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ABSTRACT
Administrative limits do not ordinarily constitute internal boundaries, yet this is the case of the Gucha and Trans Mara boundary between the current counties of Kisii and Narok Countries in south-western Kenya. This boundary which served as a tool for political and administrative control has had a lasting impact on land settlement. Kenya’s territorial heritage proved resilient. It confined the Gusii and the Maasai on either side of the boundary until the 1970s, when the easing of the boundary led to a new phase in the Gusii agricultural frontier to the South, later stopped when land registration started in the 1980s in Trans Mara. The introduction of legal privatization created renewed tension which took a violent turn during the 1990s politically instigated land clashes. ‘Indigenous’ territorial claims coincided with these inherited colonial divisions. Contrasting population densities are found on either side of the boundary with high population densities in the former Gusii reserve compared to the neighbouring Trans Mara. The agricultural frontier was observed in a detailed survey conducted in 1997 and 1998 at the height of politically instigated land clashes. Along this boundary, in half a century, land use was transformed from occasional grazing to intensive agricultural use, with two harvests a year, depending on the political context. The 1990s violent crises lent new vigour to the internal boundary and contributed to the rise of a semi-permanent agricultural frontier located along the boundary itself.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous and non-anonymous proof readers of previous versions of this paper, particularly Yvan Droz, Henri Médard, Yonatan Gez, Caroline Roussy and Jean Schmitz, as well as the JEAS reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In this paper, when we refer to the Gusii, the Maasai and the Kipsigis, we are using categories which are commonly used locally, and which reflect emic perspectives on ethnic belonging. In Gucha and Trans Mara Districts respondents make further reference to the Uasin Gishu, the Moitanek and the Siria within the Maasai and to the wider group of the Kalenjin comprising the Kipsigis.
2. Golaz, “Restriction”; and Golaz, Pression démographique.
3. For historical reasons, the word ‘indigenous’ was used in Kenya. The word itself is rooted in the colonial setting and the creation of separate ethnic areas, which in turn contributed to delineate ethnicity. Indigenous claims relate to the wider debate on autochthony which stems from Chauveau’s study on Ivory Coast and Geshiere’s generalization. Geschiere, Perils of Belonging; Médard, “Key Issues”; Médard, “‘Indigenous’ Land Claims”; Lynch, “Wars of Who Belongs Where”; and Lynch, I Say to You.
4. Médard, Territoires de l’ethnicité; and Médard, “Key Issues.”
5. Kopytoff, “Internal African Frontier.”
6. Chauveau, “Question foncière”; Chauveau, Jacob, and Le Meur, “L’organisation de la mobilité”; Chauveau, “How Does an Institution”; and Schmitz, “L’internal African Frontier.”
7. Klopp, “‘Ethnic Clashes’”; Klopp, “Can Moral Ethnicity”; and Klopp, “Deforestation.”
8. Lynch, “Wars of Who Belongs Where”; and Médard, “‘Indigenous’ Land Claims.”
9. Berman and Lonsdale, “Crises of Accumulation.”
10. Parsons, “Local Responses.”
11. KNA/DC/NRK/2/2/1. For the case of Kikuyu in Kisii, see Parsons, “Local Responses,” in Trans Mara, see Waller, “Acceptees and Aliens.”
12. Barth, Ethnic Groups; and Poutignat and Streiff-Fénart, Théories.
13. Schlager and Ostrom, “Property-Rights Regimes.”
14. Le Roy, “Théorie des maîtrises foncières.”
15. Republic of Kenya, “Land Registration Act 2012.” The Land Act 2012 established a National Land Commission to manage public land. National Council for Law Reporting, “Land Act”; and Republic of Kenya, “Community Land Bill, 2015.”
16. The data from the quantitative part of this study, the Mobility in Magenche survey, collected in 1997–1998 with over 600 individuals and households, are archived and accessible upon request on the website of Institut national d’études démographiques (http://www.ined.fr/fr/ressources_documentation/enquetes/liste_enquetes/).
