Large-scale land deals from the inside out: findings from Kenya's Tana Delta

Abstract

Although there is alarm over the global land rush, many plans for the large-scale transformation of land acquired by investors remain on the drawing board. Based on a study of two land deals in Kenya's Tana Delta, this paper considers the processes by which blueprint designs are amended or delayed through the involvement of local actors. It demonstrates that even top-down acquisition of land by powerful state-linked actors with the support of policy discourse can be stalled by the rural poor, particularly if the latter have strong customary claims and links to wider opposition. At the same time, large-scale land acquisition is not automatically opposed by local people, who may see land deals as an opportunity to safeguard access to resources and to support their development expectations. The paper also suggests that although consultation and the existence of recognised property rights appear to result in fairer project designs, land deals are likely to reflect the decision-making power of an elite that is not fully informed. The conclusion affirms the need for more nuanced, place-based analyses of large-scale land deals, taking into account tenure arrangements, resource access mechanisms, land management discourses and the role of cross-scale agency and alliances in building support for, or opposition to, such deals.

Keywords:

• rural development
• land deals
• ranches
• tenure
• discourse
• access
• Kenya

Notes

¹Data for 1994–2007. Source: Kenya Meteorological Department, Garsen station.

²In this article, we use ‘Tana Delta’ to refer to the wider geographical area demarcated by the district but excluding Assa location (see Figure 2), and ‘the delta’ to refer to the wetland.

³Smaller groups include Banjuni, Boni, Giriama, Watta and Wasanye. There are distinct Pokomo groups of Upper Pokomo (surveyed village 6), Lower Pokomo (villages 3 and 4), Malakote and Korokoro.

⁴The new categories in the 2010 Constitution are community land, public land and private land.

⁵‘Native reserves’ were one of the land categories amalgamated under the 1963 Trust Lands Act.

⁶For a historical review see Miller 1981.

⁷In this paper we use the term ‘interview’ in brackets for data obtained through face-to-face conversations, while we use the term ‘personal communication’ for commentaries made by interviewees via email.

⁸As another example, in a December 2004 visit to Garsen, President Kibaki is reported to have told resident pastoralists to stop being ‘selfish’ and that the government had already approved the scheme (Ringa 2004).

⁹An earlier example is a group statement made by environmentalists, pastoral groups and a minority rights lawyer in 2005 (Mayoyo 2005).