The Struggle for Land and Justice in Kenya

225 Pages·2020·2.03 MB·English

by  Ambreena Manji

Using her deep knowledge of Kenya, Ambreena Manji wrestles with the
country’s original sin – the dispossession of land from those who owned
and worked it … she argues that unless and until the land question is
addressed as a justice issue, the postcolonial state in Kenya will remain
on a dangerous precipice … an important and intellectually transforma-
tive work on land in Kenya.
Makau Mutua, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst
Scholar, SUNY Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York
Land is at the heart of Kenya’s postcolonial politics, as Ambreena
Manji’s masterly book shows. Her meticulous treatment of decades of
wrangling over ‘the land question’ conveys the fractured politics of
efforts ‘from above’ by state authorities and politically connected elites
to shore up electoral support and ‘from below’ by citizens to secure their
access to land for their livelihoods … a must-read for scholars, policy-
makers and activists.
Professor Ruth Hall, PLAAS, University of the Western Cape
A major contribution … on the inextricable nexus between the history
of land law and land reforms on one hand, and the constitutional
change in Kenya on the other hand, while emphasising the importance
of embedding constitutionalism in land governance.
Dr Francis Kariuki, Strathmore University
An important and timely contribution to knowledge – both in the
empirical detail provided and in the analysis of land injustice in Kenya
and inadequacies of current approaches.
Professor Gabrielle Lynch, University of Warwick
Eastern
Africa
Series
Women’s Land Rights & Privatization in Disrupting Territories
Eastern Africa JÖRG GERTEL, RICHARD ROTTENBURG
BIRGIT ENGLERT & SANDRA CALKINS (EDS)
& ELIZABETH DALEY (EDS) The African Garrison State
War & the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia KJETIL TRONVOLL
KJETIL TRONVOLL & DANIEL R. MEKONNEN
Moving People in Ethiopia The State of Post-conflict Reconstruction
ALULA PANKHURST NASEEM BADIEY
& FRANÇOIS PIGUET (EDS) Gender, Home & Identity
Living Terraces in Ethiopia KATARZYNA GRABSKA
ELIZABETH E. WATSON Remaking Mutirikwi
Eritrea JOOST FONTEIN
GAIM KIBREAB Lost Nationalism
Borders & Borderlands as Resources ELENA VEZZADINI
in the Horn of Africa The Oromo & the Christian Kingdom
DEREJE FEYISSA of Ethiopia
& MARKUS VIRGIL HOEHNE (EDS) MOHAMMED HASSEN
After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement Darfur
in Sudan
CHRIS VAUGHAN
ELKE GRAWERT (ED.)
The Eritrean National Service
Land, Governance, Conflict
GAIM KIBREAB
& the Nuba of Sudan
Ploughing New Ground
GUMA KUNDA KOMEY
GETNET BEKELE
Ethiopia
Hawks & Doves in Sudan’s Armed Conflict
JOHN MARKAKIS
SUAD M. E. MUSA
Resurrecting Cannibals
Ethiopian Warriorhood
HEIKE BEHREND
TSEHAI BERHANE-SELASSIE
Pastoralism & Politics in Northern
Land, Migration & Belonging
Kenya & Southern Ethiopia
JOSEPH MUJERE
GŰNTHER SCHLEE
& ABDULLAHI A. SHONGOLO Land Tenure Security
SVEIN EGE (ED.)
Islam & Ethnicity in Northern Kenya
& Southern Ethiopia Tanzanian Development
GŰNTHER SCHLEE DAVID POTTS (ED.)
with ABDULLAHI A. SHONGOLO Nairobi in the Making
Foundations of an African Civilisation CONSTANCE SMITH
DAVID W. PHILLIPSON The Crisis of Democratization
Regional Integration, Identity & in the Greater Horn of Africa
Citizenship in the Greater Horn of Africa KIDANE MENGISTEAB (ED.)
KIDANE MENGISTEAB The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya
& REDIE BEREKETEAB (EDS) EMMA WILD-WOOD
Dealing with Government in Imperialism and Development
South Sudan NICHOLAS WESTCOTT
CHERRY LEONARDI
The Struggle for Land and Justice
The Quest for Socialist Utopia in Kenya
BAHRU ZEWDE AMBREENA MANJI
The Struggle for Land and
Justice in Kenya
AMBREENA MANJI
James Currey
is an imprint of
Boydell & Brewer Ltd
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© Ambreena Manji 2020
First published in hardback 2020
The right of Ambreena Manji to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-84701-255-5 (James Currey cloth)
ISBN 978-1-78744-926-8 (ePDF)
Cover photograph: Rachel Korir sits in front of her hut in Kapcheboi, Kenya, May 6, 2019
(© Thomson Reuters Foundation/Dominic Kirui)
Typeset in 10 on 12pt Cordale with Gill Sans MT display
by Avocet Typeset, Bideford, Devon, EX39 2BP
For my dear friends, Yash Pal Ghai and Jill Ghai

Where all your rights become only an accumulated wrong; where men
must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to
think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits
of their own labours – and even while they beg, to see things inexo-
rably withdrawn from them – then surely it is a braver, a saner and a
truer thing, to be a rebel in act and deed against such circumstances as
these than tamely to accept it as the natural lot of men.
(Roger Casement’s speech from the dock, 1916)

Contents
Foreword xi
Acknowledgements xiii
1. Introduction: What We Talk About When We Talk About Land 1
‘The tyranny of property’ 3
Organising ideas 9
‘Accumulation by dispossession’ 9
‘Ideologies of order’ and the limits of law 11
Struggle 20
History, sources, archives 22
Overview and structure 23
2. Land Reform in Kenya: The History of an Idea 28
Introduction: The long arc 28
Histories of land reform 31
First wave land reform: Land consolidation 34
Second wave land reform: Land resettlement 35
Third wave land reform: Land adjudication, registration
and titling 38
Land reform or land law reform? 43
Conclusion 53
3. Making Mischief: Land in Modern Kenya 54
Introduction 54
Kenya’s accumulated land archive 55
The Njonjo Commission 55
The Ndung’u Commission 58
Non-land reports 68
Land and popular memory 71
Struggles on new ground: Community land 75
Conclusion 76