DYNAMICS OF COMMERCIAL RUNNING IN KENYA

Jordan C. ApfeldThesis submitted for partial fulfillment for the degree of BACHELOR OF

ARTS in DEVELOPMENT STUDIESDevelopment Studies Brown University

April 15, 2011

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_____________________________YOUR NAME

_____________________________First Reader's Name

_____________________________Second Reader's Name

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© JORDAN C. APFELD, 2011

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ABSTRACT

This thesis set out to investigate Kenyan long-distance running from the perspective of third-world development. It identifies dependency in the international labor market for runners, and asks the question “how do we explain this dependency?”. To answer this, I hypothesized that actors in the movement have rational incentives to make athletics a market, to act in almost complete self-interest, and to avoid regulation that is already poor. Secondly, I hypothesized that dependency occurs here due to the transnationalizing of a historically informal economy. Finally, I hypothesize that the odd characterization of migrating runners as both skilled and unskilled workers creates trouble in responsibly formalizing the market for athletes.

The methodology used in this study began with unstructured interviews, a survey, and one month of participant observation. In re-examining the issues at hand, another round of interviews and participant observation became necessary—this time the interviews were semi-structured and filmed. Finally, in reviewing interview tapes and B-roll footage, I used qualitative interview, discourse, and content analysis in order to structure my findings into a 60-minute documentary.

It was found that most runners in Kenya are indeed dependent. In fact, most runners are also unsuccessful. The payoffs intrinsic to becoming a world-class athlete make it rational for surplus runners to run professionally, especially considering the alternative career options in rural western Kenya. Even so, the recruitment process for Kenyan runners is inefficient, contentious, and marred by dirty practices on both the demand side and the supply side of the market. The international labor market, along with the Athletics Kenya (the national governing body) is in dire need of revision and modification. With that said, even now the sport of athletics is more important to Kenya than it is harmful.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere gratitude to the following people without whom this would not have been possible:

Geoffrey Kirkman, Primary Advisor for getting on board with a very unconventional thesis, helping to provide the funding to make it possible, and for having faith that all loose ends would be tied by the end.

Gianpaulo Baiocchi, Second Reader for signing on at the last hour to read my thesis, and for meeting with me on many occasions to discuss my thoughts going into my senior year thesis.

Cornel Ban for originally planting the idea for my senior thesis, for letting me babble in his office much longer than the others, for breaking all the rules to let the project continue, and for being brave enough to show up for my thesis presentation

Gabriela Baiter for being my main collaborator in the nonconventional portion of this thesis. For signing onto my project and making it her own, putting in more late nights than I could ever expect of anyone. For being an icon of determination, optimism, and creativity wherever we happened to be.

Stephen Poletto for signing on in the eleventh hour of my thesis to do sound editing for the documentary. For being open to anything while continuing to assert some of the most amazing and imaginative ideas for which I could ever ask.

Jose Torrealba for warning me about sound.

Global Conversation, Global Media Project, & The Office of International Studies for funding the project from start to finish. Thanks especially to Geoffrey Kirkman, Karen Lynch (both of the GC), James Der Derian, Lindsay Richardson, Philip Gara (of the GMP), and Ana Karina Wildman (OIS). For taking the time out of your busy days to brainstorm with me.

Danny Musher, Will Baumann, Andrew Berg, Michael Chang, Ben Cohen, David Hernandez, Alex Toyoshima, Gina Walker, Jenna Harris, Leslie Primack, Ashley Kim, Evan Sharber, Emily Lea, Jennifer Clemmer, Oduch & Donna Pido, Jamal, Miltone, and Van Townsend

My wonderful family for being at my side regardless of what I choose to do. For letting me go to Kenya three times. For being excited when no one else would be. For embracing my love for development studies.

I am humbled by you all.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Introduction Key Terms Research Question Literature Review Hypothesis & Observable Implications Case Selection Why care Limitations Data & Methods Proposed Thesis Structure

Chapter Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Introduction Background Global Sport in the Global South Looking Ahead

Chapter Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Introduction Eldoret – A Rural Agricultural Setting Excavation of Running as a Resource Money Decisions Conclusion

Works Cited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Attached: Documentary Feature

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CHAPTER ONE

Thesis Introduction

Kenyan prowess in long-distance running (otherwise known as athletics in Kenya) was discovered in the later 1960’s with the shocking performances by Olympic medalist Kipchoge Keino; strengthened in the 1970’s with world record performances by Henry Rono; and confirmed and substantiated in the 1980’s with multiple Boston marathon wins by Ibrahim Hussein. Ever since these breakthrough performances, Kenyans have dominated international athletics in cross-country, trail-racing, road-racing, and track-and-field (any distance above the 800 meter run). In fact, seventy-five percent of all top international finishes by Kenyan athletes are won by members of one ethnic tribe (there are forty-two in total)—the Kalenjin. These Kalenjin runners, most of whom hail from rural western Kenya, join the Ethiopians, Moroccans, and a few Ugandans in an exclusive corps of unmatched talent. These runners can be labeled the superstars of their realm.

Because of this very local athletic phenomenon, star Kenyan runners have a chance to win both fame and fortune on the world stage. Even though the spectator’s appeal for long-distance running pales in comparison to professional soccer or basketball, the last few decades have shown a well-developed market—including demand to meet the supply of fast-moving legs. Kenyan running aptitude can surely be looked at as a comparative advantage, and their performances are true commodities. Race winnings, lucrative corporate sponsorships, and special performance incentives (time bonuses, etc.) wait to reward international athletic success, giving runners in the Third World a chance to pull themselves and their communities out of poverty. But are large sums of cash an incontrovertible good for the average Kenyan runner, and how much of this money finds its way to the outstretched arms of those families and communities that need it. Do winnings with the purchasing power to transform socioeconomic communities actually do so, and how would we understand any alternative?

Defining Key Terms

My thesis examines the position runners hold within the international labor market, specifically with respect to sport. In order to have a complete discussion, I must be upfront in explicating key terms. The international labor market for sport (or athletics) is simply a traditional market, once known for goods, then extended to services and labor. As the world has globalized, an international market now involves migration, and even further migration of athletes offering their services abroad. International sport is basically sports that garner awareness from multiple if not all world countries and thus also benefit financially from this global awareness. Most of the time more international sports feature athletes that routinely travel abroad to

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compete. Football and athletics fit this description, whereas American basketball does to a much lesser amount. Athletics is an achievement sport, which means the central focus is on the ability of an athlete to do one thing well—individually. Commercial athletics in Kenya refers to athletes who are competing principally for financial gains, as opposed to alternatives such as becoming a scholar-athlete in the United States or competing only for national pride (i.e. medals). Finally, dealers, agents, and managers all refer to, generally, a professional that organizes logistics for athletes and, specifically, European or American managers that recruit athletes from a supply in Kenya for a demand in the Global North. They do so in exchange for a variety of financial benefits.

Research Questions

1) What explains the continuing dependence of the Kenyan long-distance running camps on the dealers (sports agents/managers) located in athletics markets of the Global North? What are the mechanisms through which this system is reproduced and perpetuated?

2) Taking into account what we know from the systemic mechanisms in question one, what are the prospects and possibilities for the long-term viability of the Kenyan athletics project? How can we improve upon the imperfections in this international labor market for runners?

3) What can we as scholars glean from this case study in order to inform our theoretical and practical knowledge about (a) skilled labor migration and (b) formal-informal economic interaction?

Addressing these questions is extremely important: answers, or even speculation, could assist the Kalenjin people in maximizing their chances for economic benefit. If done correctly, we as scholars will be able to suggest ways to (1) more effectively mine this special athletic resource and (2) assert greater autonomy and agency over an international commodity—from the perspective of poor rural communities. Even more significant would be any implication we could draw from this exceptional case-study about the vulnerability and powerlessness of people in the Global South.

Literature Review

My thesis, distilled into these research questions (above), addresses dependency in sport. As dependency is a hefty body of scholarly thought, it was never wise to apply its conclusions to such an exceptional entity and concept as sport—at least not initially. Part of the reason why is because sport itself is neither a precise case study nor a united theory. Using my case study in rural western Kenya, outlined in Chapters 2 and 3, I have restricted my subject matter to international sport—that is, sporting events that routinely see athletes competing outside of their native country. To specify further, I am concerned with those athletes who travel abroad

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to make a living. Finally, Vladimir Andreff delineates “sport” into (1) achievement sport, (2) folk games, and (3) discipline sports*1, the former-most on which I will focus my efforts.

Thus I have delved into literature speaking to issues in sport and not development, not intent on deducing some connection between the two or operationalizing the claims of dependency theorists (with respect to sport). Rather I have spent time immersed in my case study to identify key economic, political, and social mechanisms—many of which are observed implications that lend directly to my research question. This theoretical induction is also carried out in my consulted literature, which cites numerous existing theories that apply to different sports studies around the globe and that lend directly to my hypotheses.

To be clear, beginning with my case study, I have found a “dependency” by description and not by scholarly diagnosis. One can be dependent on a legal guardian without being on the “periphery” and at the whims of globalization, and my observations are of this nature. In my literature review I look for dependency similar to that of Kenyan runners and examine the theory that conjectures a relevant explanation. With this approach I was able to carefully throw out traditional sports literature about “the sporting experience” (psychological accounts)2, sport with respect to firm economics (particularly microeconomics)3, and sport as a holistic business (including sportswear, licensing, and league discussions)4. Instead most if not all data regarding international athletes and their dependency dealt with global migration. Professor Marc Lavoie insists that we have an outdated view on athletic markets and speaks of the “new economics of sport”5 that combines economics with socio-cultural and political arguments. Within Development Studies, this is a versatile way to describe dependency—thus I will be examining my case from the perspective of dependent development and migration in a global context.

I found and traced three strands of literature that pertain to dependency in global sports migration. All three could be considered established modes of thinking as well as strands, and each in sequence represents another progression in historical thought. The first strand is the fundamental approach of neoclassical economics, which serves as the main explanatory vehicle in looking at the market for runners; in fact, the strand’s deficiencies are particularly helpful. Building and on these recognized shortcomings is globalization theory and its derivatives, world-systems theory and dependency theory. These modes of thought put into operation the more litigious premises about why Kenyan athletes are dependent. Finally, the body of literature falling under the title “migration theory” encompasses the third strand. I have chosen parts of migration theory that tend to (a) contextualize and (b) illustrate the flows of globalization in terms of local nodes of such flows. All strands complement each other in this 1 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.” http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PGRkblShhU8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA325&dq=african+athletes+migration&ots=EAcHxkrl5U&sig=6MQ5BDbiJJH4feTZbMQ8XHUBycQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false2 Bale, John. Running cultures: racing in time and space. Psychology Press, 2004.3 Neale, Walter C. “The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports: A Contribution to the Theory of the

Firm in Sporting Competition and in Market Competition.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 78, no. 1 (February 1964): 1-14.

4 Rosner, Scott, and Kenneth L. Shropshire. The business of sports. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2004.5 Lavoie – sport an economy

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thesis about global migration, but each successive strand builds on part of the previous strand—leaving migration theory as the most nuanced, illustrative model for my research question.

Neoclassical Economics:

World competition in road racing, cross country, and track & field constitutes a cultural, socio-political, and economic affair. For all intents and purposes in this thesis, Kenyan running competitions (and related interactions) will be inspected in the context of a market. Edited by Wladimir Andreff and Stefan Szymanski, the Handbook on the Economics of Sport6 best surveys all aspects of sport through a purely economic lens.

Preference, Utility, & Full and Relevant Information

Kenyan long-distance runners do not compete to become famous, per se—they run to win their life’s fortune. Fame is sought after, but only to the extent of its connection with riches. They receive financial reward for the rare service/product they provide—a practice first known as “neoclassical economics”7 and taking the form of compensation or remuneration. Although forces of globalization and migration trace how sportspersons may physically participate in international labor migration and in internationally-televised events, no other process can fully explain why this specific career can land an immense load of cash in a rural athlete’s lap. Neoclassical economics is the other side of the coin. Three universally-recognized tenets of neoclassical economics are (1) people/consumers have preferences based on value, (2) provision matches preferences to maximize individual utility and firm profit, and (3) people “act independently on the basis of full and relevant information”. The laws of supply and demand are gleaned from these three tenets in the idea of a market where people can satisfy their needs—markets clear in a self-regulating way8.

Sport in sub-Saharan Africa did not always constitute a market: traditionally, sport was generally looked at as a noncompetitive cultural affair9, and throughout the establishment of colonial imperialism, sport served as a way to corroborate Social Darwinism and white, European athletic supremacy (e.g. rugby in South Africa)10. Only in the mid-20th century did sports become a market in the neoclassical sense. Today, there is a true economic market for competitive Kenyan runners, institutionalized by formal contracts when money changes hands. Most of what we see in this market for runners is explained by neoclassical economics—consumers seeking a product, producers supplying to optimize their profit, and the supplementary line of thought called “comparative advantage”11. However, this true market is

6 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.” http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PGRkblShhU8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA325&dq=african+athletes+migration&ots=EAcHxkrl5U&sig=6MQ5BDbiJJH4feTZbMQ8XHUBycQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

7 Lionel Robbins8 Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC., 2007.9 Giulannotti 10 Dejonghe, T. “The place of sub-Sahara Africa in the world sport system.”11 Ricardo, David. On the principles of political economy and taxation [electronic resource]. Electric Book Co., 2001.

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neither perfect nor without externalities. In fact, these imperfections will be one of the main foci of this thesis.

Demand Inspected

Existing literature teases out how the idea of comparative advantage might work in athletics12, illustrating supply-and-demand. As Marc Lavoie lays out, country advantage could derive from or correlate with numerous factors such as financial incentives for native athletes, gross population, GDP per capita figures, or even whether the country was a former soviet bloc state13 (related to “financial incentives”, would boost advantage). However, sports focused on exceptional skills such as Kenyan endurance ability, Dominican precision and finesse (in baseball), and West African explosive speed and athleticism (in football) tend to find comparative advantage regardless of these factors. The more incomparable the trait, the less time, money, effort needed to foster that trait, the more futile it becomes to cultivate the trait in the “non-gifted”. Whereas athleticism in West Africa finds perfect substitutes14 in South America and Spain, Dominican technique is more highly sought after, with only a few American and Japanese players being able to replicate their talent. Only the best Ethiopians stand a chance against Kenyans in distances over the one-mile, so you will see innate ability being the dominant factor in their comparative advantage. Thus, consumer [choice] theory15 best explains the demand to see world record performances, tactical races to win gold medals, and Ethiopian-Kenyan duals in the marathon.

Also, the income effect states the obvious: that spectators, the ultimate demanders along with sponsors and event managers, pay for more services (or more of a service) when they earn more income—the best way to explain why lucrative racing takes place outside of Kenya. Jean-Jacques Gouguet elaborates on a sport-specific substitution effect, citing how athletic events are in effect selling (1) uncertainty, (2) partisanship, and (3) complementary products16. Although the American consumer is particularly fickle in wanting to “support a side” (any side really) and tends to be primed today to buy excess sport-related merchandise, international running almost exclusively plays to the former-most intangible, non-durable, public commodity. Since the American jogging craze that emerged in the late 1960’s17, there is an inordinately-large consumer base hungry to watch the sub-four-minute miles that are the extreme in their

12 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.” http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PGRkblShhU8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA325&dq=african+athletes+migration&ots=EAcHxkrl5U&sig=6MQ5BDbiJJH4feTZbMQ8XHUBycQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

13 Ibid.14 John Hicks – value and capital15 “Consumer choice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_effect#Substitution_effect.16 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.”

