Infrastructure projects and rural politics in northern Kenya: the use of divergent expertise to negotiate the terms of land deals for transport infrastructure

Abstract

In 2012, construction began on the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor in northern Kenya. Once complete, LAPSSET will connect Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia with a new transport infrastructure, including a highway, railway and pipeline. Authorities promise that LAPSSET will drive economic growth by improving trade and attracting investors while also stimulating development in rural areas surrounding transport routes. Despite this promise, many rural land users remain concerned about how LAPSSET stands to alter their access to and control over land. This contribution reflects on how these rural groups are attempting to negotiate proposed land-use changes for LAPSSET by creating and deploying expertise that challenges authorities’ claims about the costs and benefits of the corridor for rural landscapes and communities. The analysis shows that just as expertise can be constructed and circulated ‘from above’ to legitimise land deals for transport infrastructure, counter-claims can be produced and mobilised by rural land users to unsettle these land deals. This paper contributes to recent research that examines the specific strategies used by rural actors to influence proposed land-use changes, as well as research that considers how power inequalities shape and constrain the ability of different rural groups to negotiate the terms of land deals to their own advantage.

Keywords:

• transport corridor
• transport infrastructure
• conservation
• pastoralism
• LAPSSET
• Kenya
• expertise

Acknowledgements

The follow-up research to validate the analysis presented in this article was carried out in collaboration a civil society organization in Kenya, the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT). Special thanks to Ramson Karmushu of IMPACT for his invaluable participation in conducting this research and to Mali Ole Kaunga of IMPACT for making this research partnership possible. This article also benefited from ongoing discussions about LAPSSET with Alex Awiti and Brock Bersaglio, and from thoughtful and thorough comments from William Coleman, Suzan Ilcan, Alex Latta, and Jens Friis Lund, Teresa Kramarz, along with the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Charis Enns http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6796-7465

Notes

1 Transport corridors are also commonly referred to as development corridors, extractive corridors or growth corridors.

2 There is much differentiation between pastoralist groups; however, most groups in this area – including the Maasai, Samburu and Turkana – practice similar livelihoods and use similar land-management practices, migrating seasonally along traditional routes to conserve grazing lands (Fratkin 1997; Catley, Lind, and Scoones 2013).

3 It remains to be seen whether authorities will actually heed the recommendations made in the SEA. As Wolford (2015b) writes, even when gains are made as a result of political mobilisation from below, the ‘staying power’ of resistance is uncertain given the powerful interests that back land deals.

4 For a detailed scholarly analysis of the new emphasis that is being placed on ‘greening’ Africa's corridors, see Bergius, Benjaminsen, and Widgren (2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Doctoral Research Award and Postdoctoral Fellowship].

Notes on contributors

Charis Enns

Charis Enns is a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield and an affiliated researcher at the East African Institute at Aga Khan University. Her research examines the impacts of large-scale extractive investments and extractive infrastructure on rural landscapes and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. The research and writing of this paper were carried out as part of her doctoral and postdoctoral work, which were funded by the Government of Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.