[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v87y2019ics0264837718317058.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Fencing is our last stronghold before we lose it all.” A political ecology of fencing around the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot G.
  • Lein, Haakon
Abstract
In the Maasai Mara National Reserve, a state-controlled protected area in Kenya, and in its surroundings, a particular concern in recent years has been the proliferation of fencing in what once was an open landscape. The fencing poses challenges to both wildlife and the traditional pastoralism practised by Maasai communities, which were dependent on the presence of open communal land. The purpose of the article is to identify the root causes of the enclosure of former common land and the increasing fencing of plots of land owned by individual Maasai. The study is based on empirical material from extended fieldwork conducted in two villages adjacent to the reserve and a review of relevant documents. The main finding is that the history of land division, the introduction of wildlife conservancies, and the materialization of an ageold discourse about the ‘end of pastoralism’, through the process of privatization and commercialization of land, have played major roles in pushing the Maasai to fence their land. The authors conclude that fencing can be seen both as an active form of resistance to dispossession in the name of conservation and as evidence of the acceptance of the discourse on the ‘end of traditional pastoralism’, which has been promoted by a range of state and nonstate actors since Kenya gained independence from colonial rule.

Suggested Citation

  • Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot G. & Lein, Haakon, 2019. "“Fencing is our last stronghold before we lose it all.” A political ecology of fencing around the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:87:y:2019:i:c:s0264837718317058
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718317058
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104075?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip M. Osano & Mohammed Y. Said & Jan Leeuw & Nicholas Ndiwa & Dickson Kaelo & Sarah Schomers & Regina Birner & Joseph O. Ogutu, 2013. "Why keep lions instead of livestock? Assessing wildlife tourism‐based payment for ecosystem services involving herders in the Maasai Mara, Kenya," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 0(4), pages 242-256, November.
    2. James McCarthy, 2005. "Devolution in the Woods: Community Forestry as Hybrid Neoliberalism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(6), pages 995-1014, June.
    3. Gazier, Bernard. & Bruggeman, Frédéric., 2017. "Tripartisme et dialogue social territorial," ILO Working Papers 994956691002676, International Labour Organization.
    4. ., 2017. "Infrastructure and Territoriality," Chapters, in: Global Infrastructure Networks, chapter 1, pages 1-30, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Mwangi, Esther, 2007. "Subdividing the Commons: Distributional Conflict in the Transition from Collective to Individual Property Rights in Kenya's Maasailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 815-834, May.
    6. Philip M. Osano & Mohammed Y. Said & Jan de Leeuw & Nicholas Ndiwa & Dickson Kaelo & Sarah Schomers & Regina Birner & Joseph O. Ogutu, 2013. "Why keep lions instead of livestock? Assessing wildlife tourism‐based payment for ecosystem services involving herders in the Maasai Mara, Kenya," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(4), pages 242-256, November.
    7. Løvschal, Mette & Håkonsson, Dorthe Døjbak & Amoke, Irene, 2019. "Are goats the new elephants in the room? Changing land-use strategies in Greater Mara, Kenya," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 395-399.
    8. Saturnino M Borras & Jennifer C Franco, 2013. "Global Land Grabbing and Political Reactions ‘From Below’," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 1723-1747, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Knutsson, Per & Mureithi, Stephen & Wredle, Ewa & Nyberg, Gert, 2021. "Perspectives on enclosures in pastoralist drylands: From contradictory evidence to the formulation of innovative land management strategies," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aidan Keane & Heather Gurd & Dickson Kaelo & Mohammed Y Said & Jan de Leeuw & J Marcus Rowcliffe & Katherine Homewood, 2016. "Gender Differentiated Preferences for a Community-Based Conservation Initiative," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Kihiu, Evelyne Nyathira, 2016. "Basic capability effect: Collective management of pastoral resources in southwestern Kenya," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 23-34.
