De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya

Abstract

Across contemporary East Africa, fencing is spreading with incredible speed over hundreds of thousands of hectares of rangelands, fundamentally reconfiguring land tenure dynamics. But why is this happening now, what are the precursors, and what will happen in the years to come? In this article, we ask how pre- and post-colonial landscape gridding perpetuate a slow violence across the landscape through processes of de-/fencing. Fencing, we argue, is embedded in a landscape logic that favours exclusive rights and conditioned access. In two case studies from grazing lands in Kenya, we explore how people engage with the tension of an imposed landscape logic of fencing by either asserting or challenging its very physicality. We propose that de-/fencing are ways of anticipating long-standing land tenure uncertainties. Moreover, we use our cases to explore different points of reference along the mattering of land tenure boundaries as well as the sort of horizons to which fencing leads. We also use this knowledge to improve our understanding of parallel prehistoric cases of large-scale land tenure boundaries. By unfolding the intertwined socio-political and material nature of gridded landscapes, we seek to bring the study of fencing out of conservation literature and into its wider culture-historical context.

New land tenure fences are still cropping up in the Greater Mara

“…But over the long-term perspective, it may be driven in part as a wave of reactions against land histories of marginalization and political decisions since the onset of the colonial era. And the roots of the current boom in fencing can be traced even further back in time than this study permits, including the British colonization (1885–1963) 13 . Paradoxically, although large-scale land allotment has been historically associated with post-colonialist agendas of unequal land distribution and marginalization, the same background is currently incentivizing local landowners to put up fences to secure private rights to land 13 .…”

“…And the roots of the current boom in fencing can be traced even further back in time than this study permits, including the British colonization (1885–1963) 13 . Paradoxically, although large-scale land allotment has been historically associated with post-colonialist agendas of unequal land distribution and marginalization, the same background is currently incentivizing local landowners to put up fences to secure private rights to land 13 . Hence, in the Greater Mara, by contrast with other regions in East Africa, the propagation of fences across land that was formerly held as communal land is driven strongly by local smallholders.…”

“…A comparable situation of large-scale landscape gridding has recently occurred in the Greater Mara, Kenya, East Africa, see in particular the works of Grandin 6 , Løvschal et al 7 , Mwangi 8 , Ogutu et al 9 , 10 , Said et al 11 , and Lamprey & Reid 12 . These fences are disrupting physical processes on the ground, but also represent the material expression of underlying sociopolitical, cultural and historical tensions and drivers 13 .…”

“…Conservancies are thereby largely collaborative and community-driven initiatives with a goal of sustainable tourism, although recent studies question their actual community integration 14 , 15 and compatibility with pastoral livelihoods 16 . Understanding CBC collective action dynamics associated with eco-conservation, and their underlying paradoxes 13 , is necessary in order to address the fencing issue and why solutions to fragmentation remain unclear. A series of additional drivers appear particularly prominent in incentivizing private landowners to raise and maintain fences, including land-use changes and the need for securing land for landowners, such as including creating grass banks 8 , 17 – 19 , and the coincidence with areas of sedentary lifestyle and high population densities.…”

New Directions in Land Reform: An Editorial Overview

“…State policies might favour large-scale commercial operators, facilitating transnational investment flows and exports rather than responding to domestic basic needs and aspirations. After the global economic crisis of 2008, fears about future global food supply triggered a rush for investors to obtain concessions over large areas, most marked in the so-called second 'scramble for Africa', pushing many small-scale farmers off the land and making their livelihoods more precarious, while the gains accrued to power brokers allied with to the state [25][26][27]. Land expropriation by the state (variously known as a compulsory purchase or eminent domain) is perhaps becoming less confrontational, with World Bank and other guidelines asking governments to allow local participation by occupiers, and seeing acquisition as a development opportunity for the affected poor [28][29][30].…”