Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est / The EastAfrican Review 

53 | 2019Varia

Electronic versionURL: https://journals.openedition.org/eastafrica/788DOI: 10.4000/eastafrica.788ISSN: 2790-1076

PublisherIFRA - Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique

Electronic referenceLes Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est / The East African Review, 53 | 2019 [Online], Online since 04 December2019, connection on 10 December 2021. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/eastafrica/788; DOI:https://doi.org/10.4000/eastafrica.788

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Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est / The East African Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Land Conflict in Kenya: A Comprehensive Overview of LiteraturePhilip Onguny and Taylor Gillies

Grabbing Land, Catching Votes! Land and the 2015 Election Campaign in Kilombero District,TanzaniaAdriana Blache

Negotiation on Biodiversity Conservation and its Future Prospects: Evidence fromTanzania’s Burunge Wildlife Management AreaHelene Stephene Francis

Music, Riddles and Proverbs in Kenya’s Presidential Elections: Raila Odinga’s Oratory Styleand the 2017 General ElectionGordon Onyango Omenya

Language Shift or Maintenance? A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Ilwana Language of TanaRiver CountyBichang’a W. Nyaigoti

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Land Conflict in Kenya: AComprehensive Overview ofLiteraturePhilip Onguny and Taylor Gillies

Introduction

1 Although the challenges of land conflict in Africa are not new, there have been

polarized debates on how to address the varying land claims, most of which have

revolved around people-centred reforms and market-centred land regimes (Alden and

Anseeuw 2010). Because land occupies a central role in many African livelihoods, the

growing scarcity of land is often framed within the contexts of “global land rush”

(Dell’Angelo et al. 2017; Scoones et al. 2019) and has played a particular role in the

politicization of narratives about land use and land ownership in Africa. In addition to

being a valuable resource for many, people’s identity and sense of belonging are

intrinsically intertwined with land discourse (Klaus 2017; Watson 2019). This makes

land a symbolic entity with varying interests, sometimes irreconcilable or non-

negotiable. The difficulty addressing competing land claims in Africa may explain why

the African Union Commission (AUC), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA),

and the African Development Bank (AfDB) jointly proposed the ambitious Framework

and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa in 2010 to guide policy discussions on land regimes

in Africa.

2 Whereas the practical implications of this document are yet to be determined, there

have been increased efforts to reform land laws and policies in many African countries.

In West Africa, for instance, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Nigeria have seen

significant shifts in their land policies over the past decade (Boone 2017; Fenske 2011;

Pritchard 2016). Similarly, southern African states such as Zimbabwe, South Africa and,

to some extent, Botswana, are all experiencing pressure to review their land policies,

some of which have taken anti-settler narratives (Kalabamu 2019). Meanwhile, political

opportunism, “land grabs”1, and investor-driven large-scale land acquisition programs

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are believed to drive most of the discussions about land rules in many East African

countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia (Klaus, 2017).

3 With increasing contradictions associated with standardized land policies, some have

warned against the pitfalls of not considering a context-specific approach to land

governance regimes. Drawing on Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF),

scholars such as Deininger, Hilhorst and Songwe (2014: 86) conducted a comparative

study in ten African countries showing that “although the importance of land

governance for Africa’s agricultural and broader development has long been

acknowledged, the extent to which it was reflected in country strategies, addressed

effectively by specific programs, or monitored over time was limited.” Meanwhile,

other studies have shown that existing structures of authority have not been able to

meaningfully “define […] who belongs, or who claims to belong, to these territories”

(Rutherford 2017: 235). This is particularly true because, as Nuhu (2019: 1) reminds us,

land governance in Africa’s peri-urban is “shaped by divergent or complimentary roles

of actors emanating from their authority, power and interest which create a complex

relationship affecting land governance process.” This is attributed to the proliferation

of third-party actors who increasingly challenge the monopoly of state over land

governance (Gwaleba and Masum 2018).

4 Whether regarded as a problem of belonging, rent collection, or rights, there is a

sizable amount of literature from various disciplines seeking to understand land

questions in Africa more generally. Nonetheless, land politics in Kenya are of particular

interest for several reasons. As Boone (2012: 77) rightly points out, “unlike land politics

in many African countries, which often centers on the use and abuse of ostensibly

customary authority… the major land disputes in much of Kenya are focused on how

the power of the central state has been used to allocate land.” It is within this logic that

the present article reviews and discusses the dominant scholarly narratives on land

claims in Kenya and how they address land conflict. The objective is to understand

what the dominant lines of argument are with respect to land conflict, and to identify

the main actors involved in land conflict. This literature review is part of a larger study

seeking to develop a comprehensive typology of frames for land conflict and ethno-

political violence in Kenya.

5 The contribution of this literature review to ongoing debates on land conflicts in Kenya

is twofold. First, it provides a means to sort through the fragmented literature on

conflict over land by identifying the common areas around which land claims are

grounded. As such, it offers sparks for theoretical advancements and/or empirically

grounded analytical work. Second, although it is virtually impossible to formulate an

all-encompassing understanding of land conflicts across Africa, this literature review

contributes to the ongoing debates on how, when, why and by whom land narratives

are incentivized to generate conflict over land across time and space.

6 The article begins by examining the dominant lines of inquiry into land questions in

Africa more generally, before focusing on how, why and when conflicts over land are

incentivized in Kenya. The conclusion identifies potential gaps in the literature on land

questions in Kenya and directions for future research. The overall objective is to

uncover the narratives of land conflicts in Africa and narrow the focus to the Kenyan

context.