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PGRkblShhU8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA325&dq=african+athletes+migration&ots=EAcHxkrl5U&sig=6MQ5BDbiJJH4feTZbMQ8XHUBycQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

17 Bowerman, William J., and Waldo Evan Harris (1907-Joint Author). Jogging, By William J. Bowerman and W.E. Harris, With James M. Shea, 1967.

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hobby and passion. “Impossible physical feats” are the uncertainty that has in fact become “certain” on 21st-century television.

Supply Inspected

The appeal for the longer running distances is evidenced by the nearly $1 million distributed to those who place in the Boston, New York, and Dubai marathons18--more than at any other distance. Even in track and field, long-distance events approach and sometimes surpass the payoffs for the sprinters19, who have phenomenal speed that is both a substitute good in focus-time and a complementary good in “tune-in” hours for spectators or TV-viewers. After fleshing out this demand, only a few neoclassical scholars spend time examining supply as it might be featured in my case study and research questions. In the “professional circus” that is international running20, the metaphorical “peanuts” must be there to enhance the supply of the attraction. First of all, Michael Bolt addresses the “quality” of supply—the first indicator of marginal productivity of running labor*21; he cites the extremely low amount of physical and human capital invested to improve the quality of the athletes and their training. Especially throughout East Africa, he suggests a regional funding bloc that agrees beforehand to fund the most promising athletes—cutting down on extra supply while making each “unit” more valuable. This is one of the most useful prescriptions (for dependency within international athletic labor migration) to come out of the neoclassical camp.

Both Vladimir Andreff and Marc Lavoie take this suggestion to show how “quantity” of supply is more illustrative of dependency in sport. Lavoie uses labor economics to describe supply of athletes to the “first buyer”, with hired “players” earning salaries commensurate with their marginal revenue product22. He ties this idea in with those in firm economics, where firm managers make decisions based on revenue elasticity but also have to contend with collective bargaining and rules initiated for labor. As Andreff is quick to point out, there is little or no bargaining room (i.e. in the form of reserve clauses*, salary guarantees, formal talent drafts) for those competing in obscure performance sports, so supply-side behavior tends to adopt practices found in tournament theory instead23. Based on Gini-coefficients that index “degree of competition”, one can tentatively predict time and effort spent training; in fact, men have a more homogenous spreads in performance and consequently train more intensely to come out on top.

Useful Shortcomings

As one might guess, there are no paid “benchwarmers” in Kenyan athletics; but there are thousands of unpaid benchwarmers. This fact has advised the predominating observed implications that led to my question about dependency: that the “going-price” for Kenyan athletes is in general unresponsive to qualitative and quantitative changes in demand. The

18 http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/11/1102_marathons/index_01.htm19 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.”20 Ibid.21 Michael Bolt - ILO22 Lavoie23 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.”

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number of athletes recruited changes based on individual actors in certain localities, but as a whole this figure is stationary as well. Therefore, money changes hands and markets clear, but not in a way predicted by neoclassical economics24. The international labor market for runners, having a surplus in supply willing to work for a little less and a buyer that adjusts neither the price nor the quantity demanded, does not have normal equilibrium prices or wages. So whereas much about the superstructure in athletics can be portrayed through supply-and-demand, the deficiencies in neoclassical thought are perhaps most illustrative.

To be clear, these drawbacks are the issues that directly pertain to my research question, and neoclassical language is critical to establish in discussing its shortcomings. Neoclassical economic critiques are acknowledged first by its proponents. Already mentioned has been the possibility for irrational choice depending on the market25, as these runners seem to be in a position of “non-cooperative Nash equilibrium”26 where specific deals are infrequently and conditionally on the table. Furthermore, a second pitfall of neoclassical economics is as follows: even with television, “full and relevant” information does not exist for consumers who can’t differentiate between the credentials and the many similar “outlandish” names of Kenyan athletes, or for illiterate Kenyan youth who are not aware of “common market knowledge” in the commercial sport sphere—Joseph Stiglitz calls this an “information asymmetry”27. Information asymmetry becomes problematic when markets cannot clear and transactions are not made—mostly due to skepticism (or ignorance) about a product or buyer (in this case, the Kenyan athlete and the racing agents, respectively).

In transnational contexts involving global migration, information asymmetry of this kind would be considered likely, and rational choice is a construct developed by western neoclassical theory that definitely cannot hold sway in cross-cultural settings. For example, supply-side relations in rural Kenya (in athletics and other arenas) put relatively more emphasis on reciprocity than in similar settings in the United States, as George Akerlof’s gift exchange theory28 suggests. In this way, deficiencies in neoclassical economic theory are acknowledged shortcomings and not burning critiques. In fact, the shortcomings are one possible answer to my research question—implying irrational choice, information asymmetry, and the impossibility of such a “normative” outcome, dependency finds bedrock here. Neoclassical economics and pitfalls, as such, presents a lens through which to examine sport (with varying degrees of efficacy) and to investigate the prospect for dependency. This approach falls short in failing to properly identify dependency.

Globalization/World-Systems/Dependency:

24 Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC., 2007.25 Herbert Simon – bounded rationality26 John Nash27 Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and its discontents. W. W. Norton & Company, 2003.28 Akerlof, George A. “Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 97,

no. 4 (November 1982): 543-569.

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Where the realm of neoclassical economics stops, globalization picks up in addressing my first and most important research question about dependency in sport. The term “globalization” was co-opted in the 1960’s to describe a world with the tremendously increased economic, political, and social integration29, and it exists today as prevalent approach in development studies. In his collection of articles entitled Sports and Globalization: Handbook of Sports Studies, Joseph Maguire encapsulates a strand of literature applying globalization to modern sport, introducing most scholars who have helped to identify global dependency in sport.

Globalization As It Pertains to Sport

Globalization describes the ever-growing integration of national economies, especially with regard to capital flows, investment, technology, labor, and investment. Before he equates “national economies” with “sports economies”, Maguire demonstrates how economic flows are quickly followed by global flows of leisure, customs, and practice30. After the English colonized India alongside its prospering spice trade, well-to-do Indians were soon drinking English tea; similarly, many Western sports (especially English) were picked up by colonized countries—for instance, football in Western African nations like the Ivory Coast and Ghana, or baseball in Central American countries like the Dominican Republic. The former is an example of embracing a foreign cultural concept and the latter was the result of coercive pressure from foreign military servicemen. In her research, Trudo Dejonghe presents a coding scheme and adaptable chart for the assimilation of foreign sports culture, e.g. contending that most former colonial states in sub-Saharan saw a “total passive resistance” of sporting practices and governing structures31.

Diffusion and translation, two other broad, related modes of thought, also advance ways to view the speed, degree, and fashion in which societies accept new ideas. However, Kenyan athletics arose after Kenyan independence in steady correspondence with the rising rewards for global athletes at-large*32, so economic globalization explains this engagement better than Dejonghe or diffusion/translation theorists could. The rise of cosmopolitan tastes (as a result of economic interconnectedness) has led to an increased plurality of sports interests, which in turn has created global sports markets that have arms in most corners of the globe.

More importantly, extended flows of economic and cultural commodities now take place in time-space compression—another feature of globalization. The globe’s “international” persuasion rises “concomitantly with the resurgence of the local and national”33, as demonstrated by Californians drinking South African wine; the Zapatista’s in Chiapas, Mexico recruiting a global audience in their activism for indigenous rights; and Kenyan slum-dwellers watching English Premier League football every night of the week. These examples are

29 Manfred Steger – Globalization 30 Maguire, Joe. “The Media-Sport Production Complex: The Case of American Football in Western

European Societies.” European Journal of Communication 6, no. 3 (September 1, 1991): 315-335.31 Dejonghe, T. “The place of sub-Sahara Africa in the world sport system.”32 Manzenreiter, W. “THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS AND THE MANUFACTURING OF GLOBAL

SOCIAL INEQUALITY.”33 Maguire, Joseph. “Sport and Globalization : Handbook of Sports Studies.” http://www.sage-

ereference.com/hdbk_sports/Article_n23.html.

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illustrative of local spheres being part of a single social space, the last one using media to provide sport as a commodity abroad.

Maguire applies this “media-sport production complex” to international labor migration in athletics, showing how physical athletes can group with international organizations (and actors) and media to produce and project value for the global consumer. This appears to be a “construction” of a market, using the principles of globalization, which might better explain the confounding behavior of supply and demand when we apply neoclassical economic principles to migrating Kenyan athletes. Wolfram Manzenreiter explains in detail a tri-pronged cooperation between international sports organizations, transnational media corps, and multinational sports apparel companies, a “sports industrial complex” that certainly serves as precursor and participant in this same construction.

However, it is really only in the second half of the 20th-century that athletes routinely compete abroad in order to optimize returns for their skills. Andreff has grouped with other scholars to track movements of athletes, using indicators such as comparative economic status and comparative sports status of the nations between which athletes migrate. A significant trend has been a steep increase in foreign sports labor recruitment (and subsequent migration), followed by regulation aimed at tempering this movement*, and finally a slow liberalization towards the free movement of sports workers—an extension of the 1995 Bosman ruling* by the European Court of Justice34. Although resistance to globalized flows can usually be observed, especially in sport (due to contentious decisions by athletes to leave their countries, usually in a state of outrage at “losing” symbols of national pride), skilled athletes have the overarching tendency (and modern-day luxury) to compete in the highest-caliber and most financially-lucrative arenas abroad.

The World-Systems Camp

Two similar modes of thought have arisen in reaction to the fact that is globalization, both of which also identify dependency in sports literature. Scholars in both “camps” paint the world as a victim of globalization run amok in a way relevant to my research question. Firstly, world-systems theory is a “multi-disciplinary, macro-scale approach to world-history and social change”35 devised by renowned sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. World-systems aptly divides the globe into core, semi-periphery, and periphery countries. The core organizes production that is capital-intensive and requires greater skill to coordinate while the periphery provides high-labor, low-skill production or raw materials36. Wallerstein discards the nation-state as critical in international capital flows out of the periphery towards the core, a movement Vladamir Andreff (et al.) dubs the “muscle drain” when referring to Kenyan athletics37. While the exodus of this resource is not strictly permanent, both scholars see this transfer as having holistically “bad” consequences for the periphery.

34 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.” 35 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory#Dependency_theory36 Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. World-systems analysis. Duke University Press, 2004.37 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.”

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Andreff notably chooses to name runners’ legs a primary resource, which can be useful in our analysis but also neglects the possibility of runners (a) being suppliers or (b) having agency in their movements. Thus he cannot consider instances where remittances would be a factor or where returning runners invest in home communities. These types of agency may not exist, which would infer some dependency, but their non-existence must be empirically discerned and not be due to Andreff’s definitional hazard. Perhaps this “drain on resources” is better related to the sponsor apparel companies which play a huge part in the international labor market for runners. With Nike Pegasus sneakers incurring $1.66 of labor costs in China and selling for over $100 in the States, the sports apparel business thrives off the world-systems premise and contributes to the fulfilling this critique of globalization—also part of this strand of literature about dependency in sports migration38. Athletes must compete for powerhouse sponsors on their national turf or risk not finding any sponsor in the unfavorable conditions of the periphery.

Dependency

Another related camp within this set of alter-globalization theories is that of dependency—“dependency” as it pertains to social science and not in the prosaic sense, as it pertains to my research question. World-systems actually grew out of dependency theory but is more of an approach where dependency is a more coherent theory. Dependency recognizes the flow of resources from the periphery to the core, but it tends to include more culpability in this problem’s attribution. Whereas Wallerstein might describe nebulous systems that extract welfare from an external group of poor areas, dependency theorists like Fernando Henrique Cardoso would contend that wealthy nations and their major players “perpetuate a state of dependence”39 by structuring dealings in their economies, societies, and politics to do so. Finally, dependency calls out efforts by wealthy nations to resist attempts by developing countries to mature economically with sanctions and specific policy design.

What we are tracking here is a palpable deterioration in the terms of trade between nations—instead of existing inequities between world-systems40. Replace trade between countries with trade of runners and you would have a viable theory to explain migration in athletics—a point that is made first in neoclassical economics. Now add the Singer-Prebisch thesis, which says that unfavorable terms of trade can be between actors inside of the same country41, and you have a compelling explanation of what is happening on the ground in Kenya. This setup is illustrative of the player-agent relationship in many exploitative sports; Andreff speaks to the reciprocal obligations between parties, both sides having explicit and understood “ex ante” expectations for behavior after the agreement42. Agents, managers, runners, and indeed

38 Manzenreiter, W. “THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS AND THE MANUFACTURING OF GLOBAL SOCIAL INEQUALITY.”

39 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, and Mauricio Augusto Font. Charting a new course. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

40 Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. World-systems analysis. Duke University Press, 2004.41 Prebischb, Raúl. “Commercial Policy in the Underdeveloped Countries.” The American Economic Review

49, no. 2 (May 1959): 251-273.42 Andreff, Wladimir. “Handbook on the economics of sport - Google Books.”

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sponsors all expect certain behaviors and results that are hard but often necessary to capture a deal. Running agents especially have an inordinate amount of bargaining influence, so their position as actors and dictators of trade terms adds weight to the agency present in dependency theory.

Conclusion

As described previously, traveling athletes do their jobs through and at the whims of globalization and its forces. Vulnerability in athletics can be explained by world-systems and dependency theory, two alter-globalization ways to view the move of resources from the Global South to the Global North. Andreff prescribes for the ills of globalization as they pertain to global sports migration, proposing a Countertobin Tax* on all movement of athletes that would slow mobility and pay back those “hurt” by out-migration43—a band-aid on world-systems issues in sport. He would also suggest a more streamlined, mandated, and available-to-everyone standard players’ contract, as well better oversight over and better information for actors in the running business—a dependency theory prescription. Unfortunately, alter-globalization views identify sports dependency but cannot explain it: for example, neither view above shows how a runner might be both resource and actor simultaneously, and neither view considers spatial dimensions at the nodes of global networks—only between those nodes*44. Alter-globalization theory fails to be nuanced and comprehensive enough to fully answer the research question.

Migration Theory:

Both of the strands mentioned so far stress systemic forces that define a superstructure in which actors interrelate in their struggle for resources. For instance, information asymmetry is hazard to neoclassical economic theory and a highlight of alter-globalization theory, but in each case it is a result of systemic forces—forces with which actors have to deal. However, actors also possess agency, proactively creating their own forces, networks, and space. Information asymmetry, as our interim paradigm, could be looked at as the norm. Stated differently, actors can connect to share information in a willingness to deal and leave out others; in this case information is created, not information asymmetry. Actors do this—not systems. Migration theory is the most relevant way to describe international sport in this respect, especially having to do with time-space interaction. John Bale and Joseph Maguire apply migration theory to best exemplify international sport movement in their volume entitled The Global Sport Arena45.

Preliminary Migration Theory

43 Gerrard, Bill. “The muscle drain, coubertobin-type taxes and the international transfer system in association football.” European Sport Management Quarterly 2, no. 1 (2002): 47.

44 45 Bale and Maguire. The global sports arena.

