ABSTRACT
Kikuyu and Kamba women traders in the Nairobi area form the primary subject of this chapter, in which I will look at the implications for women’s status of market trade in the 1980s. The stereotypical East African woman is a farmer, and development efforts involving such women usually focus on agricultural functions. However, Kikuyu women of central Kenya have been trading since at least the mid-nineteenth century, marketing foodstuffs in both local and long-distance trade, and Kamba women have also been involved in local trade since the nineteenth century.
