Withholding-while-Giving: Safaricom, the State and Parastatal Cohabitation

This paper develops an account of parastatal governance, in which putatively distinct organizational forms – private corporation and public state – cohabitate. It does so through Safaricom, Kenya's largest firm. Known for telecommunications and mobile money services, Safaricom does much more than commerce. It is a chief promulgator of patriotism and is expected by Kenyans to provide what elsewhere might be considered ‘public goods’: famine relief, schooling, boreholes. Much like Serres's attention to the ambiguities of l'hôte in The Parasite, Safaricom occupies a zone of indeterminacy, neither clearly host nor guest, and is the object of welcoming entreaty and anxious resentment. To illustrate, the article examines two linked institutions: a charitable foundation and the legal and fiduciary devices that fund its initiatives. This builds on the anthropology of corporate social responsibility by demonstrating how legal trusts and the management of financial interests create a situation of both ‘with holding’ and ‘giving’.