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Early migration theory explains a phenomenon just like globalization does, but in a way more relevant to this study. Over time theorists began to craft barebones migration theory to make it more nuanced, with special socio-cultural focus. However, initial attempts to trace global movement are quantitative and correlative: central place theory speaks of a “threshold” population (or sometime income level) that is needed to see deals within the market for a good or service46. Whether this market still works between two countries depends on the market players’ “range”—their willingness to travel a certain distance to acquire the good or service. The way business is done must accommodate trading between countries, so time and space-dimensions become critical in basic migration theory, as Maguire is quick to point out47. The central place theory could extend to both international and local relations for Kenyan athletics, especially when “threshold markets” and “range of willingness” have different indices for Kenyan runners, their managers, and their race event managers.

Other similar models have been applied to migration of people, as well as athletes. The gravity model of trade and/or migration48 is almost an exact analog of the gravity model by Isaac Newton*49. Replace mass of planets with economic mass of countries (GDP or other index), and you can gauge the level of economic interaction between two places, which very often correlates with the level of incentive for migration between states. Of course, a smaller country [planet] with a stalling economy [mass] will be susceptible to a greater economic pull [gravitational force] towards its counterpart in trade [larger planet, or sun], and will move to trade with that country—in the form of migration. This is most definitely the case with runners in the Global South completely orienting their goals towards competing in the Global North. As Manuel Castells puts it: “the power of flows takes precedence over the flow of powers”50. Similarly, planets and national economies, whether they are menacing or diminutive, do not explain behavior (i.e. movement or migration) in the world (i.e. universe or international economy) as definitively as might the forces between them—specifically, the draw towards economic interaction and migration in my case study.

Transnational Spaces

However, like the other two strands of literature, these basic models of migration explain holistic movement tendencies. But these models do not explain discrepancies in migration behavior. State policies, and even more so efforts for actors to evade them, bear more effect on the quantity and quality of migration. For example, David Conradson and Adam Latham contend that cross-national traffic can happen in the absence of “friction” in the international exchange—in the form of language and currency barriers, tariffs and quotas, and across-the-board infrastructure compatibility issues51. However, many scholars now point towards a notable contestation and transgression on the borders between states that once were considered autonomous and self-contained. Nina Schiller looks at multinational companies’

46 Christaller – Theory of central places47 Maguire – sport and globalization48 Anderson, J. & Van Coop - Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle.49 Newton – Principia Mathematica 50 Castells – the network society51 Conradson – transnational urbanism

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“corporate structures with organizational bases in many states”52—a global restructuring of capital that seek loopholes into and out of nations, instead of merely avoiding Conradson’s “friction”. This is exactly how we see localities connect on separate sides of the world—in transnational communities Arjun Appadurai calls “exclusive, bounded, essentialized, nationalized”53. In modern sports, the interest and participation in Kenyan athletics has become less of a “cartographic fetish”54 and more of an emerging transnational, communal space.

As one might expect, transnational business communities not only connect the dots between countries; in fact, there is a lot to making systems and networks work on the ground in constituent countries—in Kenya for international running. Bale is stringent in emphasizing the spatial and regulative variables that determine when and how an athlete may be effectively recruited. Resource extraction theory shows us how port of export, port of import, and final location for goods transported internationally may not be the only drivers of that good’s economics. For example, Richard Snyder defines many variables that explain why lootable wealth may or may not “breed disorder”—contrary to the common misconception that all countries with resources have a “resource curse”55. Similarly, runners can be extracted in many ways and with varying degrees of likelihood depending on where they station themselves (with respect to the more expensive areas of Eldoret and Nairobi), with whom they surround themselves (would a manager or international event really import a runner they had never directly or indirectly met?), and the type of regulatory documentation and its availability over time (contracts, visas, tickets). Bale stresses that conditions and dynamics “in-country”, while maybe not affecting the lump-sum demand for athletes/resources, really do define which kind of people end up migrating.

The Credentials of Skilled Labor Migration

On this note, conditions and interactions on the ground are very telling when you consider who actually has the authority to define the de-facto market for Kenyan runners. Cornel Ban writes about Romanian semi-skilled migration to Italy, demonstrating how “informal transnational services” have overrun the Italian state’s “putative sovereign control over citizen mobility”;56 basically, certain Romanian families have networks all the way to the middle of Italy—ones with economic prowess in Italy effective enough to have more draw than formal migration programs between the two countries. Calls for employment are via personal suggestion and never by application, and transportation between homes and new places of employment happen by informal transnational taxi services. Italians also have families that recruit all the way to Romania with a set of “informal headhunters”. Tilly says that “migration itself can be conceptualized as a process of network building, which depends on and, in turn, reinforces social relationships across space”. In Kenyan running, this “body shopping” can be state-

52 Schiller – from immigrants to transmigrants53 Appadurai - Disjuncture and difference54 Hagerstrand – bale’s human geography55 Snyder – lootable wealth56 Ban

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mandated (the US and many middle-eastern countries essentially outsource running talent), but is overwhelmingly dependent on business-minded migrational ties outside of the state.

Ban’s paper deals with semi-skilled labor migration, but in many ways elite Kenyan runners may be looked at as skilled labor. Although skilled labor very often applies to those workers with exceptional education or other human capital, Kenyan runners (who actually possess a type of physical-human hybrid capital) are skilled in that they have an exceptional talent that almost all others do not. But how to analyze, predict, and ensure the most talent? Migration expert Krisztina Csedo concludes “it can thus be hypothesised that, in migratory contexts, therecognition of foreign credentials depends considerably on individual immigrants’ability to signal the value of their qualifications, experience and skills, in specific social contexts”57. Basically, in an arena with possibly more candidates than spots, given talent that is difficult to discriminate, “learning/knowing how to do the job” becomes less important than learning to get the job. Social construction of credentials is called “negotiating skills” in Csedo’s paper, and she looks at the labor market unconventionally—as a socially-constituted entity where being skilled and acting qualified might not go hand-in-hand. In sports and especially in athletics, amateur male athletes have similar skill levels and interchangeable times. How and through whom they show off their talent is key, so examining credential-creation is a valuable way to explain behavior of young runners trying to be discovered.

Conclusion

Migration theory, unlike neoclassical economics and globalization, can identify, explain, and trace dependency for the international labor market, especially if the market is one for athletes from the Global South. Early migration theory is systemic and only valuable as a preliminary tool, while Bale adds a geographical/spatial lens in looking at the transnational social space for running. Ban and Csedo, however, show a network of social “skill-creation” and “skill-recruitment” that can describe behavior even at the level of a locality. This model, although not economic or technical, is best at explaining the running network at every step along a runner’s migrationary journey.

Literature Review Conclusion:

In conclusion, all three of my strands—those of neoclassical economic, globalization, and migration theory—help to explain the position of a Kenyan runner as part of the international labor market for athletes. Neoclassical economics shows possibility for athletes’ dependency but fails to begin explaining or identifying that dependency. Globalization theory seizes the opportunity to investigate systemic forces that lead to dependency—especially the difficulties of individual workers the world around. However, even dependency/world systems cannot be nuanced enough to explain the movements of such an exceptional group of athletes. Instead, migration theory seems to best (albeit not comprehensively) interpret and track the precarious existence of runners desperate to be discovered and showcased. Therefore questions addressing multiple strains of migration theory (reviewed above) should most accurately

57 Czedo

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expose the variable reasons for dependency in international athletics. The first two strands of literature remain instrumental in mechanizing what migration theory hypothesizes.

Hypothesis and Observable Implications

If migration theory serves as my scholarly starting block, beginning theories suggest movements that reflect available market size and the resulting connection between supply and demand. While early Kenyan runners appeared in the Olympics by virtue of individualized efforts and underdog success stories, this preliminary model could not be extrapolated to explain the powerhouse that is modern-day Kenyan athletics. Instead, there must be significant cross-national market penetration by players in the business, and furthermore the penetration is probably on the side of the middlemen and first “demanders”—the managers. My first assumption is that these managers can and do recruit from inside Kenya, as most if not all young runners are too poor, disconnected, and lack the credentials to showcase their talent abroad without assistance. If this holds true, we might expect:

1. Managers, the dealers in this network, to possess rational incentives to pick selectively from a pool of runners. Because this pool is large, economically weak, and desperate, managers are able to interchange runners to increase their possibility of finding and signing the next Gold Medalist.

2. Runners have a rational incentive to move away from their home communities, initially to seek profit and ultimately to maintain profit and its ensuing lifestyle. Avoidance of social ties and expectations to give back are a strong possibility. Reasons for this avoidance are sometimes a hesitance to give back but more often a desire to navigate more adeptly in a newfound, higher socioeconomic class.

3. With a static number of internationally-recognized big-name races (basically the Olympics, World Championships, and a few other races) and a growing demand and supply for niche races, inter-state control of migration will be usurped. Free enterprise has privatized the market for athletes and increased the total number of migrating Kenyan runners. This in turn, due to lucrative opportunities abroad, boosts total supply on the ground in Western Kenya.

Migration theory speaks of the predominance of a concept known as “transnational space”*. Personal relationships are especially key in this space, so creating and maintaining helpful ties becomes the norm. Knowledge passes through these networks—many times mainly Kenyan, mainly American, or mainly European—and therefore communicating in this space is necessary for success. Keeping in mind this line of thinking, I expect to find:

1. An informal mode of economy that has been transnationalized and therefore formalized in many ways. However, the modus operandi of international athletics will remain informal, especially at the nodes of transnational networks. Consequently:

a. Informal trust and socioeconomic expectations are meant to be honored, but fail to hold up to the tests of a slowly-formalizing system. Thus individualized and

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self-interested rationalism is allowed to predominate amongst agents with very different bargaining positions.

b. Regulation is rendered problematic and insufficient in this hybrid formal/informal international labor market for athletes.

c. Contracts outweigh verbal agreement in the interstitial hybrid space between informal and formal segments of the international labor market.

2. Due to path-dependent and nuanced possibilities for migration, traditional neoclassical economic markets do not prevail. Instead:

a. Micro-level markets take place on the ground at recruitment, but b. Wages are never assured and income-generation is sporadic at best –

recruitment is for a matter of days and not months or yearsi. Thus labor migration describes the position of runners more adequately

than does labor economics.c. Supply and demand is not only for singular labor events (as suggest immediately

above), it is also features an exceptional market where both supply and demand are relatively elastic and fixed.

i. Therefore there exist possible alternative mechanisms to reach “market equilibrium” in the form of prize money and other forms of payoff.

ii. Autonomous actors set these prices either autonomously or influenced by factors outside the immediate market for running labor.

Finally, runners themselves (although not necessarily through collective action) present an unconventional supply-side dynamic, deficient in formalized support networks (i.e. unions) but replete in informal support. The labor force strays from convention in these ways:

1. Who you know and who you could know define an objective outside that of “becoming fast”.

2. Credentials are subjective – the skills athletes have do not speak for themselves. Physical and personal skills must be demonstrated for a “laborer” to successfully be “checked out”, presumably by professionals in the international labor market in the Global North.

3. Spatial and locational circumstances, especially of runners, are crucial in being discovered and facilitated. Local “space geography” plays a large role in athletics migration.

Note:

Credentials are usually conditional, but there exists the possibility of skills being so tremendous or times becoming so low that subjective credentials are less of an issue. For example, Usain Bolt rose to stardom and far-surpassed

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the need to misrepresent his credentials at any point in his career58. Although “Lightning Bolt” is an extreme case, these outliers* do exist with Kenyan long-distance runners and must be accounted for.

Case Selection

I have chosen my case study to be explicitly about professional athletics in Kenya. Reference will be given to the one other running giant that is Ethiopia, but it will not be scrutinized beyond a cursory level. The focus will be on the networks (with their actors and their nodes) surrounding the international labor market for these runners. The networks span country and continental borders, with the predominant primary resource base in Kenya; Nairobi is the major bureaucratic hub and Eldoret (and its surrounding area) is the “running hub”, so to speak. On the other side of the network is the Global North—namely Europe and the United States, which represent most secondary resources. Important actors are the actual runners, their managers, coaches, race/event organizers, and sponsors. Using the actual players as a case-study is useful, because financial well-being and resource-distribution starts and ends with these people.

Oddly, this sports case study is structurally and financially actor-centric, as the economics are almost entirely confined to those immediately involved in the running events. Positive (or negative) monetary spillovers of sports engagements into national and local economies are infrequent if they do not have immediate actors as a conduit*. The absence of an attached sports economy involving ticket sales, advertising, merchandising, and involved spectators takes away many possible variables that would otherwise affect global sports migration. For instance, Olympic Games, World Cups, and inter-country invitational basketball events have a wide spread of economic effects in their host location, if you are considering issues of development. Interestingly enough, such events have not been the growth engines they are purported to be*59, so in theory studying immediate actors is the most relevant developmental concern.

With such a streamlined and linear labor network, this case study is great for observing position in said networks. Qualitative research should be extremely beneficial in testing individual variables that affect agency, power, and communication. In fact, many other like-structured networks (with their own existing qualitative data) can and will be used as comparison case studies. Two are also in the realm of international sport: (1) the market for Dominican baseball players in the United States and (2) the recruitment of West African athletes for European elite football leagues. Both are pertinent in the structure of their international labor market as well as in the polarity in wealth between “supplier” country and “demander” country. In addition, I have selected two labor networks that reflect a similar “human capital” transfer, so to speak. The case of Indian information technology (IT) workers shows highly-skilled labor traveling to the United States60, and the case of Romanian workers migrating to Italy includes semi-skilled

58 usain bolt scholarly article59 Manzenreiter60 Csedo

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workers in its sample61. Both show a “brain drain” that can extrapolate and compare to a “muscle drain” from Kenya, if you will.

My case study will concentrate especially on the Hussein Athletics Training Camp in Kapsabet, Kenya. Kapsabet is situated fifty kilometers outside of Eldoret, the largest running hub in western Kenya. Many of the very best runners in Olympic history have come from this town, and there is exists a great number and variety of long-distance training camps in the nearby area. There are high-level, corporate-sponsored Nike Camps and community-based self-help running groups—as well as every level in-between these two extremes. The best of the best—those at the Nike Camps*—do achieve fame and fortune, essentially winning a better life for themselves and their families. However, it is a well-documented observation (not by scholars, but by the Kenyan running community that I have observed) that when these runners compete in international races, for European/American managers, and supported by corporations from the Global North, they quickly lose touch with their old community ties and do very little to stay active in their former running communities. Therefore this “first-tier” of runners exists by and for itself—very successful, but never tightly embedding that success in native communities—financially, socially, even politically.

The Hussein Athletics Training Group represents the opposite extreme. The camp was donated by famous marathoner Ibrahim Hussein (an exception as far as famous runners go), is coached by Said Aziz (a native Kenyan who donates his services for no up-front cost), and consists of a huge number of athletes of almost all skill levels. Unlike the sponsored camps, the ties between the group members, the coach, and the community are intense and vigilant. The entire venture would not even survive, were it not for the combined sacrifice of the runners, their families, Coach Aziz, and their friends in the community. Athletes find themselves at the Hussein Camp if they are at the “second tier” or trying to reach that level. Second-tier runners are able to earn their keep by racing in high-level races across Kenya and sometimes earning the opportunity to race abroad for higher race-winnings. Catching the eye of a manager is difficult, reaching a standing agreement with one is still a prime achievement, keeping that agreement for more than a year is unlikely, and earning a viable sponsorship is nearly out of the question. No matter the viability long-term, the HATC continues to persist*.

