Contested Lands of Laikipia

Marie Ladekjær Gravesen, Ph.D., Cologne University, is a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). Historically and anthropologically, her work addresses land contestations, enclosures, social-ecological dynamics and adaptation in East- and West Africa.

Laikipia has seen more violence than any part of Kenya over the past 30 years. Marie Gravesen here tells us why. Political claim-making, ethnic mobilisation, and land invasions set the terms of Laikipia’s struggles, in a context marked by resource competition and diminishing livelihoods. Patient fieldwork and evocative story-telling brings Laikipia’s communities to life in this excellent book, but we also learn why the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. This is by far the best recent study of Kenya’s violent local politics. David M Anderson, Professor of African History, University of Warwick

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and Tables1 Introduction1.1 The State of Emergency in Laikipia, 2016–171.2 Organisation of Chapters2 Setting and Thematic Components2.1 Setting the Scene2.2 Notes on the Sensitivity to Voices in a Fragmented Setting2.3 Case Selection and Ecological Overview2.4 Thematic Components2.4.1 Contested Lands2.4.2 Ethnicity and Autochthony2.4.3 Fragmentation and Frontiers2.4.4 Commons and Customary Resources2.4.5 Plural Perspectives on Sustainable Land Management2.5 Concluding Remarks3 Macro Perspectives: A History of Laikipia’s Contested Lands3.1 Laikipia in the Nineteenth Century3.2 Colonial Rule in Laikipia3.2.1 The Kenya Land Commission, 1932–343.2.2 The Land Commission Questions3.2.3 The African Reaction3.2.4 The Emergent Urban Population and Trade3.3 Independence Politics and the Repercussions of the Mau Mau3.3.1 Pre-independence Mobility3.3.2 Transition of Power and Land3.3.3 Post-independence Politics3.3.4 Land Reform and Resettlement Schemes3.4 Post-colonial Land: Times of Autochthony3.4.1 Immigration and Land-use Fragmentation3.4.2 Violence and Political Instrumentalism3.5 Concluding Remarks4 Blaming the Others: Ethnic Identity and Claim-making4.1 Historical Grievances4.1.1 Present-day Grievances: Land, Ethnicity and Politics4.2 Meta-Narratives of Claims and Their Repercussions in Lorien4.3 Discursive Claims to Land4.3.1 The Pastoralists4.3.2 The Smallholders4.3.3 The Ranchers4.3.4 The Conservationists4.3.5 The Absentees4.3.6 Group Mobility4.4 When Claims of Entitlement Are Acted Out4.4.1 Encroachment and Raiding4.4.2 Killing of Wildlife4.5 Concluding Remarks5 Enclosing the Land: From Common Land to Freehold Farmland and Back5.1 The Construction of Enclosure in Laikipia: The Story of the Dykes5.2 Towards Land Enclosures in Ol Moran and Thome5.2.1 Symbolic Enclosures in Thome5.2.2 Physically Enacted Enclosures in Ol Moran5.3Present-day Enclosures in Laikipia5.3.1 Practices of Enclosing Space: The Naming of Places5.3.2 Physical Enclosures: Fencing5.4 Concluding Remarks6 Ambiguous Institutions: Twilight Actions of Land-buying Companies6.1 All Things Come to Those Who Wait – or Do They?6.2 The History of Land-buying Companies and Land Hunger6.3 Institutional Pluralism and Land6.4 The Case of Thome Farmers Company6.5 The Power Dynamics of Land-buying Companies6.6 Repercussions of Private Land Redistribution6.6.1 Absentee Landlords6.6.2 Absent Title Deeds and Vernacular Land Markets6.7 Concluding Remarks7 Africanisation or Invasion: Laikipia’s land-use Change7.1 Diachronic Perspectives on Land-use Change in Three Case Study Areas7.1.1 Lorien7.1.2 Ol Moran7.1.3 Thome7.2 Historical Perceptions of the Landscape7.2.1 Travel Writers’ Perceptions of New Land7.2.2 Rights, Borders and Water: Land-use Practices from the 1930s7.2.3 The Peak and Transition of European Settlement in the 1960s7.3 Present-day Land-use Dynamics of an Africanised Landscape7.4 Concluding Remarks8 Conclusion8.1 Understanding Laikipia8.1.1 Frontiers, Fragmentation and Colonial Residue8.1.2 Legal Pluralism and Land Rights8.1.3 Ethnicity and the Politicisation of Land Claims8.1.4 The Sustainablity of Land-management Practices8.2 Resolving the State of Emergency in Laikipia, 2016–178.3 Final ThoughtsBibliographyIndex