Translanguaging for civic education: translations emerging from Kenya’s #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests

Abstract The #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests in Kenya started as an online movement, as people voiced their dissatisfaction with not only the content of the finance bill but also general misgovernance. As the demonstrations escalated leading up to the parliamentary vote on the bill, content creators on Twitter (X) called on Kenyans to share videos translating the key contentious issues in the bill into as many Kenyan languages as possible, to educate Kenyans on the necessity of the protests. Kenyans responded by sending in videos explaining the bill in varieties of Gikuyu, Ekegusii, Dholuo, and so on, and even in Kenyan Sign Language. The call was in recognition of and a reaction to the exclusion resulting from crucial government documents being available only in English, and in response Kenyans employed translanguaging to mobilize linguistic and non-linguistic resources to deconstruct the bill, with the outcome being textual, graphical, musical, and corporeal translations that enhanced civic education, in turn fuelling the protests and culminated in the president withdrawing the bill. This paper investigates translanguaging in the creation of translations, not just to facilitate inclusion and linguistic justice, but as facilitation for civic education to create the awareness needed to push for fair, just, and equitable governance.