Fakeness, Human-Object Fluidity and Ethnic Suspicion on the Kenyan Pharmaceutical Market

ABSTRACT The authenticity of things is often seen as an intrinsic characteristic – one that would depend only upon their internal properties. One way of renewing the analysis of fakeness has consisted in showing on the contrary how dependent things are upon external factors such as social and normative contexts. In addition, research has shown the fluidity that results from such an observation: fakeness is not a stable identity, as it is continuously built along social and technical interactions. This article contributes to this analysis by demonstrating how discussions over pharmaceuticals in Kenya have been shaped across time and space. It shows that from colonial history to the grip of global market forces, pharmaceutical fakeness is a recurring manifestation of the never ending circulations between the status of people and the properties of things.