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Dominant Lines of Inquiry into Land Questions inAfrica

7 Several lines of inquiry have been provided as potential explanations for land conflict

in Africa. One such explanation associates land problems within colonial legacy,

emphasizing pre-independence (re)distributive land policies (Austin 2010; Blanton,

Mason, and Athow 2001). The core argument here is that, if land conflicts continue to

persist in Africa, it is largely because of the restructuring processes that accompanied

the social, political and economic policies, of which land governance plays a central

role.

8 A primary example of this is the continued use of state borders created by colonial

occupiers in an effort to administer territories without taking into account previously

existing land traditions (Boone 2012; Klaus 2017). Consistent with this perspective,

Yamano and Deininger (2005: 1) also observe that “in many African countries, formal

institutions for land administration were often simply superimposed on traditional

structures without a clear delineation of responsibilities and competencies, implying

that they lack both outreach and social legitimacy.” In essence, such practices are

believed to have contained communities to specific geographic areas (Khadiagala 2010).

Of course, some have contended that “Africa’s history does not begin with colonialism

and its legacy” and that political organization in Africa, such as kingdoms, influenced

varying forms of political violence before colonial occupation (Besley and Reynal-

Querol 2014: 2). Since land conflicts existed before colonial occupation (Keller 2014),

the exact foundations for the ongoing land problems requires close examinations of

local contexts and shifts in property rights that took place during colonization

(Haugerud 1989; Kanogo 1987; Okoth-Ogendo 1989).

9 Another dominant view on land conflict in Africa situates competing land claims within

the context of growing environmental concerns. Here, the literature on conservation,

however polarized, invokes the urgent need to address human-nature relations in

order to increase the sustainability of natural resources (Baynham-Herd et al. 2018;

Redpath et al. 2013). Agriculture and urbanisation are both primary topics of discussion

since they both represent Africa’s primary economy. Africa’s overall GDP is

approximately 17% based in agriculture (United Nations Economic Commission for

Africa, 2019), whereas its urbanisation projects are exemplary of global modernization

processes. For countries that depend so heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods, the

dynamics of climate change steadily exacerbate these problems, especially in relation

to land arability, erosion, infertility, and water drought (Ani 2013). Socioeconomic

fallout continues as a domino effect, with diminished levels of potable water for

sanitation and health, economic instability from lack of agricultural resources, as well

as annual food shortages (Ibid.). At the international level, climate change further

aggravates humanitarian concerns such as higher rates of environmental refugees,

leading to increased fragility and eventual threats made against state sovereignty

(Environmental Justice Foundation 2014).

10 Other studies on land conflicts specific to Africa have also centred on the politics of

natural resource extraction and unbalanced rent sharing between the elite and

ordinary citizens (Janus 2012). At the core of these studies is the assumption that a

handful of corrupt rent-seeking elites play a central role in determining who enjoys

most of the rents from natural resources (Boone 1990; Ovadia 2013). This duality-based

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relationship between elites and citizens is hierarchal and exists as a vertical-

dependence system (Rigon 2014), meaning citizens do not have the power to question

the imbalances of sharing natural resources. For the most part, these arguments

subscribe into the “resource trap” and “resource curse” themes, establishing the

connections between natural resource abundance or scarcity and the likelihood of

violent conflict over land (Carmignani and Chowdhury 2010; Frynas, Wood, and Hinks

2017). Whereas the elites keep the predominance of natural resources under their

control to maintain power, these arguments suggest that violence is more likely to

erupt amongst citizens who have less access to such resources or more to gain from

them.

11 Increasingly, however, a growing number of scholars have shifted their attention to the

“sons of the soil” literature to highlight the cultural dimensions of conflict, and how

they inform people’s identity and sense of belonging with regard to land use, access or

ownership (Boone 2017; Mitchell 2018). Here, land is negotiated as a form of identity,

often tied to lines of ancestry (Keller 2014) that is comparable to modern

understandings of citizenship. There is an emotional context entrenched within the

historical significance of land and how it is attributed to individuals who are born into

a shared community (Lonsdale 2008; Boone 2012; Mitchell 2018). When this affective

connection is threatened—through land grabbing, climate change, political take-over,

etc.—, then the threat against that shared community’s identity of land, autonomy

and/or security is met with popular outrage (Boone 1990; Dunn 2009; Klopp 2000).

12 These arguments, although not exhaustive, provide a window into understanding the

broad questions surrounding land claims in Africa and related conflict. The next

sections focus on the particularities of land problems in Kenya specifically, and how

they have informed land conflicts over time and space.

Laying the Terrain: Political History of Land UsePatterns in Kenya

13 Land questions in Kenya are complex, multilayered, and highly politicised.

Understanding the dynamics of land problems in Kenya therefore invites discussion on

the colonial and post-colonial political contexts that have informed the structure of

property rights across time and space, and an understanding of how national elites

have used land and land access rights to influence the narratives on land ownership

and control land institutions.

14 In the pre-colonial era, land rights were mainly managed as Commons2. That is, “by a

social hierarchy organized in the form of an inverted pyramid with the tip representing

the family, the middle as the clan and lineage, and the base, the community” (Okoth-

Ogendo 2002: 108). For the Kenyan Law Professor Okoth-Ogendo, such structures

allowed societies to govern their lands based on collective values and principles, taking

into consideration both the current and future needs as well as the responsibility to

protect group’s territory. In essence, the pre-colonial land management depended on

subsistence agriculture and pastoralism systems (Haugerud 1989). Further, “the

pastoralists also had better-organized warriors to extend and protect their territories…

[even though] both the agrarian and pastoral societies left large tracts of land for

resource management purposes…” (Wamicha and Mwanje 2000: 20). In short, managing

land rights as part of the Commons meant that such rights “were not susceptible to

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inter vivos transfers outside each level of social organization even though latitudinal

exchange of function-specific rights was and remains common” (Okoth-Ogendo 2002:

108).