In conclusion, this case study is indeed exceptional, but it includes economic, social, political, and sport-related variables that are distinct and mostly static—if these drivers change, they are usually easy to spot. Although motivations run the gamut, athletics arose and survives today solely to support the people who partake in the sport. By all accounts (from actors of all types), “psychic income” for the country and its people is inconsequential in questions regarding dependency of the sport62. As mentioned in the literature review, Kenyan running is an extension for Kenyan economic welfare as well an extension of the international labor network of the Global North. Finally, the actors in my case study (e.g. commercial runners, managers, event managers, scholar-athletes) are relatively easy to identify and even easier to profile due to their unambiguous de-facto and self-proclaimed status. Clearly-defined actors, overt

61 Ban62 From the beginning?

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motivations, and traceable variables should make for successful qualitative testing of my hypotheses.

Why Care?

Most noticeable in this study is the possibility for running to increase real income and welfare for poor Kenyan communities. Locating problems, inefficiencies, and exploitation in the business of professional running could optimize this chance for larger incomes. For one, Kenyans and people “acting on their behalf” may mine this comparative advantage—or native resource—more effectively. Secondly, with so few well-paid slots available for so many Kenyan runners, recruitment could and should be streamlined, and data supporting this would be extremely beneficial. Finally, we should understand and debate ways to reinvest money won abroad and repatriated in Kenya. There is no end to the discussion regarding the best way to use prize money that dwarfs yearly income in rural Kenya.

Kenyan running, while exceptional, bears strong resemblance to other sports where third-world athletes migrate north to compete. Dominican baseball and West African soccer are the main examples I will use. However, others such as Indian IT workers also migrate to the US and Europe along with their sought-after skills. It is valuable to begin understanding how gifted but constrained young workers take on other parts of the world. How they interact, how structural and systemic forces affect them, and how they are treated by foreigners is important. Not only for their success, but also for how an entire country sees itself, its citizens, and its prospects for future interaction in the world. Certain pioneers do far more than set examples—they represent entire countries and can set beneficial or dangerous precedents with their positions of national and international prominence.

Limitations

I have chosen to examine local micro-level issues, which have been quite accessible to me in my time on location. However, I choose to hypothesize over macro-level subjects such as global migration and international trade. The number and variety of running-specific actors and professions is interesting but also daunting. However, in my attempt to survey across actor-type, there are certain players (of the international labor market for athletics) from whom I was unable to hear exhaustively. Discussions of corruption and runners’ livelihoods were unlikely in the presence of American and European managers; even event managers and sponsors were unlikely to speak with me about contentious issues regarding Kenyan athletics. Thus much of my information, although assuredly true, is technically speculative. I will try to be as straightforward as possible in discriminating between corroborated facts and word-of-mouth.

Taking video and sound documentation of my interviews and participant observation, while essential to the illustration of my topic, added many limitations to my project. For one, Kenyan citizens become tentative in their answers whenever a camera is involved (as do most citizens

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of the world). Thus my data is probably skewed with answer biases (1) to please me as the investigator and (2) to preserve subject-at-hand’s reputation. Human subjects shied away from contentious issues and were careful to avoid name-calling or whistle-blowing. The risk of damaging the careers or standing of runners, managers, coaches, and others prevented us from asking certain questions or including certain answers in my data and findings.

Data and Methods

My travel to Kenya is split into two distinct periods of time. In the fall of 2009 I spent one month in the greater Eldoret area carrying out intensive and immersive participant observation. At least one week was spent speaking to coaches, runners, and even managers, process-tracing in order to get to the bottom of key, contentious issues. To get the “full story” about Kenyan running I performed a single-page survey of 50 young Kenyan runners in the town of Kapsabet (three weeks into the stay). In addition, I performed short 20-30 minute interviews of individual runners—most of whom were “second-” or “third-tier” athletes. My third empirical chapter takes information garnered from this preliminary ground-level research and presents it qualitatively. Unconventionally, this research had as its objective to discern the position runners hold in the running business. The qualitative data gleaned from participatory observation, semi-structured interviews, and the survey establish observable implications upon which my existing research question is based.

The core of my thesis research was performed in a second trip to western Kenya in January of 2011. The objective was (1) to relocate and explain the dependency of Kalenjin runners and (2) to pinpoint decision-making factors for main players in the international labor market for athletics. More formalized interviews were scripted, including sections with (a) universal questions for every human subject, (b) individualized questions depending on the type of human actor*, and (3) unstructured questions to build on and allow for new storytelling data. Video and sound bites were recorded for each interview—20 to 25 in number—while footage was taken and kept of subject interaction at all times during the day.

Both discourse and content analysis pervade the presentation of my findings: a 45 minute documentary. Keeping in mind my research question, answers were scoured for thematic and normative content; replies are enumerated and combined according to a topic dealing with dependency in labor migration. In the style suggested by Hook and Pu63, many different actors are guided to address dependency in Kenyan running using five categories—problem (1) identification, (2) attribution, (3) victimization, (4) evaluation, and (5) prescription. The category of “victimization” was added by Natasha Somji in her thesis at Brown University64. In order to illustrate opinions about those runners on precipice between success and failure in their profession, discourse analysis chronicles phrases, words, and rhetoric that permeates through running circles the world around—hopefully all this is juxtaposed visually, audibly, and semantically in the documentary.

63 Hook and Pu64 Somji

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Proposed Thesis Structure

This initial chapter is intended to introduce my subject and place the Kenyan running narrative in scholarly context. The second chapter gives a deeper background about Kenyan running: the origins of the sport in East Africa, the subsequent formalization and commercialization of the running business, and the main issues to date in these athletes’ migration to races in the Global North. Also in chapter two will be some comparison case studies—those of baseball in the Dominican Republic and football in West Africa. Attention also will be paid to other varieties of semi-skilled or highly-skilled migrating labor, a well-known case being that of Indian IT workers in Western Europe and the United States.

My third chapter and first empirical chapter takes an anthropological viewpoint of “the Kenyan runner” coming from a rural agricultural background—trying to compete on the world stage with limited knowledge of how to do so. The qualitative data comes from my initial visit to western Kenya.

Finally, the real body of my thesis is a feature length documentary attached to this paper. With narration, diagrams, scenery, candid interaction, and interviews, I believe that this medium best conveys the issues suggested in my theoretical chapter and investigated in chapter three. Most of the analysis in my thesis is demonstrated by the choice and ordering of clips throughout the dominant narrative of the documentary.

CHAPTER TWO

INTRO

This chapter exists to give essential facts, figures, stories, and histories of Kenyan athletics. With more accurate and nuanced knowledge of how international runners are normally handled, the findings of my thesis will be easier to parse through. A list of term definitions will not be sufficient to this end, so part one of chapter two is a brief background of the international athletics market—especially as it concerns the athletes, the main focus of my research question. A second section introduces two other sporting networks comparable to Kenyan Athletics—these are (1) Dominican baseball and the migration of its players to US professional leagues and (2) West African football and the migration of its players to predominantly-European premier leagues. Finally, a third section explains the “tea metaphor”—this metaphor is used in chapter three and more importantly serves as the backdrop for the documentary. After that I will bridge to an empirical chapter, to be followed by the feature film.

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BACKGROUND

Before the 1960’s, Kenyan athletic dominance could never have been foreseen. In 1964 Wilson Kiprugut actually won the first Olympic medal ever for his country, claiming bronze in the men’s 800 meter in Tokyo. The great Kenyan running epoch was officially commenced in 1968 (Mexico City Summer Olympics) when Kiprugut won the silver in the same event, and Kipchoge Keino upset the favorite, American Jim Ryun (first high-school runner ever to break the 4:00 mile), to win gold in the 1500 meter run; he also returned a few days later to win Silver in the 5000 meter run. Within a few years Kalenjin runners were feverishly breaking world records; in an 81 day stretch in 1978, Henry Rono broke four world records (in the 10,000m, 5,000m, 3,000m steeplechase, and 3,000m flat races). At this point in time, the gross amount of manpower and resources that supplied the Kenyan national distance squad was dismal compared to conditions in the present day. Neither the Kenyan government nor the international sporting bodies spent much time, energy, or funding to make athletics financially desirable—world notoriety on the long-distance circuit was the main objective for the first famous Kenyan runners. In addition, Kenyan women failed to show their faces at international competitions, for reasons to be discussed later.

Conditions changed drastically after 1980. Ibrahim Hussein ushered in the age of amazing Kenyan marathoners by prevailing at the Boston Marathon three times (1988, 1992, 1993—Kenyans have reigned supreme in Boston every since); he also managed to win a handy purse and a rare sponsorship at the same time. In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Pauline Konga became the first Kenyan woman to medal (Silver Medal, 5000m), henceforth proving that Kenyan females possessed aptitude in long-distance running as well. Catherine Ndereba has since been unofficially recognized as the greatest women’s marathoner of all time (4-time Boston champion); Lornah Kiplagat joins her as maybe the greatest women’s road racer ever (world records in road 5K, 10 mile, 20K, and 21K/half marathon). Before the 1990’s, many Kenyan athletes’ training was sponsored by in-country parastatals, such as Kenyan Police (Keino), the Kenyan Postal Services, the Kenya Ports Authority, the Kenya Prisons Service (Ndereba), and the Kenyan Armed Forces. Now, an elite middle- or long-distance athlete may, if given a race of considerable exposure, earn a hefty one-year’s salary in one triumphant day.

Athletes from the Rift Valley earn money from many different sources, namely from corporate sponsorships (usually from apparel/shoe companies—especially Nike, Adidas, Puma, Reebok, and Aasics), race prizes (for top-finish performances and course/event records), home-country rewards, and race entry incentives offered by acquisitive race managers. These financial bonuses are the predominant reason that the Kalenjin enter running as a profession, although pursuit of fame could be a small contributing factor. Once an athlete gains an international name and to some degree becomes financially self-sufficient, he or she is able to reinvest into an already-impressive comparative advantage in athletics. First on the docket comes regular high-tech training shoes, running kits, and training facilities. Many racing studs enhance their professional mobility, traveling to or living in areas that present unique fitness variables in terrain, altitude, track surfacing, or training partners. In order to best insure success, runners hope to hire a coach of reasonable stature, and in order to locate the best money-making opportunities, the most successful athletes hire one or two managers. Both managers and

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coaches gravitate to Western Province in order to satisfy this need, so this area around Eldoret is really seen as a running hub, and consequently, the center of the economic activity resulting from the wealth of its athletes.

As will be thoroughly discussed later, the Kenyan runners who have “made it” in their sport or event choose to channel their money in a wide variety of ways. Some revenue usually goes to supporting the family, some to entrepreneurial investment, some to rare luxuries (big-screen TV’s, automobiles, full-time house help, and chic clothing from Nairobi), and some to assist fellow up-and-coming athletes. One of the most accepted and prevailing modes of giving back to Kenya’s athletics workshop is by either starting or funding a running camp. Athletics camps are scattered all over the Rift Valley and especially on the escarpment that runs the western border of the province. They come in many different flavors, from casual training groups that agree on a common meeting point each morning to full room-and-board running complexes. Some are established, funded, and managed by personnel on behalf of a sponsor company, such as the Nike Camp in Ngong Hills (the nearest camp to Nairobi). Many are supervised by managers who bring their athletes to a common apartment complex or hostel—Gabriela Rosa (working with his son Federico), maybe the most well-known athletics manager in the world, oversees a slew of camps across the country, especially in Kapsabet, Iten, Eldoret, and Kaptagat.

These four towns (Eldoret is a huge city) and their surrounding rural districts have been home to almost every successful Kenyan distance runner, so Rosa’s placement is strategic. His company Rosa & Associates has the financial capability to supply new runners with rental accommodation, a per diem, and even training gear. In fact, Nike gives Rosa a certain number of sponsorships to hand out annually—to runners of his choosing. He employs his own coaches to oversee each camp while he feeds them instructions from a specialty camp in his native Italy. Other examples of camps would be the hybrid running clinics started by Peter Rono and Lornah Kiplagat: these camps assist younger men and women in Kenya to train for fast times while simultaneously readying themselves to apply to universities in Europe and the United States. Finally, some famous athletes give back to Kenya by constructing their own camps, inviting promising runners, and then entrusting the coaching, upkeep, and promotion of said camps to able Kenyan personnel. This has been the case for Moses Kiptanui (4-time World Championship medalist in the 3,000m steeplechase, silver medalist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics 3,000m steeplechase) and Ibrahim Hussein (3-time Boston Marathon Champion), in Eldoret and Kapsabet, respectively. For many reasons, confirmed and elucidated during my preliminary research, I have decided to spend much of my time for my empirical chapter in the Hussein Camp in Kapsabet.

Global Sport in the Global South

In most cases, athletes in developing nations do not find themselves contending for world dominance in international sport. Instead these nations have their own sports system, embrace and observe televised international sport from afar, or find themselves making mismatched

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attempts to compete with developed countries’ sports incentives, culture, resources, and facilities. However, certain sports find take root in developing countries due to exceptional innate talent possessed by their inhabitants. This is obviously the case with Kenyan long-distance ability but also occurs with (1) the finesse of baseball players in the Dominican Republic and (2) the strength and speed of football players in Western (and sometimes Northern) Africa*. Kenyan running is not the first time where developed and developing countries have competed in international sport.

Kenya, the Dominican Republic, and West Africa all have colonial legacies, but the latter two had sport introduced through brushes with recreation of that colonial regime (as opposed to Kenya, which did so with soccer but developed running after independence from Great Britain). Countries like the DR and Panama had baseball introduced or even forced upon them during military occupation by the United States65. Now Major League Baseball recruits hundreds of Dominican players every year into their minor leagues. Western African countries were colonized by England, France, Italy, and Spain—coincidentally these nations are the biggest recruiters of African football players into European Premiere Leagues.

Major League Baseball compares and contrasts to international track and field/athletics, but here is not the place for a full juxtaposition. It is useful to know a little about Dominican baseball players, however. Baseball, of all American sports, rewards the highest number of athletes with the highest overall salary—due to the absence of salary caps and the inception of free agency, a concept that is very conventional for modern Kenyan running as well66. Even so, Alan Klein tracks facts and figures about the difference in treatment between American and Dominican players in the MLB. Most high-level players usually earn the same amount, regardless of race or nationality, but Klein shows that in 1991 Dominicans were initially hired for salaries averaging $4,000, whereas Americans entering minor league play out of college signed for a base $150,00067. Scholars point at this situation as one of dependency—domination of the Third World by the First World, including a deterioration in the terms of their trade68. Although a holistic and comprehensive look would take many pages, it is clear in literature that many think “this view of sport lends itself nicely to the role of emissary to the less powerful, helping Third World societies better themselves while convincing the First World of its preeminence69”—only some of which is true.

American-Dominican collaboration started with “working relationships” where North Americans were given access to players with promises to assist in ground-level development of Dominican facilities and athletes70—little of which has happened. There is a system of recruitment camps on the ground in the Dominican, with 30-day tryout sessions that players periodically switch between (reminiscent to behaviors in Kenyan athletics). Opinions are mixed in the Dominican Republic about Dominican versus American baseball but have worsened since

65 alan klein – DR baseball66 DR baseball67 klein 68 69 klein70 klein

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the international players have started to choose extended seasons and higher salaries over competing in winter ball in the DR. Other ideological problems exist when Dominican players are subject to the same quotas and work permits (in the US) as would take place in the agricultural sector. Put another way, the development of baseball academies is “reminiscent of the ways in which nearby sugar refineries operate in that raw materials are obtained cheaply, locally refined (at a reduced cost), and shipped abroad, except that in the case of academies it is young men who are procured and processed rather than sugarcane”71. Although not fully explained here, there are systemic issues in Dominican baseball that make the sport deleterious as well as advantageous.

