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• [Publication] Settlements as dispossession: Forest conservation and frontiers’ violence in Mau Forest, Kenya

  World Development

  • Settlements as Dispossession: Forest Conservation and Frontiers’ Violence in Mau Forest, Kenya
  • State-run forest conservation in the postcolony often comes with various forms of violence and dispossession of local populations. In this article we investigate how conservation policies and practices relate to intercommunal conflict among forest residents. We look at the case of evictions of forest residents and intercommunal clashes in the Mau Forest area, Kenya, in the years following 2018, in conjunction with a long-durée perspective on land conflicts in the region. W...

• [Publication] The Frontier on the Doorstep: Development and Conflict Dynamics in the Southern Rangelands of Kenya

  Journal of Eastern African Studies

  • The Frontier on the Doorstep: Development and Conflict Dynamics in the Southern Rangelands of Kenya
  • Rural parts of Kenya are undergoing or are expected to undergo massive social-ecological change as a result of the government’s ambitious development agenda driven by infrastructure and extraction. The pastoralist rangelands near the dormant Mount Suswa volcano in Narok, Kajiado and Nakuru counties have witnessed the creation of a modern railway and a geothermal project, and plans for further geothermal developments are expected together with a large inland port and industrial park....

• [Publication] Double Gain, Double Loss: Property Rights and Dispossession Surrounding Kenya’s Rail Project

  Journal of World Affairs: Voice of the Global South

  • Double Gain, Double Loss: Property Rights and Dispossession Surrounding Kenya’s Rail Project
  • There is growing interest in how rural transformations due to megainfrastructure projects in Africa are causing widening inequalities. We examine the impact of Kenya’s Nairobi–Mombasa standard gauge railway (SGR) on land tenure, property rights, and dispossession in Voi town, southeastern Kenya. Drawing from frontier and neo-colonial theoretical perspectives, we argue that large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa facilitate resource extraction and deepen local ineq...

• [Publication] Left in the Dust: Infrastructural Violence of a Railway Project Through Pastoral Rangelands in Kenya

  The Journal of Development Studies

  • Left in the Dust: Infrastructural Violence of a Railway Project Through Pastoral Rangelands in Kenya
  • The southern rangelands of Kenya are home to pastoralist Maasai but are have increasingly become the site of development projects, the latest being the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the associated Inland Container Depot. The projects have had a variety of effects through land claims, compensation, environmental and property damages, employment in construction and a local investment boom. Through the lens of ‘infrastructural violence’, which is interested in how infrastructure bot...

• [Publication] Rails through rangelands: redefining infrastructure frontiers and patronage in Kenya’s Maasai land

  Territory, Politics, Governance

  • Rails Through Rangelands: Redefining Infrastructure Frontiers and Patronage in Kenya’s Maasai Land
  • Focusing on Suswa, this study analyses the impact of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project on labour dynamics in local communities in Kenya’s southern rangelands. Using the patron–client framework, we explore the complex relationship between the SGR, labour practices and contestations during its construction. Following a qualitative approach, data collection between 2021 and 2023 reveals how the elites promised jobs and claimed to follow labour regulations but covertly promoted p...

• [Publication] Gender Relations in the Face of Climate Change and Conflict at the Kenya–Uganda Border

  • Gender Relations in the Face of Climate Change and Conflict at the Kenya–Uganda Border
  • The Kenya–Uganda border region provides a compelling case study for exploring how climate change and various interventions shape conflict and gender dynamics. Over the past five years, pastoralist communities in the Karamoja Cluster have faced multiple crises. Their diverse adaptation strategies have contributed to an ongoing redefinition of gender roles, even as underlying gender attitudes have remained largely unchanged. This disconnect has, in turn, fuelled new forms of social te...

• [Publication] Peace came from the herders. Supporting peace amidst drought, food insecurity and conflict. Lessons from Marsabit County, Kenya

  • Peace came from the herders. Supporting peace amidst drought, food insecurity and conflict. Lessons from Marsabit County, Kenya
  • Violent conflicts play a crucial role in current food crises. In northern Kenya, the number of food insecure people is now at its highest level over a decade. At the same time, the politicization of livestock raiding as well as land contestations are of increasing concern. This Study Report analyses how the three factors of drought, hunger and violent conflict interrelate in Marsabit and recommends steps to build peace and overcome food insecurity.

• [Event] Regional Roundtable Dialogue to Strengthen National Institutions in the Implementation of Weapons and Ammunition Management (WAM) in the Context of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR)

  • Tuesday, 5 December 2023: Nairobi, Kenya

• [Publication] Assemblages of terror and the policing of settlement boundaries: Devolution and the production of order in northern Kenya

  • Assemblages of Terror and the Policing of Settlement Boundaries: Devolution and the Production of Order in Northern Kenya
  • The 2010 Constitution of Kenya established devolution to address historical marginalization and promote equitable development. However, in the pastoral rangelands of northern Kenya, this reform has unintentionally functioned as a violent territorializing machine, reassembling governance into exclusionary ethnic orders. This paper uses assemblage theory to examine how devolution has transformed the logic of pastoral conflict from reciprocal raiding into a strategy of gov...

• [Publication] Assemblages of terror and the policing of settlement boundaries: Devolution and the production of order in northern Kenya

  • Assemblages of Terror and the Policing of Settlement Boundaries: Devolution and the Production of Order in Northern Kenya
  • The 2010 Constitution of Kenya established devolution to address historical marginalization and promote equitable development. However, in the pastoral rangelands of northern Kenya, this reform has unintentionally functioned as a violent territorializing machine, reassembling governance into exclusionary ethnic orders. This paper uses assemblage theory to examine how devolution has transformed the logic of pastoral conflict from reciprocal raiding into a strategy of gov...