15 During colonization, land in Kenya considered unoccupied by the British settlers was

declared Crown land, i.e. land on which the Commissioner acted on behalf of the Queen

of England (Crown Lands Ordinace of 1902), as well as Trust Land (Kanogo 1987; Okoth-

Ogendo 1989)3. Access to and control over land thus shifted from earlier forms of social

ownership to “market-oriented” or private ownership systems. As Haugerud explains,

“nowhere… [did] the Kenyan state [have] the capacity to keep the land registers up to

date…” (Haugerud 1989: 61), which is why the “objectives were to replace the

uncertainty of customary tenure with a system of individual land titles registered and

guaranteed by the state; and to expand cash crop production, improve agricultural

techniques and encourage agricultural investment once fragmented holdings were

consolidated into units of economic size once registered titles could be used as security

for agricultural loans” (Ibid.: 63). This view is not shared by all Kenyan scholars, such as

Okoth-Ogendo, who argue that the introduction of concepts such as “ownership” by the

colonial regime masked other forms of property ownership that existed, and that the

absence of land registries per se did not imply absence of a land regime. He writes: “the

view of property that was taken was always loaded with the values of Western

materialism… [and that] it was assumed, for example, that tenure arrangements were

always completed by a bond, called title, which tied individuals or combinations

thereof to some delineated portions of the physical solum in a way that conferred both

jurisdiction and exclusive control” (Okoth-Ogendo 1989: 7).

16 What is certain, however, is that the modern colonial state… “[did] the most to

supersede customary land rights and to assume the role of “landlord” to peasant

producers in some of Africa’s most developed and highly commercialized agricultural

economies” (Ibid.: 1312). In fact, “by 1939, most of the remaining high potential land

remained as crown land under the direct control of the governor, and native areas,

recategorized as ‘trust lands’, were under the control of land boards accountable to the

governor” (Klopp 2000: 15). Although some of the new land tenure practices were

aimed at containing dissent from pressure groups such as the Mau Mau anticolonial

struggle movement (Kanogo 1987), land rights shifted from “traditional” institutions of

ownership to private ownership, thus providing individuals and groups of individuals

with powers for exclusive appropriation and/or control over land and related

resources (Boone 2011; Haugerud 1989; Okoth-Ogendo 1989).

17 The post-colonial era mainly saw the “elite capture” of property rights. The land that

had been occupied by white settlers, particularly the British, were acquired by the post-

colonial regime of Jomo Kenyatta (1963-1978) and eventually sold to national elites who

gained control of the property ownership structure (Kanyinga 1998; Okoth-Ogendo

1989). The trend was continued under Daniel arap Moi’s regime (1978-2002), known for

distributing public lands for political purposes (Greiner 2013; Klopp 2001). Land

regimes therefore became connected to post-colonial national politics in Kenya, with

successive governments becoming reluctant to transform land regimes in a manner

that would address irregular land allocations over the years. This is because land rights

have become instruments of structuring political relationships, connecting elite

“landlords” in various regions to the central state (Greiner 2013; Onoma 2010). This link

of interdependency is captured by Boone’s observation, suggesting that “the direct tie

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between central state agents and land users often persisted over time through relations

of indebtedness, patron clientage, and/or access to land in the absence of official

titles… [and that] these past and ongoing relationships provided a historical and

political (if not legal) basis for Rift Valley politicians’ claims to prerogative over land

allocation in the present and near future” (Boone 2011: 1313). This may explain why

national elites seeking electoral support repeatedly manipulate land-tenure

relationships to influence land-related grievances in some parts of the country such as

the Rift Valley, as witnessed during the 1992, 1997, and 2007 elections (Bates 2005;

Boone 2011; Klopp 2001).

18 In short, post-colonial land-tenure regimes have been manipulated by varying national

elites to influence ethnic conflicts (Médard 1996; Oucho 2002), to illegally distribute

public lands such as forestland for personal interests and political gains (Klopp 2001;

Ndung’u Report 2004), and to stifle the operations of land institutions (Okoth-Ogendo

2002; Onoma 2010). And, as Klopp (2000: 15) puts it, “one might say that Kenya was

founded by successive acts of land grabbing, and hence, land grabbing is as old as

Kenya itself, if not older.”

Competing Narratives About Land Conflict in Kenya

19 Pending the political history provided above, this paper identifies and discusses four

dominant explanations in the literature that connects competing land claims to land-

related conflict and/or violence in Kenya. This includes colonial legacy and historicity,

environmental concerns and climate change, unbalanced natural resource rent

sharing, and the “sons of the soil” argument. These explanations are considered to be

communicative and commentary to one another.

Colonial Legacy, Historicity, and Land Conflict

20 The literature on land conflict specific to Kenya identifies colonial legacy as one of the

primary reasons generating land-related grievances. In addition to altering land tenure

regimes, the affinity colonists had for choosing favorites amongst the African

ethnicities, showing them greater privileges, including land rights, created a

foundation for violence over land in areas such as Rift Valley and Central regions of

Kenya (Boone 2011; Mbah 2016). As Haugerud puts it, “the initial phase of defining and

adjudicating clan and individual rights, particular parcels of land [during colonization]

involved both clan elders and appointed officials such as assistant chiefs and chiefs”

(Haugerud 1989: 63). In areas where there were no chiefs, Berman (1990) observes that

chiefs were “created” to facilitate territorial administration. These arrangements had a

profound impact on how territorial boundaries were drawn, including the rights that

were associated with certain territories over others (Johnson and Toft 2014).

