In 2010, like many African countries since the 1990s, Kenya passed a new constitution. This constitution aimed to get rid of many past issues including the definition of citizenship. Globally, two general principles govern the acquisition of citizenship, descent from a citizen (jus sanguinis), and the fact of birth within a state territory (jus soli). In contrast to the prior Constitution that required both descent from Kenyan parents and birth in Kenya, the 2010 Constitution adopted a rule of citizenship by descent alone (jus sanguinis) from either parent. However, today Kenya is faced with a conundrum first articulated by Aristotle: how do you understand and operationalize citizenship by descent in a new state, or in the case of Kenya, one that has only just turned fifty? The crux of this conundrum is determining the basis of the citizenship of parents who precede the polity and therefore what they can transfer to their children. Understanding that articulations of citizenship are also systems of exclusion, this paper asks who can and cannot be a Kenyan citizen and why? What are the unintended consequences of efforts to escape Aristotle's conundrum?

中文翻译：

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具有讽刺意味的公民身份：后殖民非洲国家的血统，民族归属和宪法

与1990年代以来的许多非洲国家一样，2010年，肯尼亚通过了新宪法。该宪法旨在摆脱过去的许多问题，包括公民身份的定义。在全球范围内，有两项通用原则管理公民身份的获得，公民的后裔（jus sanguinis）和州领土内的出生事实（jus soli）。与既需要肯尼亚父母的后裔又要在肯尼亚出生的先前宪法相反，2010年宪法通过了仅由父母双方的后裔（jus sanguinis）组成的公民身份规则。但是，今天，肯尼亚面临着亚里斯多德首先提出的难题：您如何在一个新州或以肯尼亚为例，通过血统了解和运用公民身份，才刚满五十岁的那个？这个难题的症结在于，决定了政体之前的父母的公民身份的基础，因此决定了他们可以转移给孩子什么。由于了解公民身份也是排斥制度，因此本文询问谁可以和不能成为肯尼亚公民，以及为什么？摆脱亚里士多德难题的意外后果是什么？