Publications

The large-scale infrastructure of Isiolo International Airport has created contestation between the developers and nomadic pastoral communities. While these nomadic pastoralists (Borana, Turkana, Somali, and Samburu) are the principal inhabitants of Isiolo, some agriculturalists – the Meru ethnic communities – also live in the region. The airport project created controversy between these ethnic groups over land, giving rise to economic anticipation, land speculation, and alienation – selling of community land to private entities; this is despite the fact that land in Isiolo County is not yet registered as community land but still under the trust land owned by the national government. It led to competition between actors when the Kenyan government communicated its intention to upgrade the airport from an airstrip to an international airport in 2004. The Kenyan government believed that this upgrade became necessary because transporting meat products from the newly built abattoir in Isiolo to markets such as the Middle East needed to become quicker and easier. The government also planned to permit the transport of the khat plant (miraa catha edulis) to international markets, such as Somalia and the United Kingdom, and to reduce traffic congestion at the Wilson Airport in Nairobi (Owino 2019). However, the land allocation to the affected communities due to the airport’s expansion has created grievances between the agricultural Meru communities and the nomadic pastoral Borana communities in Isiolo. This has lately been seen as a justification for the emergence of radical groups, such as community-based armed groups and violent extremist organisations (for example, Hansen et al. 2019; Okwany 2016, 2020a, 2023).