21 Although a considerable amount of the violence over land in Kenya is attributed to

cyclical events such as elections and the politicization of ethnic groups, a brief

overview of historical events shows that land questions have long dominated public

debates in Kenya (Campbell et al. 2000; Boone 2012). The politics of the 1899 “Crown

Land”—extended in 1902—for instance, contributed to the disruption of the initial land

arrangements in occupied territories commonly known as the “highlands” (Veit 2011).

At the core of the Crown Land policy, which was often revised to accommodate more

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settlers, was the declaration that all land belonged to the colonial state, thereby

discrediting customary land rights and introducing individual freehold title as a legal

means of land ownership (Berman 1990; Okoth-Ogendo 1989). And, as Klopp notes, “the

result was that those loyal to the colonial government were rewarded and those

involved in Mau Mau were punished with loss of their land” (Klopp 2000: 16).

22 The succession of several land registration schemes in the pre-independence period

(e.g. the 1954 Swynnerton Plan, the 1959 Native Land Registration Ordonnance, and

1963 Registered Land Act) all paved the way to the Land Adjudication Act in 1968, five

years after independence (Yamano and Deininger 2005). In a sense, “Kenya's late-

colonial land-tenure reform was intended to presage agrarian revolution along pre-

industrial European lines… [which] began in central Kenya under the Swynnerton Plan

in the 1950s […] first undertaken with the advantage of confinement of much of Central

Province's African population into fortified emergency villages established to contain

the 1950s Mau Mau rebellion” (Haugerud 1989: 63). The same argument is advanced by

Kanogo (1987) who notes that the shifts in land tenure regime during colonization saw

the increase in the number of “squatters” around the so-called “white highlands” and

subsequent rise of pressure groups such as the Mau Mau fighters (Kanogo 1987).

Accordingly, these land registration processes “increased tenure security for many

landowners… [and] created new forms of disputes, such as challenges over registered

land and conflict over land sales” (Shipton 1988, cited in Yamano and Deininger 2005:

4).

23 However, this perspective is not shared by all. Some scholars, such as Camm (2012),

have argued that the challenges of ethnicity, which often exacerbate land tensions in

Kenya, were already in place before colonial occupation. In this view, colonialism

simply heightened land conflicts, driving pre-existing tensions by changing land access

rights. Meanwhile, other scholars have argued that Kenya’s independence in 1963 only

saw the end of “formal colonialism” as an active practice but not as an overall problem,

while corruption ensued when colonial rule shifted into an authoritarian style political

structure (Keller 2014). Another argument closely related to the former is the

preservation of power among elites: believed to allow land conflicts to continue

amongst communities, these elites were only interested in preserving their newfound

political power (Boone 2012; Klaus 2017). Precisely, “following independence in 1963,

president Kenyatta maintained rural control through a combination of clientelistic

structures and a continuation of the colonial administrative system” (Funder and

Mirani 2015: 90). Kenyatta’s successor, President Moi, “intensifi[ed] irregular

allocations of public land to well-connected individuals and land-buying companies” in

areas such as Karura forest despite resistance from pressure groups (Klopp 2000: 8).

24 In such a context, the revival of the multi-party political system only added to the

fragility of land governance in the post-colonial era, away from the colonial-rooted

one-party system (Khadiagala 2010). The traumatic events that followed the 2007-2008

elections are a clear indication that conflict over land has deep root causes that require

rethinking how land institutions (whether communal or national) have to approach

land questions (Linke et al. 2018; Boone et al. 2019). This is because they have long

lasting effects on current structures, whether social, political or economic.

25 Along the same lines of argument, Peters (2009) observes that “the pervasive

competition and conflict over land call into serious question the image of relatively

open, negotiable and adaptive customary systems of landholding and land use and,

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instead, reveal processes of exclusion, deepening social divisions and class formation”

(Ibid.: 270). This underscores the difficulty in balancing customary and national land

policies. Further, the often-disputed borders between Kenya and its neighbours such as

Uganda and Somalia add to the challenges that land institutions have to deal with in

spite of the colonial structures and/or demarcations upon which they are grounded

(Oduntan 2015).

Environmental and/or Climate Change Explanations of Land Conflict

26 Environmental concerns are also a leading explanation of conflicts over land in Kenya.

For the most part, environmental narratives about land conflicts are found within the

conservation literature (Agrawal 2005; Brown, Hammill and McLeman 2007). Increased

struggles for water and food security due to uncertain climatic conditions form the

basis upon which environmental explanations of land conflicts are grounded. In Tana

River County, for instance, the mobile livelihoods of pastoralist communities such as

the Orma are seen as clashing with the livelihood practices of agro-pastoralist groups

such as Pokomo, particularly during drought and famine (Bond 2014).

27 Accordingly, climate-induced people mobility and wildlife migration have been shown

to contribute to enhanced conflict between transhumant, sedentary and nomadic

livelihood practices. Recent studies on the interconnections between climate change

and land use conflict in Kenya show that rural areas with significant rainfall shortages

are more prone to violence (Linke et al. 2018). Linking land conflict with both the

demands of agriculture and resource shortages, such studies have argued that “while

environmental change and shortages of rainfall represent a stress for many

households’ livelihoods, certain regulations may ameliorate these difficulties” (Ibid.:

1573). In essence, these studies demonstrate that struggles over limited resources,

particularly land, are exacerbated by both environmental factors and unequal structure

of property rights.

