What is happening to the Kenyan peasantry?

Abstract

The peasant question in Kenya has attracted a lot of debate. This essay takes up the issue of what is happening to the Kenyan peasantry by first and foremost questioning some false assumptions and concepts involved in the debate. For example, are peasants property owners? If so, is this property mainly in land? What happens when peasants either accumulate or become impoverished: do they cease to be peasants as Atieno‐Odhiambo once suggested?

Migration and differentiation in western Kenya: A tale of two sub‐locations

“…Following a period of rapid growth in smallholder commodity production, some researchers attempted to characterise contemporary rural social structures [Ng'ang'a, 1981;Anyang' Nyong'o, 1981a; while others undertook a more dynamic analysis of change [Njonjo, 1981;Cowen, 1972;Leys, 1974;Kitching, 1980;Kongstad and Monsted, 1980;Haugerud, 1981;Leo, 1984; Collier and Lai, 1984;1986]. Drawing mostly on Central Kenya experiences, the dispute centred around the question of whether economic change in smallholder areas was promoting accumulation by a minority and the proletarianisation of the majority, or whether the dominant process was the emergence of a relatively egalitarian 'peasant society'.…”

Land tenure and agrarian change in Kenya

“…Before tenure reform land in Embu, the Kikuyu districts and elsewhere in Kenya was accumulated by clan elders, government-appointed chiefs, ls and other influential persons (see Saberwal, 1970;Sorrenson, 1967;Kitching, 1980;Lamb, 1974;Ng'ang'a, 1981). During the tenure reform itself the convergent interests of colonial civil servants and clan elders overseeing land adjudication allowed some individuals to acquire registered holdings of substantially larger than average size, while some of their fellows acquired next to nothing (see Haugerud, 1983: 78-80).…”