This study examines family and kin relations of highly educated people in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The themes covered are marital relations and relations between the spouses and their extended family members, the main focus being on the obligations, loyalties and expectations in kin networks. The study is based on anthropological data, mainly in-depth interviews and participant observation. The aim of the research is to discuss various aspects of kin relations in the urban middle class context in contemporary Kenya, and to seek understanding to these by reflecting them to the changes in the Kenyan society, particularly as it comes to changes in gender relations. Analytically, the ideas of African feminist thinking, which emphasises communality, networking and negotiation, have been a fruitful point of departure to interpret family relations. Consequently, Kenyan families are looked as networks, where different obligations, responsibilities and loyalties are negotiated between the family members. To analyse these negotiated relationships further, concepts of 'kinscripts' and 'gender contracts' have been used. The postmodern and feminist understandings of fragmented, situational knowledges have been guiding the research analytically and methodologically; the aim has been to present some possible interpretations based on the data. The contradictories are present, both in the participants' lives and in the researcher's interpretations. To show this, lots of interview quotations are included in the text, and the encounters between the researcher and the participants are analysed. Some of the conclusions drawn from the data are the following: Family life seems to be based on different negotiations and contracts. Highly educated women try to negotiate ways to focus more on their nuclear or conjugal families, and to restrict their contacts and responsibilities with kin. Kin responsibilities are burdensome in financial terms, but even more, for the participants, in terms of restricting their privacy at home and in their marital relationships. These negotiations often lead to clashes with husbands and with other extended family members. Another issue to cause conflicts between the spouses is the fact that polygyny is a socially and legally accepted form of marriage in Kenya. Once a carefully defined institution between two family groupings sealed with customary procedures, mainly the bridewealth, has become an informal - and often a secret - arrangement between two individuals, lacking a defined structure. For women, this often means that their positions are more vulnerable. However, for some highly educated women, a position as a second wife may provide considerable amount of freedom and still a socially and financially secure status. For a highly educated first wife, the fact that the husband has another wife may be embarrassing, but otherwise, as long as the husband takes care of his responsibilities towards the children and the first wife, she is often able and willing to continue the marriage. In this research, it is pointed out that in the jungle of many overlapping and competing interests, loyalties and expectations, one has to make choices. Highly educated women are often placing their own interests, i.e. the interests of their own nuclear families ahead of those of the extended families, and this is causing transformations in contemporary Kenya, particularly as it comes to gender and family relations.