28 Furthermore, land conflicts in Kenya have also been attributed to migratory and

mobility patterns, whether rural-rural or rural-urban, which alter the dynamics of

existing struggles over limited resources such as land (Mwita 2017). While it is true that

climate change is not the only reason behind migrations, it is also true that as

populations migrate to other territories, overcrowding becomes a reality with the

potential to heighten existing socio-economic tensions within and among populations

(Abuodha 2002). In writing about migrations and the changing patterns of pastoral

mobility in East Africa, van Baalen and Mobjörk write: “confronted by increasing

resource scarcity, resource-dependent populations often respond by migrating to areas

where resources are available or where there are alternative livelihoods, such as urban

areas… [where] environmental change also affects the livelihoods and movements of

permanent migrants, such as livestock herders, by upsetting the sustainability of their

traditional mobility patterns” (van Baalen and Mobjörk 2018: 559).

29 Precisely, the authors show that “in the Turkana district in Kenya, both the frequency

and intensity of livestock-related violence are higher in wetter areas on the plateaus

and high rising ridges when the Turkana are the attackers” (Ibid.: 561). They also

observe that “in the Lolita forest in southern Kenya, cooperation between neighbouring

Maasai communities has become more difficult to maintain with the ‘slow and

continuous’ in-migration by the Purko Maasai” (Ibid.: 560). Overall, environmental

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and/or climate change discourse on land conflict focuses on issues of mobility,

migrations, and struggles over limited resources such as water and grazing pastures.

Natural Resource Extraction and Unbalanced Rent Sharing

30 Closely related to climatic and environmental explanations of land conflict in Kenya,

there is growing literature focusing on resource extraction and unbalanced rent

sharing (Abuya 2017; Abuodha and Hayombe 2006). At the core of these arguments is

the delicate balance between who controls, uses, or benefits from the resources

extracted from certain territories, often seen as belonging to particular groups. As

Abuya puts it, “the major source of conflict is usually over who owns (and therefore

controls) the land on which mining activity is taking place” (Abuya 2017: 593).

31 In addition to rent seeking and rent sharing narratives as possible explanations for

conflict over land, there is also the question of displacement that is closely tied to

natural resource extraction. For instance, studies by Abuodha (2002) on compensation

programs offered to the residents of Kwale, living in the Titanium rich coastal strip of

Kenya, showed that forced resettlement schemes in non-mineral areas increased

conflicts between local residents. This is because the socio-economic opportunities and

livelihood practices are tied to natural resource extraction.

32 On the flipside, Abuodha notes that, “whereas mining may result in positive

socioeconomic benefits to societies and communities near mining areas, social ills and

vices, including loss of cultural cohesion and interpersonal dynamics, breakdown of

cultural norms and traditions, and increased crime and disease are some of the

undesirable social impacts that can arise” (Abuodha 2002: 203). All of this contribute to

the changing dynamics of conflict over land in Kenya. Further, the quest for natural

resource rents for urban development and agricultural commercialization, particularly

among a handful of political elites, has increased the value of land and subsequent

“land grabs” (Klopp 2000). Apart from urban “land grabs” in Kenyan cities such as

Nairobi and Mombasa, rural areas of the Rift valley, Central, and Coastal regions are

also witnessing an increase in these irregular allocations of lands. Land grabbing has

become a frequent occurrence in Kenya due to little or lack of documentation for land

ownership by communities. Historically, the problems of land ownership are tied to the

fact that “ethnic entrepreneurs and political brokers played a significant role in

instigating violence” (Keller 2014: 122).

33 Recently, however, “the intensification of irregular allocations of public land to well-

connected individuals and land-buying companies in Kenya's “land grabbing mania” is

a particularly revealing and underscrutinized case of deepening corruption” (Klopp

2000: 8). Land grabbing in Kenya has also been associated with the rise of urbanization

and porous land ownership regulations (Lombard and Rakodi 2016). Location,

affordability, and quick legal transaction are three important components for

successful urban growth, however these are all impeded within the current land rules

system, particularly in Nairobi (Lombard and Rakodi 2016). Further, large-scale land-

buying or leasing by foreign governments such as “Qatar ha[ve] begun acquiring

40,000 hectares in Kenya’s Tana River delta to grow fruit and vegetables, despite a

drought that sees the UN feeding four million Kenyans” (Williams 2009: 1053).

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Political Dynamics of Land Conflict

34 Political dynamics of land conflict in Kenya revolve primarily around the politicization

of land-related grievances by political elites and the struggles to control the state

machinery, which, for the most part, oversees the institutions of land governance and

property access (Boone 2011; Greiner 2013; Klopp 2000; Klaus 2017). The result of this is

that whoever controls the state machinery has the ability to partially influence the

opportunities associated with land ownership (Keller 2014; Khalif and Oba 2013;

Williams 2009), including the organization of people’s concept of territoriality through

“spatial ordering” (Sikor and Lund 2009). This is because “the process of seeking

authorizations for property claims also has the effect of granting authority to the

authorizing politico-legal institution” (Ibid.: 1). For instance, following independence,

“Kenyatta used the former settler land as patronage to solidify his support and build

alliances, and many former loyalists became prominent in the new KANU government”

(Klopp 2000: 16). This, in part, explains why the politics around land rights and land

ownership have become a common theme in Kenya’s electoral processes, as historically

rooted grievances and claims over the need to recapture land in the “lost” territories

often resurface (Keller 2014; Mwita 2017; Klaus 2017).

35 Having access to senior political leadership is, in this regard, seen as a potential means

or authority to undo the perceived injustices surrounding historical land allocations

and/or acquisitions because political leadership serves as “the ‘contract’ that links

property and authority” (Sikor and Lund 2009: 1). Indeed, targeted killings and

evictions in areas such as Rift Valley have been attributed to the politicization of

historical grievances by political elites. The findings by the Akiwumi Report4 on “tribal”

clashes in Kenya provides important details to this end. Put differently, “the process of

seeking authorization for property claims also works to authorize the authorizers and,

at the same time, institutions underpinning various claims of access—hence catering

for particular constituencies—undermine rival claims to the same resources” (Sikor

and Lund 2009: 1-2).

