New book explores violent conflict in Kenya’s highlands
The Kenyan county, Laikipia, is located on a picturesque plateau stretching between the Rift Valley in the west and Mount Kenya to the east. On one hand, this area does indeed epitomize the westernized dream of a vast African savannah-like landscape with wildlife conservancies, Karen Blixen style farms, and ranches. After all, the landscape has inspired countless published memoirs and a Hollywood picture capturing the enticing existence of the life of white settlers on the plateau. However, Laikipia is also an area that has seen more violence over the past 30 years than anywhere else in Kenya, after a deep-seated tension started to erupt into violence after every election in the 1990s. And yet, little has been done so far to address the root causes of the situation.
Marie Gravesen embedded herself in the region prior to a wave of land invasions that swept the plateau leading up to Kenya’s 2017 general election. Richly told through the history of Laikipia’s social, political and environmental dynamics; she invites a deeper understanding of the pre-election violence and general tensions; telling us how, and why, land claims and ethnic categories became increasingly politicized here over the past century.
Today, the reality of life on the plateau is far from the romanticized haven for white settlement that characterized its portrayals during colonialism – if indeed this ever did correspond to reality. Rather, despite the dominating tale of Laikipia as a colonial times “White Highlands”, it was never a homogenous and peaceful landscape and life there was tough, unpredictable and callous no matter whether you were a Maasai pastoralist, a white settler, or a Kikuyu smallholder farmer.
Present-day Laikipia houses pastoralists, ranchers of European descent, conservationists, smallholders of mixed ethnicity, extraordinary wildlife, and land investors with extensive political influence. All converge and clash in various ways. Land is claimed by all, though their tactics differ. While some present claims based on private property rights, others tell histories of long-term presence to support their claims. Charges of immorality are applied, fences are electrified and some resort to violence. The region, marked by enclosures and opposites, is left as a tense fragmented frontier.
This new book is relevant for all concerned with land contestations related to the 2016-17 land invasions in Laikipia, and scholars from the social sciences interested in land rights, access claims, frontiers and fencing
DIIS Experts
