A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Nordic Settler Identities in Colonial Kenya: Class, Nationality and Race in Bror and Karen Blixen's Transimperial Lives
Authors: Merivirta Raita
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
Publication year: 2023
Journal: Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Journal name in source: JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY
Journal acronym: J IMP COMMONW HIST
Volume: 51
First page : 487
Last page: 509
Number of pages: 23
ISSN: 0308-6534
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2023.2205695
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2023.2205695
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/180377563
The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twentieth century. This article focuses on the white settler identity and experience of a Nordic couple, Bror and Karen Blixen, in colonial East Africa in the 1910s, when they shared ownership of a coffee farm near the Ngong Hills. Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke was related to the Swedish royal family, his wife and future author Karen Blixen a member of a wealthy Danish family, whose money was used to purchase the coffee farm in 1913. This article examines how the Blixens as a Nordic couple fitted in the white settler colonial community and how they related to their African servants, farm workers and neighbours. Furthermore, it discusses the problems Bror Blixen's Swedish nationality caused to the couple during World War I, when the protectorate's Swedes were suspected of harbouring German sympathies.
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