36 Although Kenya adopted a new Constitution in 2010, which provides the ground for the

implementation of the National Land Policy through institutions such as the National

Land Commission (NLA), increased politicization of these institutions means that they

are likely to make politically motivated decisions. Yet, the 2007-2008 post-election

violence is a stark reminder of the risks associated with the politicization of land

ownership. It is to be noted that before 2010, Kenya did not have a comprehensive

system for land laws, particularly those relating to women’s land rights. Women, more

so in rural areas, were more likely to be systematically excluded from family and

patriarchal land ownership (Ministry of Lands 2009). Overall, the complex nature of

land and/or property access paired with the political goals for land claims has already

in the past incited violence and stokes its continuation.

“Sons of the Soil” Narrative and Issues of Identity in Land Conflict

37 In recent years, there has been a growing interest among scholars to examine the

intricate relationship between identity and territorial affinity, and how they

recursively interact to influence conflict over land (Lonsdale 2008; Horowitz and Klaus

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2018; Medard 2008; Dunn 2009; Gray 2011). In writing about what he calls the “sons of

the soil” claims in Kenya, Lonsdale (2008) observes that:

To be ‘sons of the soil’ (it is always sons) is only one and, in terms of historicaldepth, not the most convincing means to make a claim on the Kenyan state. It tendsto rest on recently acquired or ideologically constructed rights. In the 1920s whitesettlers, beneficiaries like the Sudanese of arbitrary state favour at the expense ofothers more native than they, resented being termed immigrants by the Britishgovernment (Lonsdale 2008: 308).

38 This informs us about the complex relationship between identity, territory, and

citizenship claims, and how they interact to generate conflict over land (Oduntan 2015).

For some Kenyan communities, one cannot separate land from the people because of

the dialectic and existential pull the two exert from one another. “Autochthony,” as a

local understanding of land conflict in Kenya, describes the close bond of citizens born

in a certain geographic area, the same as their ancestors, and have a shared identity

claim to the land (Kameri-Mbote and Kindiki 2008; Médard 2008). Territorial identity of

certain populations, especially in rural agricultural lands, often revolve around

ancestral claims, and such claims are more significant to such populations than any

land laws (Keller 2014). The problem is that the claims of territorial identity rooted in

ancestral claims create a sense of land entitlement or ownership and subsequent

politicization of inter-group cohabitation, more so during election periods. Those who

“do not belong” to the acclaimed territories therefore become vulnerable to the politics

of eviction which the national and local elites incite.

39 The challenge of advancing the “autochthony” rationale over land ownership in Africa,

particularly in Kenya, is that such claims shift depending on political context and

perceived gains and losses. While “autochthony discourses appear to provide a sense of

primal security and certainty” (Dunn 2009: 114-115), the sub-division of the already

numerous ethnic groups in Kenya makes it difficult to honour such claims (Médard

2008; Akoth 2018). This illustrates that although “autochthony” may serve as a means

to claim land ownership, the question of identity remains a deep-rooted barrier to the

enactment of land policies that are inclusive and respectful of people’s shifting sense of

identity. This is because of the “ethnic appeals” that not only characterize socio-

political landscape in Kenya, but also incentivize conflict over land.

40 Consistent with this perspective, scholars such as Horowitz and Klaus have observed

that “appeals to ethnic grievances can encompass multiple logics, connecting to

feelings of economic and political powerlessness stemming from the inability to secure

land, alongside the belief that the victory of an ethnic patron will produce material

benefits related to land, employment, or security” (Horowitz and Klaus 2018: 5). While

the narratives of autochthony have increasingly become a common explanation of

conflict over land in Kenya, other scholars have warned about its traction in African

contexts. Precisely, scholars such as Dunn argue that “the growing multiplicity and

contingency of identities available to persons in the contemporary world can produce a

daunting sense of uncertainty about people, places, events and even cosmologies”

(Dunn 2009: 121).

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Main Actors in Kenya’s Land Conflict

41 Actors in Kenya’s land conflict are as multiple and multilayered as are the perceived

underlying causes. Providing a detailed account of actors driving conflict over land in

Kenya is therefore beyond the scope of this literature review. However, since land

claims are tied to people’s sense of security, livelihoods, identity, pride, etc., identifying

and discussing the main actors driving such narratives is important. For the purposes

of this review of literature, we have narrowed them into three broad categories:

national actors, regional actors, and international actors. The rationale for this

categorization is premised on the assumption that actor-relationship mapping is an

important step towards communicative understanding of the complex dynamics of

land questions in Kenya. This brings to focus the multidimensionality of land claims,

and how actors’ positions often intersect with perceived needs, opportunities,

interests, and fears. In short, actor-relationship mapping draws from the conflict

analysis perspective to understand how stakeholders in a given conflict interact

communicatively to influence the process and/or outcome of conflict, including the

areas of contestation (Grimm and Weiffen 2018).

