A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder (African Articulations) (African Articulations, 2)

Julie Ann Ward was a British tourist and wildlife photographer who went missing in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve in 1988 and was eventually found to have been murdered. Her death and the protracted search for her killers, still at large, were hotly contested in the media. Many theories emerged as to how and why she died, generating three trials, several 'true crime' books, and much speculation and rumour. At the core of Grace Musila's study are the following questions: why would this young woman's death be the subject of such strong contestations of ideas and multiple truths? And what does this reveal about cultural productions of truth and knowledge in Kenya and Britain, particularly in the light of the responses to her disappearance of the Kenyan police, the British Foreign Office, and the British High Commission in Nairobi. Building on existing scholarship on African history, narrative, gender and postcolonial studies, the author reveals how the Julie Ward murder and its attendant discourses offer insights into the journeys of ideas, and how these traverse the porous boundaries of the relationship between Kenya and Britain, and, by extension, Africa and the Global North. Grace Musila is a lecturer in the English Department of Stellenbosch University, South Africa Julie Ann Ward was a British tourist and wildlife photographer who went missing in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve in 1988 and was eventually found to have been murdered. Her death and the protracted search for her killers, stillat large, were hotly contested in the media. Many theories emerged as to how and why she died, generating three trials, several "true crime" books, and much speculation and rumour. At the core of Musila's study are thefollowing questions: why would this young woman's death be the subject of such strong contestations of ideas and multiple truths? And what does this reveal about cultural productions of truth and knowledge in Kenya and Britain, particularly in the light of the responses to her disappearance of the Kenyan police, the British Foreign Office, and the British High Commission in Nairobi. Building on existing scholarship on African history, narrative, gender and postcolonial studies, the author reveals how the Julie Ward murder and its attendant discourses offer insights into the journeys of ideas, and how these traverse the porous boundaries of the relationship between Kenya and Britain, and, by extension, Africa and the Global North. Grace A. Musila is a lecturer in the English Department of Stellenbosch University, South Africa Frontcover 1 Contents 8 Photograph 10 Timeline 11 Maps 14 Acknowledgements 16 1 Introduction: Versions of Truth 20 Who was Julie Ward? 31 Exchanges in Contact Zones: Modernity and Africa 35 Fictions of the State 41 2 Portrait of an Assassin State 50 The Ledger of Kenya’s Assassinations 52 From White Man’s Country to Uhuru 67 3 Sex, Gender and the ‘Criminal’ State 82 Shadows of the ‘Black Peril’ 83 The Criminal State 96 The Sex Question in the Julie Ward Case 101 4 Julie Ward’s Death and the Kenyan Grapevine 110 Mapping the Julie Ward Grapevine 113 The Paradoxes of Modernity in Africa 127 Modernity and the Grapevine 131 5 Wildebeest, ‘Noble Savages’ and Moi’s Kenya: Cultural Illiteracies in the Search for Julie Ward’s Killers 138 In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz and Baroness Blixen 142 Tourism and the Maasai Question in the Julie Ward Case 149 Double Realities and Trompes l’OEil: Playing Hide and Seek with the Master’s Truths 158 6 Farms in Africa: Wildlife Tourism, Conservation and Whiteness in Postcolonial Africa 166 Land, Wildlife and Whiteness in Post/Colonial Kenya 168 Poachers and Murderers: Ivory Hunters (1989) and the Cholmondeley Killings 175 Julie Ward and Postcolonial Whiteness in Kenya 179 7 Fault Lines in the Official British Response to the Julie Ward Murder 186 Binary Lenses in John Ward’s The Animals are Innocent 187 Behind The Scenes: The Foreign Office, the Secret Intelligence Service and the British High Commission in Kenya 192 Fictive Imaginings of British Interests in The Constant Gardener 203 8 Engaging Modernity 212 Afterword 218 Bibliography 220 Index 233 Literary Criticism,African,Social Science,Criminology,gender studies,True Crime,Murder,General Re-examines this unresolved murder in Kenya and the underlying role of rumour, the media and inter-state relations on how the death has been reported and investigated.Julie Ann Ward was a British tourist and wildlife photographer who went missing in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve in 1988 and was eventually found to have been murdered. Her death and the protracted search for her killers, stillat large, were hotly contested in the media. Many theories emerged as to how and why she died, generating three trials, several'true crime'books, and much speculation and rumour. At the core of Musila's study are thefollowing questions: why would this young woman's death be the subject of such strong contestations of ideas and multiple truths? And what does this reveal about cultural productions of truth and knowledge in Kenya and Britain, particularly in the light of the responses to her disappearance of the Kenyan police, the British Foreign Office, and the British High Commission in Nairobi. Building on existing scholarship on African history, narrative, gender and postcolonial studies, the author reveals how the Julie Ward murder and its attendant discourses offer insights into the journeys of ideas, and how these traverse the porous boundaries of the relationship between Kenya and Britain, and, by extension, Africa and the Global North. Grace A. Musila is a lecturer in the English Department of Stellenbosch University, South Africa Re-examines this unresolved murder in Kenya and the underlying role of rumour, the media and inter-state relations on how the death has been reported and investigated. Julie Ann Ward was a British tourist and wildlife photographer who went missing in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve in 1988 and was eventually found to have been murdered. Her death and the protracted search for her killers, stillat large, were hotly contested in the media. Many theories emerged as to how and why she died, generating three trials, several "true crime" books, and much speculation and rumour. At the core of Musila's study are thefollowing why would this young woman's death be the subject of such strong contestations of ideas and multiple truths? And what does this reveal about cultural productions of truth and knowledge in Kenya and Britain, particularly in the light of the responses to her disappearance of the Kenyan police, the British Foreign Office, and the British High Commission in Nairobi. Building on existing scholarship on African history, narrative, gender and postcolonial studies, the author reveals how the Julie Ward murder and its attendant discourses offer insights into the journeys of ideas, and how these traverse the porous boundaries of the relationship between Kenya and Britain, and, by extension, Africa and the Global North. Grace A. Musila is a lecturer in the English Department of Stellenbosch University, South Africa