The 107th ASC Seminar will feature a talk by Dr.KINYUA Laban Kithinji, Visiting Researcher, at our center, on "Kenya's 2024 Gen Z Protests and the Aftermath: Waithood and Digital Storytelling in an Ethnic-Patronage Democracy"
The seminar will be held in a hybrid format, allowing participation via Zoom as well. Please be sure to register in advance.
Title: "Kenya's 2024 Gen Z Protests and the Aftermath: Waithood and Digital Storytelling in an Ethnic-Patronage Democracy"
Abstract:
The 2024 Gen Z-led protests in Kenya marked a rupture in the country's political history,challenging entrenched ethnopolitical structures and state-controlled narratives. While the immediate withdrawal of the Finance Bill and the dissolution of the cabinet represented important victories, the aftermath revealed the structural fragility of sustaining a decentralised, leaderless, and tribeless movement in a system still shaped by patronage politics and ethnic alignments.
This paper situates the Gen Z protests within Alcinda Honwana's concept of waithood, which captures the prolonged socio-economic limbo in which many African youth find themselves due to unemployment, precarity, and exclusion.
For Kenyan youth, the punitive tax regime of the 2024 Finance Bill crystallised this condition, galvanising a generation that has "waited" too long for economic and political inclusion. The protests thus became a collective refusal of waithood, signalling a demand for recognition and accountability from the state.
At the same time, the study highlights digital storytelling as the strategy that has both mobilised and sustained the protests. Through TikTok, YouTube, podcasts, and memes, young Kenyans narrated personal struggles, reframed civic identity, and built a moral community of resistance that transcended ethnic boundaries. And this continues todate. Digital storytelling--ranging from testimonies to satire and even rumours--has kept the protests alive online, ensuring their memory and urgency persist beyond the streets.
By foregrounding waithood and digital storytelling, this paper argues that the Gen Z protests represent more than episodic dissent. They reveal emerging forms of youth political mobilisation that challenge Kenya's ethnopolitical order and hold the promise of redefining democratic participation through digitally mediated forms of civic belonging.
Keywords: Gen Z protests; Waithood; Digital Storytelling; Digital Activism; Ethnic Mobilisation;
Collective Action Problem; Youth Political Mobilisation; Kenya
◆Speaker: Dr.KINYUA Laban Kithinji（Visiting Researcher, African Studies Center - TUFS）
◆Date：Thursday, November 6th, 2025/ 5:40p.m.～7:10p.m.（JST） 8:40a.m.～10:10a.m.（GMT)
◆Venue：Hybrid
・Onsite Room109（1F Research and lecture bldg.,TUFS Fuchu Campus）＆ Online（ZoomMeeting）
・Access：https://www.tufs.ac.jp/abouttufs/contactus/access.html
◆Language：English
◆Addmission fee：FREE
Please pre-register in advence from here. Or Use QR Code.
Registration deadline: Noon November 6th, 2025 (Thu)
The Zoom link will be sent after you pre-registerd.
◆Jointly organized by African Studies Center - TUFS and Kanto Branch of Japan Association for African Studies