National Actors

42 At the local level, we can identify state and non-state actors (NSAs). The state, as an

actor in conflict, may exert (or seek to exert) control over its territories, including

those that are led by agents who are uncollaborative towards state-led policies. This

may take the form of land grabbing, and, as argued by Klopp (2000: 22), “Kenya’s ‘land

grabbing mania’ correctly illustrates how powerful actors who have a stake in

maintaining patrimonial control will find alternative sources of patronage assets when

confronted with constraints on traditional sources such as aid.” Depending on how

state efforts are received in concerned areas, it may choose to use coercive measures

and/or one-sided state violence against groups or individuals who impede its

initiatives. As witnessed during Kenyatta’s and Moi’s presidencies, the manipulation of

land rights and irregular allocation of public lands were not only used for political

gains; they were also used for coercive purposes (Greiner 2013; Funder and Marani

2015).

43 The problem with such an approach is that the changing dynamics of conflict over land

in Kenya have also seen an increase in NSAs who take active roles in shaping the

direction of land conflict. This is probably why recent studies emphasize the need to

include non-state actors in peacebuilding processes. For instance, when Moi’s

government started irregular allocation of Nairobi’s Karura forest in the 1990s, NSAs

such as the National Council of NGOs of Kenya launched several anti-land grabbing

awareness campaigns under the “Operation Firimbi” (Klopp 2000). Equally, “the

National Council of Churches of Kenya, the Law Society of Kenya, the Architectural

Association of Kenya, the Kenya (No. N) Human Rights Commission among many other

groups joined a clamor of voices demanding to know to whom the forest had been

allocated” (Ibid.: 13). This shows the extent to which NSAs can put pressure on the

government, while, at the same time sparking protests and violence over irregular land

allocations. According to Hofmann and Scheckener, two dominant reasons explain why

NSAs, particularly armed groups, have increasingly been integrated into the overall

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peacebuilding strategy: “on the one hand, they are often perceived as responsible for

violence against unarmed civilians in breach of international humanitarian law, as well

as for the establishment of criminal and informal economies. On the other hand, they

are often the expression of social problems because they see themselves as

representatives of distinct interests and may build on broad support within

communities” (Hofmann and Scheckener 2001: 2).

44 Admittedly, armed NSAs have been blamed for perpetrating land-based violence in

areas such as Rift Valley and Tana River, particularly during electoral periods leading

to the forced displacement of persons (Boone 2012; Keller 2014; Mwita 2017). Whereas

some of the NSAs may act autonomously, studies also show that they can be

instrumentalized by conflict entrepreneurs, politicians, and political parties to carry

out acts of violence (Rohwerder 2015; van Leeuwen and van Der Haar 2016). The

2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya, particularly in Rift Valley, was blamed in

part on the instrumentalization and mobilization of various groups by conflict sponsors

and/or entrepreneurs to carry out targeted attacks or retaliatory attacks against

particular groups (Schilling, Opiyo and Schefran 2012; Kameri-Mbote and Kindiki 2008).

45 Indeed, ethnic pressures caused by the 2007-2008 electoral violence and land claims

have influenced the political structure over the last decade, ultimately leading to the

doubling of political officials, which has convoluted policy implementation processes

(Adam, Collier and Ndung'u 2011). Overall, while national actors have increasingly

become important influencers of land policies, it is to be noted that, “in Kenya, until

recently, the state has been the principal actor in the policy-making arena… [and] the

executive has traditionally dominated both the processes and the institutional

framework for policy making” (ECDMP 2002).

Regional Actors

46 Regional actors have also played an important role in underpinning land narratives in

Kenya. Cross-border conflicts between Kenya and its neighbouring countries such as

Somalia, Ethiopia, and Uganda have been on the rise in the past couple of decades

(Okumu 2010). For some, cross-border conflicts in East Africa are fuelled by the

changing regional economy and ambitious large-scale development programs that have

increased public-private partnerships (Mosley and Watson 2016). At the core of these

developments is the issue of cross-border security, with communities on either side of

the border becoming vulnerable to inter-group conflicts. The construction of dams and

other mega-infrastructure projects (e.g. LAPSSET program) have, for instance, led to

forced migration of communities living along the Kenya-Ethiopia borders and their

contestation, as some of these “visions” are not supported by the communities affected

(Mosley and Watson 2016).

47 Realizing the problems surrounding land questions in the region, regional

organizations such as the African Union (AU) have tried to propose a “unified” vision of

land rights across the African continent (AU, 2010). Among others, AU’s proposed

framework “offer[s] a basis for commitment by African member states to the

formulation and operationalisation of sound land policies as a basis for sustainable

human development that includes assuring social stability, maintaining economic

growth and alleviating poverty and protecting natural resources from degradation and

pollution” (AU 2010: 2). This comes with the realization that the land question is not

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only a hindrance to development and cooperation within and across regional borders;

it contributes to the struggles over limited natural resources and violence between

groups.

48 Consistent with this perspective, Kumssa et al. (2014) remind us that “there are

presently over one million registered Somali refugees throughout East Africa with

more than 50% of these refugees being located in Kenya… [and that such an] influx of

refugees has stressed local resources within Kenya and requires careful negotiation

between host community residents and refugees” (Kumssa et al. 2014: 145). Moreover,

the ongoing maritime dispute between Kenya and Somalia—currently referred at the

International Court of Justice (ICJ)—indicates the delicate balance between regional

cooperation and the advancement of national interests around natural resource access

and use (Chan, 2018). Mpeketoni region on the coast have also been marred by conflict

over land, which revolves around the “government’s long history of resettling

displaced and landless people from other areas to land belonging to indigenous

people”5. Further, the dispute between Kenya and Uganda over Migingo Island—on

Lake Victoria—is another indication of increasing conflict over territory between Kenya

and its neighbouring countries (Shaka 2013). In addition to boundary disputes, regional

party states also face similar land questions within their borders with limited or no

political will to solve historically rooted land issues (AU 2010).

