
the practice.
The preference for Somali women to have light or white skin has been shaped over hundreds of
years. The self-perception of Somalis as different from sub-Saharan Africans is apparent from the
historical enslavement of the Bantus in Somalia to European colonization. In a post-colonial,
transnational world, the same cultural values based on valorizations of whiteness and beauty, largely set
by white men, are subjected to all people around the world through mass media which highly influence
conspicuous consumption practices. The reterritorialization of Somalia in Eastleigh has allowed the
Somali community that I was in contact with to maintain their identity as well as construct difference
between themselves and the local population, a distinction heightened by Somalis economic advantage
and women’s performance of a light skinned beauty ideal. Following Somali women in Eastleigh reveals
the importance of the social and political contexts that make skin color matter.
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Glossary
The spellings of the Somali and Swahili translations in this thesis were provided to me by two
Somalis who speak fluent Somali and English. Throughout this research I came across many different
spellings of the words, however I chose to maintain the spellings that my informants provided me with.
SOMALI – ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Aabo – Brother
Adan – White
Al-Amira – An Islamic style head covering worn by females
Al-Shabaab – Somali terrorist organization linked to Al-Qaeda
Aroos – Wedding
Bella – A term borrowed from Italian meaning beautiful
Buibui – A black, long-sleeved, ankle-length overcoat or dress worn as an outer layer in
public and often highly embellished with rhinestones or embroidery
Chai – Somali black tea heavily sweetened with sugar and often made with steamed
milk
Dirac – Local ethnic Somali dress
Eedo – Aunt
Garbaasar – Local ethnic head and body scarf made of a large 1x1.5 meter square fabric,
worn predominantly inside the home
Googarad – Local ethnic style, polyester slip worn underneath a dirac
Guntina/guuntiino – Ethnic, traditional Somali style of dress made of two pieces of
fabric which are wrapped around the waist and tied over one shoulder
Hawala – remittances sent from the Diaspora to Somalis in Kenya and Somalia that
largely bypass financial banking institutions
Hooyo – Mother
Iidhiib – “Give me”
Ilihan - Henna
Iskadhaaf – Loosely translated as forget about it, forget it, or never mind
Jareer – Hard, referring to a courser and tightly curled hair texture
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Jilabaab – Islamic style of head and body covering worn predominantly outside of the
public home
Madow – Black
Masar – A square piece of fabric folded into a triangle worn on the head from the
forehead and tied at the nape of the neck and is used by women to cover their hair
Masha’allah –A commonly expressed phrase meaning God is good
Miraa/qaad – Khat, plant leaves that are chewed for endless hours to produce a slight
feeling of euphoria and which is labelled an illegal drug in some European and North
American countries
Shareer /Ninja/ Niqab – a black face veil that conceals the face
Shash – A specific type of masar made of printed sateen fabric that only married women
are supposed to wear
Tin – Hair
Toog - thief
Waryaaa – You, a more derogatory way of calling a male
SWAHILI – ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Matatu – Local bus system
Mzungu – White foreigner
Sijui – “I don’t know”, refers to ethnic Somalis born in Nairobi or Kenya
Twende –“We go”, a common phrase said one departs
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References
Abdi, Mohamed Cawo
2007
Convergence of Civil War and the Religious Right: Reimagining Somali Women. Journal
of Women and Culture in Society 33 (1): 183-205.
Abdullahi, Mohamed Diriye
2001
Culture and Customs of Somalia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Adrien, Bonnie
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