17. The Northern side of the boundary was part of South Nyanza District up to 1961. In 1961, Kisii District was created (DC/KSI/1/23, 1961). In 1995, Gucha (also called South Kisii or Kisii South) was created. Since 2010 and the constitution change in Kenya, the district boundaries of 1993 were reinstated as county boundaries and districts were dismantled. The area is now under Kisii County, and is divided into four constituencies: South Mugirango, Bomachoge Borabu, where Magenche is located, Bobassi and Nyaribari Masaba, which directly stem out of former (colonial) locations. The Southern side of the boundary was initially part of Narok District, until Trans Mara District was created in 1994. Now it falls under Narok County. Trans Mara still existed as a constituency until 2013, when it was split into Kilgoris and Emurrua Dikirr (see ).
18. Authors’ calculation based on Republic of Kenya, 2009 Kenya Population.
19. Golaz, Pression démographique.
20. Péron, L’occidentalisation.
21. Håkansson, “Grain, Cattle and Power.”
22. Mayer, Lineage Principle; Lonsdale, “When did the Gusii”; and Péatrik, “Arrangements générationnels.”
23. Kopytoff, “Internal African Frontier.”
24. KNA DC/NRK/3/1, 654.
25. Anderson, Eroding the Commons, 60.
26. Claire Médard, interviews in Kitalale in Trans Nzoia District, March 2007.
27. Waller, “Interaction and Identity,” 245.
28. Ibid., 282.
29. KNA DC/NRK/1/1/2, 1928: 3.
30. The trench was named after the then South Kavirondo District Commissioner.
31. DC/NRK/1/1/3, 1951.
32. DP/17/309.
33. DC/KSI/1/23, 1961.
34. Parsons, “Local Responses”; and Parsons, “Politics of Ethnic Identity Formation.”
35. Claire Médard, interviews in Kitalale in Trans Nzoia District, March 2007.
36. Waller, “Acceptees and Aliens,” 226–257.
37. van Zwanenberg and King. Economic History.
38. Hugues, “Malice in Maasailand.”
39. One of our respondents recalls the death of his father, shot by police in 1974 for not carrying proper authorization for being in Trans Mara. Valérie Golaz, interviews in Gucha, January 1998.
40. Golaz, Pression Démographique.
41. Péron, L’occidentalisation, vol. 2, 74.
42. Médard, Territoires de l’ethnicité, 303.
43. Mayer and Mayer, “Land Law.”
44. Håkansson, Bridewealth, 81–82.
45. Orvis, Political Economy, 96.
46. Okoth-Ogendo, “Perils of Land.”
47. Péron, L’occidentalisation, vol. 1, 106.
48. Ibid., vol. 2, 226.
49. Privatisation was explained by Ensminger as a choice by the local élite to give up the commons and put an end to bargaining entailed by open access to land. Ensminger and Knight, “Changing Social Norms,” 9.
50. Panders, Land Tenure.
51. Homewood, Coast, and Thompson, “In-Migrants and Exclusion.”
52. Republic of Kenya, National Development Plan.
53. Médard, Territoires de l’ethnicité, 238.
54. Ibid.
55. Republic of Kenya, Akiwumi.
56. CDU, Darkness, 19.
57. Médard and Golaz, “Les frontières intérieures.”
58. Golaz, “Restriction”; and Golaz, Pression démographique.
59. Golaz, “Restriction”; Golaz, “Crise”; and Golaz, Pression démographique.
60. Droz, Migrations kikuyu.
61. Fleisher, “Kuria Cattle Raiding.”
62. Golaz, “Les avatars.”
63. Miruka, “Exploits.”
64. Both Fleisher and Anderson pointed at the multi ethnic character of gangs involved in cattle raiding. Fleisher, “Kuria Cattle Raiding”; and Anderson, “Stock Theft.”
65. In 2008, violence erupted again in Trans Mara, but this time between Maasai and Kipsigis. Republic of Kenya, Report of the Commission, 131.
66. Contrarily to the previous elections there was no violence along the boundary in 2007/2008.
67. Gertzel, Politics; Bourmaud, Histoire politique; Médard, “La suppression”; Branch and Cheeseman, “Politics of Control”.
68. Leftie, “County Chiefs.”