Jambo Bwana: Kenya’s Barack Obama

Taking Barack Obama as a metonym for “the Kenyan abroad,” this article provides a speculative history of this figure, arguing
that the Kenyan abroad who was once viewed by Kenyans as an exile is now viewed as diasporic. Obama’s trip to Kenya as a diasporic tourist in Dream from My Father is a point of departure from which to map how the diasporic subject functions in the Kenyan imagination. At the heart of
this change from exile to diasporic is the remittance economy. This shift in terms signifies a change in which politics is
subordinated to economics. This article examines how this change, and the figure of Obama himself, produces different configurations
of Kenyan-ness as understood and practiced by the government, Kenyans abroad, and Kenyans in Kenya.