Switzer, H: When the Light Is Fire Maasai Schoolgirls in Contemporary Kenya

Second runner-up, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, African Studies Association Women's Caucus, 2019
Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), 2020

"Switzer's book draws from her empirical research with over 100 Kenyan Maasai schoolgirls. . . .Switzer does a brilliant job of bringing to light the complexities of the context and the paradox of what education promises these girls therein. . . . This book is worth reading." --Feminist Africa "The book both dispels any misapprehensions about the helplessness, and the hopelessness, of Maasai girls and directly refutes the developmentalist discourse that sees girls' empowerment as a panacea for the developing world's problems." --H-Africa "One of the only books that I know which draws on and shares the perspectives and experiences of schoolgirls themselves, thus challenging dominant ideas that they are especially passive, vulnerable, or incapable of articulating their complicated and changing lives. As such, the book directly challenges broad, abstract claims by development donors and other champions of 'the girl effect.'"--Dorothy L. Hodgson, author of Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World "When the Light is Fire is a book that forces you to confront the many contradictions, paradoxes and nuances of 'schoolgirl.' What Valerie Walkerdine set out to explore several decades ago in Schoolgirl Fictions is now taken up by Heather Switzer in relation to contemporary Maasai culture. As central to its obvious contributions to deepening an understanding of girls' education, Switzer's rich analysis offers a fascinating critique of global policy and neoliberalism. The book is compelling reading for scholars in variety of areas including girlhood studies, feminist research, and development studies."--Claudia Mitchell, coeditor of Girlhood and the Politics of Place "When the Light is Fire captures children and education in Africa . . . the book exhorts us to critically reexamine our perception of education in the twenty-first century, especially in transnational development discourse." --African Studies Review