As far as Western African football goes, Paul Darby and others also show forms of dependency: “European football clubs can be interpreted as a form of neocolonial exploitation in that it involves the sourcing, refinement, and export of raw materials, in this case African football talent, for consumption and wealth generation in the European core and that this process results in the impoverishment of the African periphery”72. Academies exist for African football in four varieties, according to Darby: African, Afro-European, private/corporate, or nonaffiliated “improvised” academies set up on an ad-hoc basis. Just like with Kenyan athletics, the both official and less-than-official mechanisms of recruitment stand vulnerable to less-than-healthy practices. Formal recruitment mechanisms find ways to get athletes to Europe, try them out, and actually abandon those athletes in a foreign continent73. Some smaller clubs actually break the rules, recruiting underage athletes, or even act within rough, poorly written rules that allow an athlete to leave with only a tourist visa, an informal agreement to repay parents, and no letter from their national federation.

West African football bears resemblance to the situation in Dominican baseball in many ways. Of course there is the ongoing debate on whether “academies” are helpful or inimical to {African} development, and indeed African football development. In both games there is “unscrupulous behavior” by academy managers, but also noticeable “dependent development that at worst is residual of First World influence74. In addition, famous Dominican baseball players and West African soccer players have a chance to represent their nation globally in a sport that most citizens at home already hold dear. Star players like designated hitter David Ortiz (DR) and attacking forward Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) give back to their communities on a regular basis and could hardly be considered examples of failure. However, baseball has been indoctrinated in the Caribbean Islands, with camps originally set up by foreigners, whereas football has been embraced and in many opinions “stripped” from Africans. European clubs have bought out majority shares in African clubs and in general operate as they please. In fact, the situation has gotten so bad that it featured a report by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 199975.

71 Klein72 73 football74 football75 football

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So do these two examples hold sway in properly discerning the situation on the ground in western Kenya? As I said earlier, Kenyan running is not a complete remnant of former colonial roots, as is the case with baseball and football mentioned above. In addition, running probably has less following than football in Europe and definitely less following than baseball in North America, so the rewards might not be as big across the board for athletes in athletics. With that said, Kenyans monopolize their sport much more so than either of the others, in some sense evening out income-generating activities and prospects for significantly benefiting home communities. Most specifics above about exploitation and dependency find counterparts in Kenyan athletics, especially instances directly related to or resulting from under-supervised free agency or migration habits of poor athletes. Future comparisons between these three cases would be beneficial to elucidate the mechanisms of dependency in global sport.

Looking Ahead

When I arrived in Kapsabet, it took me a full three weeks to even begin assessing the level of poverty in this area approximately forty kilometers southwest of Eldoret. I wanted to know what I was “working with", so to speak. It was my belief, after having read Robert Chambers76, that understanding poverty in Eldoret would help me understand the runners—especially their economic calculus in Kenya and abroad. In light of the 2009 drought in Kenya, it was reasonable to ask questions like: “How has the lack of rain affected your township and your training?” This is a relevant question, as Kenya runs on mostly hydroelectric power, is home to key lakes and rivers that supply the entirety of East Africa, and sees 75% of its populous dependent on its world-renowned agricultural sector. But whereas this query works to distinguish between recent hardships and lucky breaks (from the drought), it gives little data on (1) a community’s predisposition towards deprivation and (2) towards its ability to buffer against this same deprivation.

In fact I received many different answers to the drought question while in Kapsabet; even though the region (European Highlands area past the escarpment bordering the Rift Valley) as a whole lucked out and met a mild drought, some households were unphased, but many saw a ¾ drop in their fall maize harvest (specific number from farms in Kitale). Eventually I realized that quality of land was the crux of this discrepancy—that in Kenya, its main crops see yields drop exponentially both with less rainfall and with unfertile soil. So two men with seemingly identical plots might survive until they meet extenuating climatic circumstances such as drought; at this point, the farmer with fertile soil might see a 10% drop in harvest while the farmer with rocky soil will lose his entire year’s crop. To explicate further, a plot with ideal soil and climate in Kitale might only require one-tenth of the land necessary to yield the same crop amount in the hot, arid, and destitute Turkana region. This is a perfect example of poor buffering capability. In his book Rural Development77, Robert Chambers draws a figure that

76 Chambers77 Chambers

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cites five factors—poverty itself, physical weakness, vulnerability, powerlessness, and isolation—which together define the trap that is deprivation.

As is evidenced above, individual problems are caused by widespread structural issues, nuanced personal problems, or a combination of both. Chambers’ five points can be instrumental in tracing these problems back to their roots. In the next chapter I will use these five disadvantages frequently to identify barriers to development and prosperity for both projects in the agricultural economy and in the sport of athletics in Kenya. To be quite clear, I consider it necessary to research the agricultural roots of young Kalenjin men, as this comprises my entire study sample of male Kenyan runners (baring a few select outliers). We can make a connection between the poverty/dependency of farmers in Kenya and the poverty/dependency for the vast supermajority of aspiring athletes. Runners, as I will demonstrate, possess similar capabilities and agency with respect to their professional network as farmers do.

CHAPTER THREE

My first empirical chapter draws from qualitative research carried out in the Fall of 2009. This study was done with the objective of analyzing Kenyan athletics in the following ways: (1) investigating how rural agricultural crop cycles compared to the normal business cycle taken on by international sport, (2) discerning what it actually takes to produce a world-record performance from humble beginnings, and (3) discovering how resources garnered from the profession are reallocated. My results in effect make a well-informed guess as to the health of the running business—specifically on the ground in Kenya. At the initial time of research (2009), these are my explicit objectives:

1. Appropriately characterize a professional Kenyan runner’s role within his indigenous rural family and the greater community.

2. Identify core obstacles that a long-distance runner sees on his quest for athletics stardom and the ensuing financial rewards. This recognition will indicate whether or not this Kenyan comparative advantage in running talent is being effectively “mined”.

3. Analyze the different approaches successful Kenyan runners take towards using their cash winnings and miscellaneous rewards. Also evaluate which parties benefit from the athletes’ spending decisions and whether these decisions in turn optimize potential benefits—a subjective quandary, to say the least.

4. Explore opportunities for steady improvement on the Kenyan method for tapping its potential in athletics. How can performances be boosted; how can more runners achieve breakthrough performances in time, place, prestige, or exposure; and how can financial benefit from these performances be ensured. How can I help?

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5. Make a careful value judgment on the viability of Kenyan athletics, as a sport and as an income-generating profession.

It is instrumental to notice and point out the modus operandi of the male Kenyan working in agriculture. Although there is no flawless parallel between farming and running, there are personalities, attitudes, abilities, motives, and desires of the poor male Kenyan farmer. These are not reproducible in the states, and yet they play out importantly in how Kenyan runners become dependent, especially on American/European managers. This chapter first shows the agricultural setting within which a Kenyan operates (Part I), then juxtaposes the profession of a farmer with the very different profession of a runner (Part II), and finally plays out the clash of worlds that may occur when farmers attempt to be runners. In addition, I show how some of the same problems occur after an athlete finds fame and fortune (Part III). There is a large difference between being a runner in Kenya (relatively easy) and being a runner internationally, yet the largest motive for running is Kenya is financial gain—which is near impossible inside of Kenya. This dilemma will be clear by the end of this chapter.

After ten unstructured interviews, a survey, and a variety of informal focus groups, I am not able to point at running as an unviable profession. I never intended to do such a thing, as the few successful athletes have an unarguably lucrative profession. I also cannot say that the Kenyan supply-side of the international labor market (for athletes) is unviable as a holistic entity—in general, markets continue to exist if there exists supply and demand78. As shown at the end of this chapter (and especially in the documentary), It is a stretch to say that poor Kenyan runners stray too from having rational choice, semi-realistic expectations, and sufficient information to become a runner. Thus my findings point towards the dependency of runners, especially on their managers and other agents (coaches, event managers, and sponsors) that make their training and racing possible.

Thus it has been necessary to look at these issues from the perspective of the Kenyan athlete himself. While is the documentary and remainder of my findings I take many perspectives, this empirical chapter speaks for and on behalf of runners, the realities they face every day, and their aspirations for future fame and financial well-being.

Note on Character Anecdotes:

I am producing a documentary on my subject matter. Throughout the feature I include the in-depth stories of individual runners, stories that exhibit and fall victim to structural forces emphasized in the entire project. In two sections below, I set paragraphs apart from the thesis body with short anecdotes about runners with whom I formed a personal connection. Although these stories together neither prove dependency nor challenge established theory, they serve the crucial function: they illustrate the raw date from which I formed my research question and established my findings. I have chosen to let them stand by themselves as illustrations of the issues at hand as well as the nuanced and singular way in which success or failure occurs for an athlete.

78 Econ-ref

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I. Eldoret – A Rural Agricultural Setting Situated in the greater rural area of the White Highlands, Kapsabet acts as a satellite town to its industrial superior, Eldoret. Named after the Masai word for “stony river”, Eldoret definitely acts as a river bed for the abundant resources of both the Highlands and the Rift Valley, acting to redistribute and, more importantly, export the fruits of Kenya’s most fertile soil79. In general, Indians and Kikuyus have become the linchpin merchants in heading a fully corporate city80. In Eldoret: The National Cereals Board, Raiply (the biggest sawmill and general manufacturer), E.A. Tanning Estates, Kenya Co-operative Creameries, Uasin Gishu Quarry and Agricultural Finance Corporation essentially handle all primary resources; the local munitions factory, bottling company, Rivatex (textile factory), and Kenya Industrial Estates pretty much fulfill all industrial or manufacturing requirements; and communications, transportation, hospital care, nightlife/tourism, higher education, and even energy find their control centers for the surrounding districts. As a key stop on the Mombasa-Kampala Railroad, Eldoret has been a perfect example for efficient and sufficient city planning, as demonstrated by their Investment and Tourism Catalogue, Strategic Plan for 2008-2013, and Service Delivery Catalogue for 2008.

Isolation

However, the impressive development of Eldoret has in some ways precluded similar development from nearby areas—especially Kapsabet. Even though a forty kilometer matatu ride is expensive for any farming family from this area, there is no sensible reason for the government to either relocate or duplicate some key industries and service headquarters away from Eldoret. Also, foreign direct investment (FDI) always appreciates centrality and stability, both for which El-D fits the mold. As Chambers emphasizes time and time again, rural areas on the periphery do not see progress at the same rate as those in the center; in fact, those athletes that become wealthy enough often migrate to Eldoret for this exact reason—any of their investments would see less traffic in Kapsabet or Iten, so a profit-seeking entrepreneur bets on where the consumer will be. As a result, Kapsabet is home to only one business in the prototypical western sense.

On this note, the local KTL Tea Factory is the only completely mono-dimensional business among many other assorted dukas, although a few electronics stores seem to be scaling up to some degree (even though they will never become “chain stores”). In general, any specific projects in Kapsabet are by nature “self-help projects” in the majimbo sense—they will use the community’s resources, not those of the Kenyan Government or the Eldoret municipality. This is why effective devolution81* inherent in Kenya’s new Harmonized Draft Constitution would best help the farmers that have always been the heart and soul of the Kenyan economy. In the last twenty years, percent investment in agriculture has decreased from over 30% to well under 5% in the industry that easily employs the most Kenyan people, and that trend needs to be reversed. In addition, Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) shows* tend to avoid addressing the most pressing agricultural issues in Kapsabet; I have recorded frequent complaints about the 79 Search for. . . 80 Kenyan source81

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minimal relevance of agricultural research from Nairobi. From my participant observation, this research plays little role in the every-day lives of small farmers. Around the world today there is, in fact, very little examination into the science of raising goats or of growing invaluable crops like kasava or maharagwe or non-cash-crop mboga. There is seemingly little or no science for the poor, and only unnecessary research for the rich (genetically-cloned sheep come to mind)—a perfect indication of Chambers’ “isolation”.

Vulnerability

Let’s consider all of this by looking at a vulnerable (one of Chambers’ five indicators) farmer toiling away as he would have done in the 1960’s before independence, but operating within a greater system which is frantically developing, namely in Eldoret. After Kenyan independence in 1963, large plots of land were consolidated and given to rich Kenyans, many of which were Kikuyu. This consolidation has continued with the individualization of Kenyan land tenure (creating freehold titles) in the 1980’s. Now land prices have shot up so acquisition of new plots takes greater sacrifice, but farmers are so vulnerable that sometimes they must give up their own land in order to pay for bride wealth, fund a relative’s funeral, or settle a dispute. This is why holding a cluster of goats or sheep is so critical (for assets and debt settlement), and when a suffering family gives up this group, they see “the ratchet effect”—a procession towards deprivation that cannot be reversed once assets have been surrendered.

The same ratchet effect results from frantic urbanization: because of favorable job availability in cities like Eldoret or Nairobi, rural men decide to migrate to the nearest metropolis in search of salaried jobs. However, this influx cannot be absorbed by a steadily growing city, and widespread unemployment follows. Population and economic growth, as expected within the Western conception of development, will see urban prices slowly rise. Unfortunately, the residual rural income from sale of crops does not rise at a commensurate rate. Essentially, selling your farm’s surplus is not as profitable as it once was, those same plots are shrinking (due to shared inheritance between siblings—population growth in most African countries has not ebbed, even though development theory suggests this should happen with a rise in GDP as Kenya saw in the 70’s), and essential manufactured goods, medical care/drugs, secondary school fees, and especially western miscellaneous goods and electronics become unaffordable. This is the system through which the farmers in Kapsabet descend to the lowest rung of prosperity.

Powerlessness

Another functionality which helps to extract profit from the rural poor on the periphery is the global supply chain—from harvest by the farmers to final sale to the consumer. As of late, people in Kapsabet have occupied the most unfavorable end of this continuum. The following opposing examples illustrate these malicious forces using both a destructive economic scheme and an effectual one. First of all, in Kitale I learned that the maize-flour industry is distorted against the poor farmers. According to Philip Mbithi82, farm workers have periodic and seasonal changes in their time spent doing farm work. Consequently, during idle periods of the

82 Mbithi

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year planters must attend to other odd jobs, family responsibilities, and economic capital-building activities (to be explained in following paragraphs). However, when harvest time comes around, these families must quickly and powerfully mobilize in order to pick, de-husk, dry (sometimes), transport, and sell their maize. However, the Kenyan Government and the Kenya Cereals and Produce Board (KCPB) haphazardly buy up individuals’ maize in unspecified amounts.

Now if the government never shows, the farmers are forced to sell to the predatory prices of the milling companies who take advantage of the farmers at the very last minute before their harvest rots. In turn, they grind the maize at a streamlined, low cost and subsequently store it in their silos to artificially impose monopoly pricing—sometimes as informal cartels. This process creates food shortage through a failure to distribute the food surplus as well as by generating maize flower bags at well-inflated prices. The weak points of this system lie in the inability of both the KCPB and the Minister of Agriculture to secure maize preservation, in the opportunistic rent-seeking of the milling company, and in the powerless position of the farmers, who cannot afford “to wait”83.

Powerlessness Deterred

The system through which tea is produced in the greater Kapsabet area presents a more effective approach at food preservation and effective, equitable distribution of profits. During my travels, I visited both the locally-oriented KTL Tea Factory and the British-owned Chimoni Tea Factory—a conglomerate aimed at wholesale export of pre-ground Kenyan tea. Not only is tea a wonderfully-profitable product of the Rift Valley (during high harvest season tea-pickers will round the same plot at least once a month), but there also systems in place to ensure its supply to tea-drinker abroad and in Kenya. While the Chimoni Factory serves India, Europe, and the United States at East African auctions in Mombasa, the KTL Tea Factory offers competitive prices to local farmers, buys up smaller units of tea, and produces tea grounds in individual one-kilogram sacks for the Kenyan people. This is dramatically different than the coffee and sugar industries, where the highest-quality product goes abroad for the highest prices, and then Kenyan government parastatals import lower-quality sugar(or coffee)—with substantial tariffs—to sell to the citizens at a higher price than would be asked if the original sugar or coffee was simply rerouted. This is simply preposterous.

