German Studies Review

The legacy of European imperial rule continues to influence social developments in postcolonial African states today. Nina Berman's Germans on the Kenyan Coast: Land, Charity, and Romance offers fresh insight on the collective effect of gentrification, tourism, and global romance on citizens in Diani, Kenya, a diverse coastal community on the Indian Ocean. The author identifies Diani as "a microcosm of Kenya's ethnically and religiously diverse population," which allows her to distinguish Diani as a "contact zone" between residents, German expatriates, and international tourists, all who serve as the central focus of the study (2). Berman's emphasis on transnational relationships, in particular, illuminates the human element of globalization in Kenya and how ordinary citizens cope with hostile economic policies, international tourism, and land displacement (9). In this manner, Germans on the Kenyan Coast moves beyond a strictly quantitative analysis of social conditions in Diani and instead explores [End Page 149] how local communities sustain themselves in the face of economic impediments, global pressures, and international politics.

Berman devotes her analysis to three main dimensions: land, charity, and romance, each of which has its own section in the book. Chapter 2, "Land," reviews the recent history of land ownership in Diani and draws on rich oral histories to denote how tourism has shaped the regional infrastructure and real estate market in the region. For over a century, Berman argues, "from colonialism to independence and the neoliberal dimensions of globalization," local and foreign efforts to gentrify Diani have displaced a significant number of people, most notably Digo residents, from their traditional coastal lands (24). Berman shows that instead of abandoning their homelands entirely, however, Digo and Swahili citizens have taken to squatting on vacant tracts of coastline and pursuing professional relationships with German developers who can afford to own property. In this manner, international partnerships operate as both the cause and solution for the adverse effects of gentrification. Globalization furnishes local Kenyans a means to sustain a livelihood in Diani when they otherwise could not afford to own property, but also concurrently fosters the conditions that expel residents from their homes in the first place. As a result, Berman determines that current approaches to landownership in postindependence Kenya lie in "significant continuity" with policies under the former colonial regime (38).

In chapters 3 and 4, Berman addresses how "charity" and "romance" manipulate relationships between Kenyans and Germans in Diani. Throughout these two sections, which constitute a majority of the book, Berman interweaves excerpts from over 150 interviews she conducted between 2009 and 2016 with analysis of pertinent secondary sources and current statistical data. Germans on the Kenyan Coast, therefore, is as much an ethnography as it is a history of the social effects of globalization in Kenya—an outcome that the author openly acknowledges throughout the book (172). Berman illustrates in "Charity" how the increase of salaried employment opportunities and expansion of top-down government mediation in Diani have eliminated traditional institutions of communal solidarity, specifically utsi (village-wide charity) and mweria (small-group charity) (71). Through her interviews, the author exposes how the loss of these two social conventions has created significant tensions between residents who desire "modernization" and development, and those who still favor traditional practices of social cohesiveness. Berman also examines the impact of German humanitarian efforts in the region and how they have created what she calls a "pervasive culture of charity" (73). After scrutinizing four cases of Germanrun humanitarian works in Diani, she convincingly demonstrates that philanthropic activities overwhelmingly serve the moral desires of aid providers and ignore the needs of those who actually receive it.

In chapter 4, "Romance," Berman evaluates the nature of Kenyan-German romantic relationships and how marriage, in particular, offers Digo citizens agency [End Page 150] to pursue economic opportunities in an otherwise hostile social environment (129). She bases her findings on an analysis of thirteen years of marriage licenses housed in the Office of the Registrar of Marriages in Mombasa, Kenya. After constructing four archetypes of couples, Berman cites the factors that stabilize each relationship, specifically community support, fluid kinship relations, and sex. The author asserts that romantic engagements favorably affect housing and land ownership for Kenyan-German couples compared to marriages between local residents. Though an imperfect situation, these romantic relationships, Berman concludes, empower African Kenyans to maintain possession of their ancestral lands, buy property in new locations, and build homes on subdivisions that their families still own. In spite of this positive outcome, however, the author is careful to emphasize that the present situation in Diani still favors proprietors, developers, and tourists from the Global North.

Germans on the Kenyan Coast ends with a short epilogue that considers the future prospects of the area. Here the author's effort to feature stories of African agency culminates in hard conclusions about Diani's current economic trajectory. While the region has experienced significant agricultural expansion and urban gentrification, Berman resolves that too many people still do not have sufficient incomes and access to the benefits of economic development. Berman's focus on Kenyan agency in Diani is a welcome addition to the growing literary canon on the effects of globalization in postcolonial Africa. While attentive to specific financial and social occurrences in Diani, the study's conclusion presses one to question whether interactions between Europeans and Kenyans foster equivalent outcomes in other regions in Kenya. The absence of any direct comparison with areas outside of Diani, however, does not take away from the book's overall contribution. Berman provides a compelling narrative that hopefully inspires similar analyses of other postcolonial African states in the future.