    3. Zsuzsanna Bacsi & Mesfin Bekele Gebbisa & Lóránt Dénes Dávid & Zsolt Hollósy, 2023. "Pastoralism and Tourism in Eastern Africa—Quantitative Analysis from 2004 to 2018," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-18, June.
    4. Rebecca W. Kariuki & David Western & Simon Willcock & Robert Marchant, 2021. "Assessing Interactions between Agriculture, Livestock Grazing and Wildlife Conservation Land Uses: A Historical Example from East Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, January.
    5. Shannon E Murphy & Ian Campbell & Joshua A Drew, 2018. "Examination of tourists’ willingness to pay under different conservation scenarios; Evidence from reef manta ray snorkeling in Fiji," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-15, August.
    6. Lenyeletse V. Basupi & Claire H. Quinn & Andrew J. Dougill, 2017. "Pastoralism and Land Tenure Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting Policies and Priorities in Ngamiland, Botswana," Land, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-17, December.
    7. Sheng, Jichuan & Qiu, Hong, 2018. "Governmentality within REDD+: Optimizing incentives and efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 611-622.
    8. Ward Berenschot & Ahmad Dhiaulhaq & Aurelia Deviane, 2023. "Local brokerage and international leverage: NGOs and land conflicts in Indonesia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 505-520, April.
    9. Paing, Win Min & Han, Phyu Phyu & Ota, Masahiko & Fujiwara, Takahiro, 2023. "The state-private hybrid forest policy in Myanmar: The impact of neoliberalism on the forestry sector after the 1990s," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    10. Long, Hexing & de Jong, Wil & Yiwen, Zhang & Liu, Jinlong, 2021. "Institutional choices between private management and user group management during forest devolution: A case study of forest allocation in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    11. Kate Driscoll Derickson, 2009. "Gendered, Material, and Partial Knowledges: A Feminist Critique of Neighborhood-Level Indicator Systems," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(4), pages 896-910, April.
    12. Daniel H. Mutibwa, 2022. "The (Un)Changing Political Economy of Arts, Cultural and Community Engagement, the Creative Economy and Place-Based Development during Austere Times," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-24, September.
    13. Femke van Noorloos & Christien Klaufus & Griet Steel, 2019. "Land in urban debates: Unpacking the grab–development dichotomy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(5), pages 855-867, April.
    14. Sarkki, Simo & Rönkä, Anna Reetta, 2012. "Neoliberalisations in Finnish forestry," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 152-159.
    15. Gorton, Matthew & Sauer, Johannes & Peshevski, Mile & Bosev, Dane & Shekerinov, Darko & Quarrie, Steve, 2009. "Water Communities in the Republic of Macedonia: An Empirical Analysis of Membership Satisfaction and Payment Behavior," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 1951-1963, December.
    16. Ole Busck & Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt, 2020. "Development, Ecology and Climate Change: Resistance by the Peasantry," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 5(1), pages 9-31, January.
    17. Nanhthavong, Vong & Bieri, Sabin & Nguyen, Anh-Thu & Hett, Cornelia & Epprecht, Michael, 2022. "Proletarianization and gateways to precarization in the context of land-based investments for agricultural commercialization in Lao PDR," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    18. Maier, Carolin & Abrams, Jesse B., 2018. "Navigating social forestry – A street-level perspective on National Forest management in the US Pacific Northwest," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 432-441.
    19. Philip M. Osano & Mohammed Y. Said & Jan de Leeuw & Nicholas Ndiwa & Dickson Kaelo & Sarah Schomers & Regina Birner & Joseph O. Ogutu, 2013. "Why keep lions instead of livestock? Assessing wildlife tourism‐based payment for ecosystem services involving herders in the Maasai Mara, Kenya," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(4), pages 242-256, November.
    20. Kihiu, Evelyne Nyathira & Amuakwa-Mensah, Franklin, 2017. "Improving Access to Livestock Markets for Sustainable Rangeland Management," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 5(2), July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:87:y:2019:i:c:s0264837718317058. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.