As for the Chimoni Tea Factory, the company makes huge dollars by exporting five million kilograms of tea per year out of Mombasa. Although some might claim that citizens from Mombasa are servicing this industry without seeing their due benefit, I witnessed how Chimoni used its profits to equitably give back to the indigenous people. First of all, all blue-collar laborers and even some factory managers grew up near Kapsabet and received free training to work at the factory. The Chimoni facility is spotless and is cleaned regularly so that it appears immaculate. It is a two-row assembly line with the highest-level industrial equipment (supposedly imported from Eldoret and Great Britain), and both safety and quality standards (each tea order must have units of “two leafs and a bud”) are adhered to at all times.

83 Chambers

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In addition, this company has reached deals with respective tea farmers for fair deals, and at the end of each work-year, these original suppliers receive a sizeable bonus if the company makes profits. The Chimoni Factory has recently spent the effort to become certified with the Rain Forest Alliance (RFA, an NGO based in New York City), and now they are able to sell their product at a premium. To be a member a produce company must respect workers’ rights, avoid predatory-pricing strategies, and enact measures to prove corporate social and environmental responsibility. Accordingly, the Chimoni Tea Factory has agreed to recognize a tea-farmers’ guild, to power their boilers from four separate and rotating forests that the factory owns (moving the operation towards carbon-neutrality), and to deposit waste into a series of strategically-placed wetlands that naturally treat runoff from the production process. Although the factory (and the greater tea-growing and refining system) might not be flawless, I was overwhelmed at the degree to which tea growers, factories, and buyers aim “to first do no harm” (Easterly).

Safety Mechanisms

Maybe the most enlightening aspects about living in and around Kapsabet is the clever coping mechanisms that both the townspeople and the runners possess to protect themselves and survive in difficult times—which could be an all-year-round, unremitting necessity. Patrick Sang, a world-class 3000 meter steeplechaser and specialist in giving back to his sport, informed me about the unusually high dependency ratio among Africans, and especially among rural Kenyans. This is one of the toughest things about moving to the city to help support your family; just like immigration through Ellis Island in the United States, you unintentionally (but knowingly) renounce many of your vital ties with family, friends, and even informal patrons, in order to provide for those people.

For example, the janitor at the Hussein Camp is completely unemployed, for all intents and purposes. However, he survives doing odd jobs around the compound and by receiving the token of a few hundred shillings from Coach Said every week. I officially employed him for my final week at the camp, and he will live off the 1000 Ksh I paid him for maybe the next month; the importance of my faith in his capabilities showed in how meticulous an uneducated, unemployed man could see a job to its execution. My handouts, which I felt bad about, were well-placed with him because he will continuously hope for supplementary jobs in the future and not just make off with the money. The poor cannot wait for ideal jobs—they instantly pounce on any job and will suffer to hang onto it.

Other examples of this intricate system of interdependency show how the poor use “self-help” to create human safety nets which are otherwise under-furnished by the central government. The Kalenjin’s unwavering support for MP and Agricultural Minister William Ruto is the most well-known adjunct to politicians who hold a foothold in power, influence, and available funds (which spell prosperity); Ruto’s policies have administered a brutal sugar shortage and an incompetent KCPB, and yet siding with Ruto represents the most probable and timely opportunity for a changed life. Politicians in Nairobi repeatedly disappoint their constituents, but the poor cannot afford to wait.

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Furthermore, a study on socioeconomic capital would be best for further examination of this issue: we see mechanisms such as the local tea factories and the system of unregistered maize-grinding machines, each for which the aforementioned types of favors are necessary. Many well-off farmers in Kapsabet have bought miniature grinding machines in order to skip the expensive and inefficient maize profit-chain, and they now charge a small fee for farmers to feed themselves from their neighborhood and not from the supermarket. This system, which has also witnessed communally-purchased contraptions, saves at least 40 Ksh, “Kenyan money”, on each bag of maize-flour. Picking just a small number of examples that I have observed since arriving in Kenya: (1) loyalty between homegrown matatu business, where the driver of an Eldoret shuttle to Kisumu will recommend a particular driver towards Kitale, if that is indeed where you intend on going; (2) unofficial agreements between ladies at the Kapsabet market that they will share the combined profit from selling sukumawiki (kale), which at the bazaar tends to be identical across all merchant-stands; (3) granting of free medicine to a farmer by a duka ya dawa (“store for medicine”) chemist, in return for a week’s worth of viazi (potatoes) when harvest season comes around (a variety of “in-kind transfer); and (4) even families sponsoring the migration of kaka or dada (brother or sister) in the hope that eventually income from a newly-acquired farm or government job will boost the income-level of the entire extended-family (this also assumes a repayment from said beneficiary). In conclusion, this series of convoluted ties and trusts represents a “socially-good” externality, where the well-known tragedy of the commons would represent a “socially-bad” outcome. Shortly I will show how these same functionalities carry over into life as a runner at the Hussein Camp in Kapsabet.

Hedging, Diversifying, & Scrambling

The final thing I must add about the rural agricultural setting in which Kenyan runners are born and raised (over 90% of those surveyed had parents that are still farmers—the exceptions being a Somali with parents who are owners of the supermarket, one whose dad is in jail and whose mother is a “hustler”, and one whose father is an athletics coach) is that the socioeconomic make-up of the farming family is changing in response to development, greater education (and therefore opportunity), and diversification to meet a growing need for a rising monetary income—as described above. When visiting families across the escarpment (in Iten, Kitale, Eldoret, Kapsabet, Kakamega, and Kapkoi), I started to realize the emergent plurality in job-persuasion, nascent within the boundaries of a single family. Now, when I would aim to visit a “farming family”, I would find myself among adults with a mixed bag of income-generating activities. I would attribute some of this trend to the enactment of the Kazi kwa Kijana (“Work for Young Men”) bill by the central government, which has the goal of employing young men in a variety of new professions when they are in dire need of work; this usually is the case after adolescence and secondary school.

During my research, one family had a father who was a farmer-turned-teacher, who after earning enough money was revisiting becoming a successful farmer. Mary Nabuley’s* brother-in-law was a retired University graduate with a degree in Agriculture, who acquired a job at the Kenyan Seed Company, has since become a small-scale farmer with various supplementary professions such as pioneer restaurant/hoteli owner, investor, and unofficial advocate on the peoples’ behalf for the Kitale Chief and Kitale Counselor. This William Kundu advises the retired

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teacher with his deep agricultural knowledge, hosts officials at his restaurant (return favors to come in the future), and owns a small maize mill that he offers up for communal use—all perfect illustrations of the previously-mentioned socioeconomic safety nets. In addition, most families (even in Shirazi village on the Indian Ocean pwani) have one brother working in a far-off urban setting, maybe one attending school, and another watching over the family farm. One runner I met hailed from Kapkoi, bought a plot of land for his new house (using prize money), and was sending his youngest brother to university while the final brother worked as a teacher and main authority in the runner’s absence on the new family farm. Numerous other examples of merchants, ministry officials, and urban labor jobs abound, but the critical point is that the income-generating activity within the family is rapidly diversifying.

Bridging Question

What relevance does this hold to runners and their profession other than giving us a background? Is this not just the color-commentary that roles as an NBA player is about to take a free-throw? The inside line to a horse’s chances at the Kentucky Derby? The special feature that plays to make a Kenyan track victory at the Olympics more gripping or identifiable to a Western TV Audience? The answer is not at all. We can only imagine what it is like for a poor boy to be flown abroad to run in the Olympics, but when his readiness is compromised or when cross-cultural issues bear down on his chances for success—this all becomes very relevant to my research question. Why are runners dependent? In the next section I present structural, systemic issues affecting dependency in runners. Each and every instance is either defined by or exacerbated by cross-cultural juxtapositions or misunderstandings. Agricultural roots are the key—to runners’ behavior and to other actors’ misbehavior.

II. Excavation of Running as a Resource

a. Foxes and Hedgehogs

A young rural Kenyan’s choice to make running his or her profession can be looked at through the illustration from the previous section. As I learned from visiting Kapkoi for a Nandi circumcision ceremony, once a Kalenjin boy becomes a man—usually recognized by this festival—he is expected to employ himself for the good of the family. With Kalenjin women, this choice depends on how progressive the family is; either way, the woman will be completing a wide variety of household chores for the entirety of her life (I am mainly considering men in my study). A job as a highly-skilled runner fulfills the role of a supplementary cash-earning job, adding to the money earned from the sale of surplus from the small-scale farm (usually). The one peculiarity with this vocation is the “lumpy nature” of the revenue deriving from prize money and other aforementioned race rewards. Earning money is by no means certain, especially during an athlete’s development phase. In fact, most families who sponsor the future success of their young male runners make an investment with huge ramifications that will not be rectified until that athlete’s eventual success. These relatives give up a prime farm worker, or if not, a young man who has the potential to earn a salaried living wage.

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In Kenya, the lack of a salaried existence means one cannot receive loans to invest in business ventures—another disadvantage intrinsic in a young runner’s startup. Finally, most runners will travel away from their homesteads to train with better coaches and more-talented runners, and henceforth they will abandon many valuable social ties like those abovementioned. As a matter of fact, many of my acquaintances at the Hussein Camp came on location and immediately worked to develop new socioeconomic capital among athletes in their new community—ostensibly meeting stand-ins for close contacts back home. These runners that I have met, after training for four or five years, essentially develop and exist on one-skill résumés. Robert Chambers puts it well: “Beyond these common characteristics, two dominant strategies stand out. A proverb of the Greek, Archilochus, says ‘the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’. Poor rural people separate into foxes and hedgehogs”84. Chambers also expounds on the fact that “more and more is known about less and less”; he says that the most terrifying reality about this aphorism is the converse—“less and less is known about more and more”. This is the truly regrettable thing about a young Kalenjin’s choosing athletics over alternative professions.

However, there are many exciting advantages to being a developing runner; within Said’s training group, most athlete’s begin training seriously after secondary school and after alternative professions have not panned out (this usually happens with runners in their early or mid-20’s). Although every runner in my survey cited financial reasons for joining the group, many also fancy a job that will bring themselves, their families, and their tribe pride and honor. In addition, the nature of the job makes running ecologically friendly and especially high-earning in the spring and summer—a low-paying period for agricultural workers. With a mono-dimensional job comes the appeal that if one perfects a skill to its maximum, the celebrity effect carries with it trails of financial riches and social splendor. This has been the case in the past and will continue to be the case as long as Kenyan prominence in athletics remains. At the pinnacle of elite performance achieved by the likes of Wilfred Bungei, Martin Lel, and Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot (all from around Kapsabet), the rewards from such excellence are simply awe-inspiring.

I have found there to be a three-rung trend that defines the hierarchy of Kenyan running performance. There is the first rung which identifies most runners—new or unproven athletes who have yet to travel abroad, to earn significant prize money (for our purpose, 1000 USD), to find a manager, and to have that same manager track down a sponsorship with a sports corporation. When these objectives have been reached through fast times, impressive finishes (with respect to place), or successful exposure, a budding Kenyan runner has reached the second rung. Finally, if that same athlete becomes dominant at the world stage—by breaking course, national, and world records, by medaling at the Olympics or the World Championships, or by winning major road races/marathons—he or she has reached the third rung and will be forever remembered in popular runner’s lore. My concern is in helping athletes reach that second rung, since all of those on the first rung are blazing-fast but dirt-poor. To continue, the most effective way to analyze the prospects for making running economically viable is to examine obstacles a runner confronts on his way towards this second rung.

84 Chambers

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b. Impediments to Success

Robert Chambers, in his chapter entitled “The new professionalism: putting the last first”, talks about obstacles: “For reversals towards the rural poor, big obstacles lie in the citadels of professional purity in the metropolitan cores”. This passage perfectly describes how the resources that have become incentives for Kenyan runners are tied up in the western centers of power and influence. Lindsay Bebee, in her Fall ’09 ISP*, brings up the dichotomy of central resources and peripheral needs85. For athletics in Kenya, the resources reside in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, but the needs exist back in rural agricultural Kenya. Runners, at the beginning, cohabit this needy region that is the Rift Valley, whereas the dealers of financial reserves (race managers, sports management companies, skilled physiologists, and high-level coaches) occupy positions in the terraces of “the center”. Lindsay claims that political capital connects resources with needs, which might very well be true. However, this section presents obstructions that lie in the passageway between the runners of the rural periphery and the professionals in the urban center. Each obstacle is accompanied with a short depiction and narrative of a runner I met within Said Aziz’s training group.

Management. This is the key variable—finding a good manager is what all runners salivate over. In essence, all other obstacles soon to be mentioned can be overcome with the acquisition of a famous manager such as Gabriela Rosa, Mark Golasso, Ricky Simms, or Giani Demardona. An athletics manager has the ability to provide the seed money to jumpstart a runner’s career. A few brand-new pairs of shoes, training suggestions, and a plane ticket (provided at the appropriate phase during training) are the needed investments in order to tow a young man onto the second rung. Races in Kenya have negligible cash-prizes, exposure (few results ever appear on the internet), and performance times; due to poor track surfaces, high altitude, and pollution (in Nairobi), very few Kenyan athletes become recognized in their home countries. Instead, managers know where to look for fledgling runners with potential, and they wager on a few runners and give them the opportunity of a lifetime. Runners need a manager for his or her valuable connections with race managers, travel agents, and potential sponsor companies.

This necessity demonstrates the state of isolation in which many runners find themselves. In order to “get a race” in the US or Europe for the first time, a manager must convince the race/event manager of a particular runner’s promise, and then the race committee may or may not pay for the runner’s plane ticket (sometimes they promise to pay back the price of the ticket if the competitor turns in an acceptable performance). Otherwise, the manager must loan his new runner the funds, since no other companies will back a non-salaried rural Kenyan with a $1000 loan. Hopefully, after a successful season, this new runner will have turned in a breakthrough performance, been offered a hefty sponsorship, reached the second rung, and made the manager’s initial investment worthwhile. Some managers even have a set number of sponsorships they can dole out to athletes of their choice.* (litigation)

Although managers have done wonders for most of the elite long-distance athletes of the modern day, they may also represent an exploitative, destructive force for a runner’s career. 85

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As a practice, most managers deal directly with travel agents, race managers, and corporate sponsors, since a runner agrees to work with a manager to access this expertise in negotiation. However, these agreements signed on behalf of an elite athlete usually remain confidential between the talent manager and the race manager/sponsor. This becomes problematic because there is no way for an athlete running races under a sponsorship to hold their own manager accountable. All winnings (undisclosed amounts for the most part) remain in the manager’s home country account, and periodically a runner may have portions of their winnings wired to them through Western Union.* (set manager price)

Therefore, from this favorable position a manager might force a runner to overrace, might keep much of the sponsorship merchandise (shipped directly to his house) for him or herself, or might keep some of the entry fee and just lie about the total amount to his or her client. If a runner begins to speak out against some of these injustices, this patron-client-esque relationship is weakened; many runners subsequently lose contact with their manager and are unable to recover the rest of their winnings—with no feasible legal recourse. On the other hand, the manager always gets paid (or paid back). However, poor Kenyan athletes do not have the time or luxury to wait for a manager with high morals.

