A great Author, Professor and Geographer

  • Celia Nyamweru (Professor Emerita, Ph.D. Cambridge) is a former Academic Dean at Kenyatta University in Kenya, where she worked for 19 years. She has an international reputation for her work in physical geography.
  • She has also taught a range of courses dealing with women in East Africa and the Third World, development issues, and indigenous perceptions of the environment.
  • Her research interests have included the ten thousand year old Lake Nakuru, the active volcano Oldoinyo Lengai, the making of bark cloth in Uganda, the sacred kaya forests of coastal Kenya, and the Mijikenda heroine Mekatilili.
  • She became a Kenya citizen in 1972 and was married under Kikuyu customary law in 1977. She is the proud mother of two daughters and three stepsons, and the ‘cucu’ of nine grandchildren. She hopes that this book will encourage young Kenyans to take more interest in their own culture, since ‘mwacha mila ni mtumwa.’
  • Some of her books include Some Traditions of the Akamba of Kenya and Rifts and Volcanoes. She has also co-edited books such as African Sacred Groves and Barkcloth in Uganda: The modern day importance of an indigenous craft.
  • Celia has also contributed chapters in a couple of books which include:
    1. Ecofeminism and Globalization

    Women and sacred groves in coastal Kenya; a contribution to the ecofeminist debate


    2. Global Multiculturalism

    Letting the side down; personal reflections on colonial and independent Kenya, pages 169-192


    3. Symbols of indigenous identity: the Ndata leadership staffs of Kaya elders in Kilifi District, Kenya. (with A. Tengeza).(

    Chapter 11


    4. Identity politics and culture in coastal Kenya:

    Chapter 12


    5. Conservation or development? A case study of Lake Victoria basin.

    Chapter 3

  • Her current work involves social and cultural issues surrounding the kaya (sacred) forests of the Kenya Coast. In fall 2002 and spring 2003 she directed the Kenya Semester Program of St. Lawrence University, Canton NY. Some of her books together with a short description are listed below:

Celia Nyamweru

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