BIEA East African Research Fellows

In February 2010 BIEA instigated a new Research Fellowship scheme designed to assist the development of promising East African researchers. This full-time, two year position is targeted at post-masters to doctoral level and will allow the fellow to develop a significant peice of original research. The research fellows will be based at BIEA and will also perform a number of administrative duties including management of the joint BIEA/IFRA/UoN/NMK seminar series.

The first BIEA East African Research Fellowship was awarded to Miss Kerry Kyaa in February 2010.

Miss Kerry Kyaa 2010-2012

Kerry Kyaa took up the post as a research fellow following her MPH at the University of Nottingham. Her general research interests are in health promotion especially with regard to individual behaviour, social environments, and how these aspects synergise to influence health related behaviour.

Women and children in particular have been the themes that have dominated her work in the recent past with special interest in female circumcision, as well as reproductive and sexual health.

Her research at the BIEA will examine male experiences with female circumcision in the West Pokot Community of Rift Valley province in Kenya. It will attempt to explicate male involvement as the ‘muted collaborator’ in the perpetuation of a practice whose persistency is often associated with women.

A strength of the study is that it will approach men directly without using women as proxies. It will ask them questions in areas that are often ignored such as their perceptions on the circumcision of women, preference, and their lived experience with a circumcised significant other. The study will employ multiple data collection tools including literature reviews, in-depth qualitative interviews, and questionnaires. It is also anticipated that experiential on-site observation of male engagement in the circumcision ceremonies will be done and recorded.