Samuel Davis. Sam is a Marakwet who lives and trains with Said at the Hussein Camp. He runs road races and competed at the Kenyan Olympic Trials in the 3000 meter steeplechase. He is the third-born of four siblings (two males) with a father who worked as an accountant for the Kenya Revenue Association (now a farmer) and a mother who has always been on the small-scale farm. One day he pulled out of school after Form 2—on his own accord—because he was needed on the farm. Eventually he lived in Nairobi with his brother who had a job at the airport (JKIA). He then “shifted” to Eldoret and began to observe the workouts of elite runners at Kipchoge Keino Stadium. After jumping into a few workouts, he received an invitation to run at the famous Giana Demardona Nike Camp in “El-D”. After six months’ training everyone went home and he was not ever invited back. After being invited to the Hussein Camp in 2007, Said Aziz found Sam a temporary manager for a few races in Austria, and then an Italian manager signed him for the summer of 2008. He was to ultimately run eleven races in three month, many of which were multi-day events. He came back worn-out, verbally abused by the coach/manager, and having won a few thousand dollars—most of which has not been sent to Kenya yet. After a year he is now back to living off crumbs. He is 25 and told me he will use any future prosperity to put his siblings through school. He feels like he needs a manager for any of this to happen.

Facilities. The most frequent complaint I heard from runners in Kapsabet was the incessant need for proper facilities—training shoes, racing shoes, running “kits”, and sometimes an affordable weight room. At home I complain about the lack of massages, ice, or rubber track (they use a dirt track). A manager capable of obtaining a sponsorship for a runner most readily fulfills this need, and in this case one runner can order many shoes to pass around (shipments come maybe twice a year). In fact, I discovered this was the only option for shoes (although some people give shoes away through charities), since it was impossible to find a well-stocked running store in the hub city of Eldoret. However, the sensible guideline for the life of a running shoe is around 300 miles; this takes an average American runner three months or more, but Kenyans easily do this in one month*(plus lighter!). Infrequent handouts do not come at these intervals. It puzzles me how some of them are on the same shoes after over 1000 miles. Running kits (warm-ups, shorts, socks, and breathable tops) are not as big of an

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issue, as they are quite reusable, but the local gym has a daily rate of 50 Ksh—out of the question for almost every runner, unless they want to give up morning tea. Or socks without holes.

John Franklin. John also trains with Said Aziz at the camp. After high school he became “a hustler” near his home on the outskirts of Eldoret, buying maize from select homes and reselling it in town. His father was an alcoholic farmer who also happened to be a running coach, and John thought he could help his father by agreeing to train for him. He became fast instantly and traveled three times to try out for Said’s training group in 2008. He has traveled to race in Austria only once, and now competes for the University of Makerere in Uganda. He wins a certain amount of scholarship money in the spring for each track race he places in, but must pay the school if he does not reach the full-ride figure—a terrible amount of pressure inimical to any healthy training regime. In the fall he trains at the camp with Said and immediately cites a lack of training shoes as his greatest obstacle. He has the most raw-speed of anyone in the camp and therefore competes in the 800 meter run with a blistering time of 1:46.51; he has the most to gain by receiving the token of proper training gear. As a middle-distance runner, he would be benefited by a supplementary weight-training schedule, but he definitely cannot afford the local gym. He is 25 and will use his future prize money to improve his training.

Coaching. Coaching is indispensable, even though most new runners in Kenya are never confronted with the option for one. Said Aziz is quite the anomaly, as he accepts almost any runner that can show discipline and loyalty to the group. In addition, runners owe no money to him until they make it big at a race, and then they respect the informal but spoken agreement to compensate Coach Said. Athletes see huge benefits by training together: as new runners they see everyday what it will take to beat the world (beating other Kenyans might be more challenging), and established, developed runners have a group of cheeky novices to test them.

With reference to well-established and conventional literature on endurance training86, Said’s methods are extremely tough but necessary if a select few are to be weeded out to be the world’s greatest. Although workouts are brutal and often too much for some under his tutelage, his encouragement with trademark phrases such as “play the game”, “no pain, no gain”, “trust your speed” serve as a pick-me-up during the roughest times. Said also spends a lot of time seeking connections for his athletes and traveling as a coach with or without them; this in turn transforms his job from specialized coach to leader of self-help running project. Unfortunately, many managers have eliminated the need for a local-level coach by feeding personalized workouts to their own signed runners; although this might be a cost-saving procedure, it eliminates the possibility for a responsive and personalized supervision of training. It also undermines the prospect for a more bottom-up, Kenyan-owned solution towards mining its comparative advantage in athletic talent.

Richard Telo. Richard is an exciting case study, as this 800 meter runner (24 years old) has only been running for a year. Said offered to coach this athlete from the beginning, and in a short time Richard has run a best time of 1:48.49—an extraordinary feat for such a recent convert to the sport. Because this runner is new and promising, Coach Aziz is doing extra groundwork to make sure his talent is not squandered. Specifically, Aziz gives him extra attention and care, especially if he is feeling worn down. This December Richard is being included in the annual trip to Austria to run a few track races on the European Circuit. From past experience Said has learned that some of his best athletes have left him after

86 Peter Coe

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becoming big-time (to be explained in following pages), so the coach is making every effort to foster and preserve Richard as a fast runner and valuable asset to his program.

Physical Weakness*. Runners deal with physical weakness (also one of Chambers’ indicators) on a daily basis. Part of the reason coaching is so important is that individual runners cannot always tell when to rest and when to test their limits. In this rural agricultural setting, many of Said’s group run over twenty kilometers to reach the camp each day, which puts ridiculous pounding on the legs and wears out shoes, but which also hardens the mind and strengthens the aerobic system. Luckily dirt roads are a relatively good surface as long as athletes beware of twisted ankles, and so habitual endurance running is always healthy as long as nutritional needs are met. Here introduces another variable effecting physical weakness, where most runners at the Hussein camp eat white bread for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and ugali na sukuma for dinner. No vitamins, no supplements, no Gatorade. There is still a running debate (pardon the pun) as to whether this minimal diet is adverse to a runner’s goals or if it induces the body to metabolize small amounts of energy more efficiently.

Finally, injuries do not plague many participants in Said’s training group (although routine soreness does); however, when athletes become hurt, there are no quick fixes. The only specialty hospitals are in Eldoret and unaffordable, so an array of chemists in Kapsabet Town represents the only remedy to a suffering runner. While I was staying at the camp, runners contracted malaria, typhoid, bronchitis, and diarrheal diseases, all of which set back training and are costly to treat with efficacy. Physical weakness is maybe the most instantly-debilitating obstacle runners face on their way to the second rung. After that point, it becomes easier to overcome this obstacle, for a variety of obvious reasons.

Simon Bensam. Simon comes from a village fifty kilometers away and is a long-distance road racer. He was one of Said’s first runners at the Hussein Camp and has seen slow but steady recovery. Two months ago his knee began to hurt, so he tried everything from rest to ice in order give that leg a break. Anti-inflammatories did not diminish the pain, and now the pain while running is unbearable. The local chemist, who claims to have a doctor’s degree, has suggested a cortisone shot, but the price of the injection and other suggested medications (to be taken following the shot) is well beyond what Simon can afford. The “doctor” will spot him the money, but is it the wisest decision to go into debt just because of an unsound diagnosis? To make matters worse, Simon is maybe the poorest runner in the camp, has a seven-year-old child out of wedlock, and is almost thirty years old. He told me he would spend big prize money on “basic things and necessities”.

Exposure. As mentioned before, most Kenyans run first in their home countries because it is affordable and because managers sometimes come to races here to recruit promising young talent. One would expect the problem of athlete exposure to be handled by Athletics Kenya (the AK), the body responsible for overseeing the quality and quantity of success in Kenyan long-distance running. Other institutions that could serve as stand-ins for the AK would be the Kenyan Ministry of Sports in Nairobi (with an office in Eldoret) or the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). After asking coaches, citizens, and athletes themselves all around the Rift Valley, it has become obvious that these organizations do basically nothing to assist in the real welfare of the Kenyan runners. Sure, they set up a series of district, regional,

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and national cross country races in order for their athletes to be discovered by foreigners. Sure, they have started to reward Kenyan excellence on the international circuit. BUT, there are no systems in place to judge and improve on the general health of the sport and its athletes.

When asked on my survey if anyone had ever helped them personally in their career pursuits, not one athlete from Said’s group mentioned anyone but their own families, running partners, or Coach Said himself. The IAAF has a system for registering and training long-distance coaches and also has set up a small scholarship fund for Kenyan athletes, but this is the extent of central help for the athletes in the rural periphery. The only time the Kapsabet runners see the AK is at the long drawn-out ceremonies following AK-sanctioned meets in their area; as an onlooker after the Kapsabet 10K Peace Run, all I saw was a bunch of bureaucrats patting each others’ backs in excess pageantry and a awkward speech by famous 800 meter Olympics silver medalist Janeth Jepkosgei. Athletics Kenya supports you when you make the national team, but the minute you slow down they drop you like a bad habit.

David Green. Apart from Lornah Kiplagat, Ibrahim Hussein, and Duncan Kibet, probably the most talented runner I met was David Green, who somehow managed to finish fourth at the 2008 Kenyan Olympic Trials in the 10,000 meter run—one spot away from making the Kenyan Olympic team. His time of 28:08 makes him a prime candidate for both superior management and a high-level sponsorship. And yet he has neither. His old manager passed away last year, and he was unfortunately left high and dry. He is still to this day unrepresented, and I could not figure out why. Many big-time managers told me this was impossible unless he is running extremely poorly right now, but David told me he is still fit and training himself every day. In general, runners are forgotten about in a hurry, possibly because Kenyans (and especially Kalenjins as a group) have similar names, and so they all represent the same marketable East African speed-demon; unfortunately these individual athletes are no longer marketable because of the saturation of Kenyan runners on the international long-distance scene. David is 27 and lives with his family just outside of Eldoret.

Kalenjin Identity. Coach Said cited two personal traits of his runners that prohibit them from optimizing their self-advocacy and gumption to compete in places like Europe, Asia, and the Americas. First of all, Said referred to the ultimate readiness of any of his runners to figuratively prostrate themselves before managers or officials from the Global North. Chambers says that, for the poor, “accepting powerlessness pays”. If the runner causing a fuss about deal negotiation makes him or her appear a liability, the athlete is always replaceable; thus, most young competitors just count their losses and do not mobilize for fair managing, coaching, or sponsorship. Also, I found there exists a condition for many of the runners where they find an odd form of solace in being the oppressed and others being the oppressor: “[There is a] tendency of solidarity groups to search for rivals and enemies and on occasion to invent them*. The internal analogue of this is the tendency of solidarity groups to find scapegoats, often outside their group. In self-help activities former colonial masters, present government officials, and local politicians fill this category quite nicely” (Mbithi, pg. 193). In order to interpret their own poverty (runners and non-runners), the Kalenjin poor might find reasoning present in the coercion of “outsiders”; possible culprits could be professionals from the Global North, Athletics Kenya, or the rival Kikuyu tribe.

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There is a low level of self-advocacy recorded inside of Aziz’s training group, and this becomes unequivocal when observing a young naïve athlete going to Nairobi to ask for a traveling athlete visa, writing his application essay to a foreign university, or requesting favors from one capable of charity. In my last week in Kapsabet Town, I received a multitude of last-minute favors with no previously-thought-out rationale—especially from those I had met in passing. Whereas in America you befriend someone first and possibly ask favors second, the Kenyan value system requires favors first as a precondition for authentic friendship. This disconnect steps in the gap between resources in the First World and needs in the Third World, and the less-privileged runners in Kapsabet are caught in the crossfire.

Frank Brown. Frank is a road racer who has thrived under Said Aziz’s coaching system. He is a step away from competing internationally, as he does well in most ten kilometer races in the area. He was managed by a low-level manager from Austria for a year or two, and life was comparatively great. One day this manager decided he would only administer to marathoners, sent Frank an email, and then quit representing him. Frank is now a victim of the ratchet effect, where he was previously renting a one-room block in Kapsabet for 3000 Ksh, and now he is forced to run frequent races around the Rift Valley to keep his quarters (his landlord is fortunately very flexible). Instead of becoming indignant, Frank consents to having been the victim duped by an unequal system. The same thing has happened after this runner was denied a visa at the German Embassy in Nairobi—no fight, only acceptance of “an enemy”. And yet Frank ironically hosted three Kikuyu runners during the 2008 post-election violence and physically stopped a few Kalenjin boys from burning down his Kikuyu landlord’s compound. When it comes to running, however, he does not discriminate between real and scam opportunities, as demonstrated when he told me that I could ask to be his manager tomorrow, and he would not need any convincing. The poor do not have time for triage. Frank is 24, and with a large paycheck he would first help his family, siblings, teammates, and coach.

Common Sense Issues. Going along with the just-mentioned obstacle, Said also spoke volumes about the practical intelligence level of his athletes. Essentially he said that most runners do not use any common sense in the way that westerners do. This starts with runners being their own promoters, as I have already said. In my third week in Kapsabet, a South African management firm contacted Said about the profiles of his best athletes. Instead of his runners begging to help him contact the manager, Said had to collect their passports and scan all their information to the company personally. His runners miss race entry deadlines, show up at visa offices lacking the necessary documents, or show up unprepared for a workout. I agreed to watch a few runners practice who wanted my assistance, but none of them seemed to realize that I would need a top-level performance in order to plug for them in my home country—for races or for university. One young athlete showed up after having run a tough fartlek (Swedish for “speed play”) workout twelve hours beforehand, ran a comparatively terrible workout, made some excuses, and then wondered when the bacon would come, so to speak.

Instead, most runners at the camp lie about their fastest times in order to get what they want, which undermines Said’s credibility as well as the credibility of their group-mates and successors on the training squad. On the survey that I handed out, I received answers from many that were meant to appeal to an American in a powerful position; instead of gathering valuable numerical data on aspirations and living standards, I learned a great deal about the runners’ inability to answer questions directly and thoughtfully. In short, most young Kenyan

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runners do not do their homework, do not plan for certain peak performances during the year, and do not spend enough time being their own publicist. A hedgehog might do only one thing well, but he must do it comprehensively well.

Arthur Lancaster. The high dependency ratio within the Hussein Camp is largely due to Arthur, who has competed in America, Europe, and Asia. He has reached the second rung towards running stardom, and has some extremely fast times. Most runners hang out at his house on his leather sofas watching his television (he is the only runner with electricity). As far as training goes, Arthur could not take a more methodical and sensible approach. He always seems to run fast in races, and is on track to be a very good marathoner in the next five years. However, Arthur has unwittingly hurt his prospects by failing to approach his work with common sense. In Said’s old camp, headed by a manager in Europe and sponsored through Mizuno, Arthur was one of a contingent of runners who became fast under Said’s tutelage and with the help of the manager’s goodwill. Nevertheless, most of these runners ran off to other camps or to different managers at this point, Arthur included. He presently has numerous informal agreements with different managers who are starting to get frustrated with his disloyalty. He has decided to run his debut at the Israel Tiberius Marathon in January, even though he agreed with Said that he should wait until later in the year to peak for his marathon coming-out party. Finally, he chooses places to train based on the excitement in the area (friends, parties, etc.) instead of the benefits to training conditions that the same area brings to the table—he has spent a great deal of time at low altitude in Texas and North Carolina, paying for his own plane tickets instead of re-investing in his powerful legs. Arthur is slowly but surely chipping away at his capability of being a professional athlete.

Note on Woman’s Issues:

As I stated earlier, this paper’s focus is predominantly on young male athletes. However, it is worth noting that female athletes face these same obstacles and more. As professionalism increases within the Kenyan farming family, women are forced to take on more and more household duties (even some jobs that are traditional male) as their men go off to study at university, to work in urban centers, to take civil service jobs, and to farm new land. If a young girl chooses to take on a role as a professional athlete, it will have to be in addition to these necessary familial obligations. Lornah Kiplagat was always encouraged by her parents to seek her dream of running stardom, and she took on a “me-against-the-world” attitude while training at camps with narrow-minded males during her formative years of training (they used to unsuccessfully request that she do their dishes and clean their houses). Nonetheless, Lornah is one of the few exceptions. Kenyan women have not saturated international long-distance competition as their male counterparts have, although most people are catching on to the promising payoffs that come from investing in these talented females.

III.Money Decisions

a. Sukumawiki—Pushing the week*87

Just as many rural Kenyans rely on kale to hold them through the week, athletes who have won prize money must savor their cash winnings for an extended amount of time. As previously stated, income for Kapsabet runners is either nonexistent or “lumpy”, and there is no

87 Sukumawiki – Kenyan plant similar to kale. Translates directly to “push the week”. Even the poorest Kenyans can usually afford to buy sukuma in order to survive another week in poverty.

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guarantee that follow-up cash will be able to support an athlete indefinitely. In the meantime between races, I soon found out that the poorer of the runners at the Hussein Camp “go to town” every weekday not to visit with friends but to ultimately borrow money for living expenses; this is until they make it big, and then they will pay back the kindness of their compatriots. The same situation happens within the walls of the Hussein Camp, where runners like Arthur lend money to their friends and basically supply every pair of training shoes for the neighboring athletes.

Maintaining social ties goes hand in hand with survival when an athlete has not yet reached the second rung; in fact, this means that a young runner’s existence is very similar to that of a farmer. The main difference between a struggling farmer and a struggling runner is that a farmer has constant help from family and friends, plus he has more time to earn his keep, as it were. The income-generating potential (represented as a graph) for an agricultural worker has a constant maximum that extends over his entire life, whereas an athlete has maybe ten years to win enough prize money to support himself (or herself) and his family for the rest of his life. The difference in earning trajectories (on a timescale) is germane, to say the least.

This dilemma brings up two crucial points about the precariousness of being a professional runner. One, an aspiring athlete must plan to perform at a high level for a continuum of at least ten years, which makes even more calamitous the impediments to success that were listed in the previous chapter. For example, if a runner pushes his body too hard in an effort to reach his peak or to race ten times in a summer, but as a result wears his legs out, he might have just ruined his chance for a “big break”—ruining his career and rendering him poor and “unskilled”. Every runner has a tiny chance to perform well at a big-exposure race, and only some of those high achievers are picked up by managers or invited to races abroad. Once this happens, the clock starts for the chunk of time an athlete possesses to win his fortune.

A second point that must not be taken for granted is how athletes spend their money. Kipchoge Keino and Henry Rono were the first two bigshot Kenyan runners—the two athletes that, through their legs, introduced an era of Kenyan running supremacy, bringing pride and glory to their nation. Keino has personally added a wing to the Eldoret Children’s Hospital, has started a charitable organization for orphans, and has built a primary and a secondary school that both bear his name. The Eldoret City Council once christened a newly-built track in their city “Kipchoge Keino Stadium”, and in 1996 Keino was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame. If Keino can be compared to the altruistic Bill Gates (who has give 58% of his money in charitable donations), Henry Rono could probaly be compared to the Walton family (founders of Wal-Mart, who have given lowly 1% of their money to charity). Rono did nothing with his money except spend it; ironically, Rono was privileged to spend a lot of time at American Universities, and Keino was not. Years after setting four world records in eight-one days, Rono was broke and living on the street. Drinking and bad training habits shortened his career dramatically, and he never competed at the Olympics. He is now a recovering alcoholic who is rehabilitating as an assistant coach at a high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is not meant to be a malicious comparison but to serve as a caveat that winning the money does not ensure its productivity. In this section I feel it necessary to further examine how some Kenyans use their money, for good or for ill.

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b. Putting Money to Work

From a combination of primary source evidence, conversations with runners, and observations from my survey, I have a pretty good idea where money travels once a Kenyan athlete earns significant amounts of prize money. No matter if the figure is 10,000 Ksh or 10,000 USD, the first recipients on the spending docket are a runner’s family, as one might expect from the previous section on the rural agricultural setting of Kapsabet. Basic needs, more land, and a rebuilt house are the first tokens of appreciation that a runner’s parents receive. What comes next differs from runner to runner; very frequently, what members of Said’s training group wrote on the survey is not what actually happens once they earn the money—I saw this disconnect when I would visit the homesteads of newly-prosperous athletes.

Spending decisions I observed were (1) new land entitled to that individual runner, (2) a well-furnished new house, (3) a car, (4) household possessions and appliance, such as a flatscreen TV, and (5) investment of some kind—this is the best semblance of an order that I could surmise. Investments almost always come in the form of real estate ventures, since renting out apartments or buildings (to merchants, businesses, etc) is not time-intensive and can be overseen by a hired manager; this allows a runner in his or her prime to focus completely on athletics while simultaneously seeing invested prize money grow. While I was at the Lands Commissions Office in Eldoret I met successful marathoner Abraham Maiyo, who was buying a parcel of land for this exact purpose.

Also included in a runner’s spending decisions are (A) compensating the coach or manager, (B) helping fellow runners out with money or in-kind transfers such as shoes, and (C) giving back to the community in some sort of charitable way. Depending on the runner and the situation, these three options might come in any order or distribution. Once an athlete has reached the second rung, it becomes easier to consider more costly investment, although the total amount of investment by world-class runners is an altogether paltry amount. However, Haile Gebrselassie, probably the most successful and famous Ethiopian distance runner of all time (and current marathon world record holder), has done it all—helped his family, started charities, donated to runners all over his home country, bought buildings, and even established businesses in Addis Ababa (not just in real estate). He might be the biggest-ever celebrity in Ethiopia, and it is all because of his success on and off the track. However, altruistic giving is not the overarching trend with famous runners, as I could tell by living on the ground in the rural hometowns of all-star Kenyan athletes. Giving back is a very contentious subject for debate (both publicly and privately) among runners and their communities, so it would be useful now to reference the financial decisions of a few of my acquaintances from participant observation in Eldoret. These are all runners who have reached the “second rung”:

Ibrahim Hussein. As mentioned in Chapter One, Ibrahim Hussein is a legendary Kenyan runner who won the New York Marathon and the Boston Marathon (three times in five years). Hussein has contributed most of his financial resources into building his camp in Kapsabet. He has also become a high-up member of the IAAF in Nairobi. I found very little to complain about in Hussein’s words and actions.

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Patrick Sang. I met Patrick for an interview at an Eldoret Coffee Shop. He was a three-time silver medalist (once at the Olympics) in the 3000 meter steeplechase back in the 1990’s. His story is interesting because he attended the Universe of Texas as an undergraduate student (bachelor’s degree in economics) and Iowa State University as a graduate student (master’s degree in city planning), and then he won his silver medals! On returning to Kenya, he decided to live in Eldoret but not to participate as an official on the City Council (as some runners have done); he thinks that politics and greed control the bureaucracy that is the Ministries. He instead works as a farmer and as an adviser for the Dutch managing companies Global Sports and One-for-One. He coaches many athletes under these firms, and also volunteers his time to help athletes manage their money. He used to advise at Talent Achievers Limited, which is a company that offers the same general service. Sang represents one of the only resources available to athletes in Eldoret looking to spend their winning wisely. Nothing like this exists in Kapsabet. Patrick Sang was probably the most intelligent runner (and person, actually) that I met during my thesis research.

Lornah Kiplagat. During the third week of my preliminary research, I visited Lornah Kiplagat’s High Altitude Training Camp in Iten. Lornah is one of the greatest female road racers in Kenyan athletics history. She has used some of her winnings for a nice house in Iten overlooking the Rift Valley, but most of her winnings on her high-tech camp. Featured on location at the camp are physiotherapy rooms, a western-style weight room with included cardio equipment, an outdoor pool, two locker rooms with showers, a dining hall, two cooks, first-rate accommodation for up to forty people, and a restaurant which is being built. The camp is completely sustainable—ecologically, with solar electricity, biofuel, and a nearby organic farm; financially, with a reasonable rooming fee for foreign visitors who want to train with the Kenyans; and socially. The camp is socially sustainable because it gives back to the Iten Community. Each year, Lornah personally selects around twenty secondary school students who are graduating from local schools for her KENSAP program. Essentially, she has two managers (one in the states) that help the young kids train in athletics and apply to universities in America. They become fast, ready themselves for the SAT and TOEFL tests, and then submit their applications. To date, Lornah continues to annually send a contingent of kids from Iten to Ivy League Institutions—for free! Although I do not deal directly with student athletes in Kenya in this thesis, my visit to Lornah’s camp (and meeting some of the girls and boys she has helped) was study enough to see that running really can change your life in this country. In addition, Lornah uses her connections as a new Dutch citizen (she married her Dutch manager) and world traveler to network for potential jobs for her runners that graduate from college in the US. If they have an idea for a business venture in Kenya, she and her husband will even provide seed money to kickstart that idea. Finally, Lornah has also built a primary school, is in the process of building a secondary school sports academy, and helped to co-found the NGO Shoe4Africa, which collects used shoes to give to young Africans (Lornah organizes giving out of shoes at Shoe4Africa races around Kenya). She is one of the most unselfish runners that I met in November.

Peter Rono Camp. If Lornah’s KENSAP program and HATC have one fault, it is that only a few elite young men and women receive help. Although others can pay to use the camp, few

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Kenyans step inside the walls of the camp unless they are in KENSAP. The feeling at the HATC is not one of a town community center, and most of the young KENSAP students help each other out from this point on. Many will not come back—they will regrettably remain in the urban center along with the other Ivy League graduates. Peter Rono (1988 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 1500 meter) has also tried to help scholar athletes but has taken a different approach. He has created a camp in Kapsabet, with a Coach Chumo playing the role of coach, mentor, and academic facilitator. The difference is that the coach charges a fee for his service (KENSAP is free), that anyone is welcome at the camp, and that Peter Rono networks personally for the program in the states. The fee is the main disadvantage of the Rono camp, along with the base lack of knowledge among the runners about the logistics of becoming a scholar athlete. I had to lead a focus group in which I essentially lectured to around thirty kids: I filled in their negligible knowledge about (1) quality of various American schools, (2) quality of their respective running programs, and (3) what scores and times would make winning an athletic scholarship achievable. I had some kids with only marginal times wanting to go to sub-par universities with unknown running programs, because most Kenyan athletes do not know how to discern between very different levels of opportunity—the information asymmetry, I learned, is huge! Rono has established a camp with the right idea but with insufficient groundwork at this point.

Pamela Jelimo. Jelimo represents everything that is wrong with selfish Kenyan runners. Earlier in my paper I described both her achievements and her winnings in the summer of 2008 as groundbreaking. One thing I did not mention is that Said Aziz found her after secondary school and had been coaching her up until the end of summer 2008. Every day he had given her workouts, and they had traveled together to most of the Golden League meets. At the end of the summer, Jelimo’s manager instructed her to leave Said, the reason being that Aziz had asked the manager to let Pamela sit out indoor track to recover from a miraculous summer. Since Pamela left Said they have not talked and her performances have gone downhill. She did not even qualify for the World Championships last year and has not won a major competition. What is worse, she has not given a dime back to Coach Aziz or the training group—both of which were absolutely critical to her discovery, development, and perfection as an elite runner. As a multi-millionaire who was born and raised in Kapsabet, she has handed nothing back to her community. Instead she has moved away from the town, another problem present when modern-day athletes want to avoid social pressure to share their wealth. Many wealthy Kenyans (even non-runners) actually hide their prosperity in order to avoid feeling this pressure, so the rural poor in Kenya often make it a habit to snuff out the deceivers amongst themselves. In fact, the same has been accused of Said, since people assume he has money when in reality Pamela ripped him off. What Pamela has done, considering her good fortune, is by many peoples’ description selfish and irrational.

Belal Ali Monsoon. I stayed at Belal’s house for two nights during my preliminary research. He is a Kenyan from Kapsabet, who now competes for Bahrain. He has a hefty Nike sponsorship and competes in the 800 meter and 1500 meter runs with best times of 1:44 and 3:31, respectively. He has definitely reached the second rung, and has the resources to help his community. Unlike Bernard Lagat, a Kenyan who has since become a naturalized American

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citizen, Belal has chosen to live amongst his family, friends, and original neighbors—and chosen to assist them. To start with, he is helping his parents build a new house. He has built his own terribly nice house furnished with all the latest electronics, has two cars, and is in the process of buying a building in Nairobi. In addition, he hosts Cornelius Lagat, a friend and teammate from high school, at his house; he shares food, accommodation, and his training regime in order to help out a kid who attends college in Uganda half of each year. Although what he has done with Cornelius is admirable, Belal has been irresponsible in my view. He was also coached by Said but has left the training group and the Hussein Camp and given little back (although he still sends shoes on occasion). Over the years he has lied about his age (the issue I mentioned before) and has actually landed himself in jail, which perfectly highlights said problems in common sense. Also, he has spent his money quite liberally on his himself and close friends (which is perfectly justified) but has apparently put little thought into projects for the community. Belal is a nice young man with the opportunity to do great things, everything banking on decisions he makes in the future.

IV. ConclusionNow we take our leave from paper media and make our way to the documentary. As aforementioned, the first task was to identify dependency in my empirical chapter, and the next step is to trace back this dependency, attributing it as best as possible. To this end I will submit my findings in a film that combines interview content, B-roll illustration, and strong participant observation. In structuring the documentary, my main devices have been “storytelling” and content/discourse analysis.

However, in this chapter I first explained a runner’s agricultural roots and how practices and skills become embedded in a young male Kalenjin at an early age. Thus one might expect an athlete’s roots to play a large part in how he trains, how he makes deals, and how he operates in the context of an international migratory sport. Second, I demonstrated how this agricultural socioeconomy has an added dimension of diversification unlike that in the Global North. Consequently, becoming a full-time athlete puts stresses on how Kenyans normally survive, especially because making it as a runner requires the luxury that is a mono-dimensional focus. Finally, even with this destabilization of a Kenyan’s life, he still finds himself dependent on others to achieve fame and fortune. A runner’s destiny is never fully in his own hands. At the end of this chapter, I show difficulties that an athlete has finding success, difficulties in being sufficiently rewarded for that success, and even difficulties in using financial reward in the best possible way.

It is clear that Kenyan Athletics is an exceptional story with many financial upsides and structural downsides. With migration of athletes and workers hitting an all-time high at the turn of the millennium, any investigation into migration habits, its nodes and connections, its main actors, and its holistic mechanisms will be helpful in avoiding overall dependency. Why is dependency undesirable? First, it undermines underprivileged peoples’ ability to pursue their basic rights. Secondly, it can undermine a nation’s leaders’ and role models’ ability to act in

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their interest. How a country’s “best” can interact on the world scene reflects how the entire nation and its population will be able to interact in continually-globalizing world.

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