49 Since intervention is a negotiated effort, interests often supersede political will,

particularly when such efforts revolve around land tenure in war-torn zones. As Unruh

reminds us, “war-torn land tenure situations are unique settings in their combination

of a weakened and chaotic formal (statutory) system, vigorous but very fluid informal

tenure activity, along with the presence of political demands regarding land, and

international actors that have a large interest and influence in the success of any

improvement or recovery” (Unruh 2011: 89). This is particularly the case for Kenya,

where securing land rights in areas such as Tana River and Garissa remains a daunting

challenge for the state. Cattle raiding practices have resulted in protracted conflict

between pastoral and agro-pastoral communities living along Kenya-Ethiopia and

Kenya-Somalia borders (Greiner 2013; Khalif and Oba 2013; Schilling, Opiyo, and

Scheffran 2012; Witsenburg and Adano 2009). In writing about “guns, land and votes” in

northern Kenya, scholars such as Greiner have argued that, while cattle rustling can be

attributed to climatic transformations of the drylands, such “approaches depoliticize

raiding and tend to ignore important changes within pastoralist communities and how

they relate to political developments in Kenya at large” (Greiner 2013: 112). In short,

the politics around territoriality have gradually become an organized crime resulting

in the armament of young men and boys for political gains.

International Actors

50 The role of international actors in influencing the direction of land conflicts in Kenya

has taken many forms, ranging from foreign governments leasing large tracts of land to

international pressure groups and aid agencies seeking ways to prevent irregular

allocation of public lands such as forests. Precisely, international actors influencing

land narratives in Kenya include, but are not limited to, international NGOs, UN

agencies (e.g. UNEP and UN-Habitat), international land-buying and land-leasing

companies, humanitarian organizations, and donor agencies.

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51 In writing about the “grabbing” of Karura forest that began during Moi’s presidency

and the “mild reaction” it received from the international community, Klopp noted

that “public land appears to be largely unfettered by international conditionalities or

scrutiny. Hence, it is a useful asset in light of increased restrictions intended to limit

forms of corruption more familiar to international observers” (Klopp 2000: 15).

Therefore, even though international actors such IMF and World Bank may exert

pressure on governments through the threat of sanction, allocation of public land by

national government often draws minimal international reaction.

52 The Kenya-Qatar deal over the 40,000 hectares leasing in Kenya’s River Tana Delta is

one example of how international actors (e.g. foreign governments) are becoming

increasingly involved in changing the dynamics of land access rights in Kenya

(Williams 2009). With rising pressures from international actors such as OCHA and UN-

Habitat advocating for the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the growing

push to increase food security in the country, such land deals are often met with mixed

feelings. In fact, as Kamungi notes, “in 2012, clashes over water sources and pastures in

the Tana Delta and parts of Northern Kenya, cattle-rustling and localized political

violence among pastoralist communities across Kenya’s North left scores dead and over

118,000 displaced” (Kamungi 2013: 4).

53 Overall, coordinating national, regional, and international structures and/or

institutions of land access rights remains a major challenge. In the case of IDPs

resettlement programs, for instance, “the Ministry of Local Government, which is

responsible for cities, municipalities, town and county councils, is not directly involved

in the management of IDPs given that the Ministry of State for Special Programs

(MOSSP) is the focal point for all IDP matters” (Kamungi 2013: 27). Navigating these

hierarchies represents a tall order for land institutions, whether at the local, regional

or international levels. This is exacerbated by land-buying companies, as they increase

land value, land grabbing, and struggles for land ownership (Boone 2012; Williams

2009). This is because they inform migration patterns, sometimes forced, to create

room for large-scale agricultural production or mineral extraction purposes.

Conclusion

54 Over the past decade, land questions in Kenya have not only become a policy concern

given their central role in inter-group conflicts, but are also a topic of particular

interest to scholars on Africa. This comprehensive literature review identified five

dominant explanations or agencies in conflict over land in Kenya, as advanced within

academic and policy circles: colonial legacy, environmental concerns, natural resource

extraction, political dynamics, and “sons of the soil” narratives as the dominant lines of

argument used to characterize agency in land conflict in Kenya. Colonial legacy

underscores historically rooted claims of land possession and dispossession;

environmental concerns underpin the role of climate change in people and animal

mobility, which creates pressure and tension or conflict over land between

communities; political factors revolve around the control and governance of land for

electoral gains and the capture of power; natural resource extraction problems

highlight unbalanced rent sharing practices; and the “sons of the soil” discourse

centers on people’s sense of belonging as they relate to land ownership.

Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est / The East African Review, 53 | 2019

16

55 In addition to the identified agencies in land conflict, the article discussed how

communicative interactions between national, regional, and international actors shape

land questions in Kenya, and in Africa more generally. The actors function as both the

source and/or driver of land conflict, as well as interveners in “solving” land questions.

National actors have been categorized into two broad groups: the state and non-state

actors such as civil society organizations and other “neo-customary authorities” such

as Council of Elders. Regional actors include, but are not limited to member states,

countries and regional organizations such as the AU. Finally, international actors

include institutions of global governance (e.g. UN), private actors (e.g. international

companies/groups), and international NGOs.

56 Despite the strong contribution these studies make towards our understanding of land

problems in Kenya, there is relatively very little work on the roles of regional and

international actors in shaping conflict over land in Kenya. The existing literature

centers on national actors, particularly the state, land institutions, and politicians. Yet,

regional actors (e.g. AU) and international actors (e.g. ICJ) increasingly take active part

in the politics of land in Kenya, including boundary disputes. The roles of regional and

international actors may require further theoretical and empirical exploration.

57 Finally, the framing of land questions in the existing literature points to a strong tilt

toward “fixing” land institutions as a means to solve Kenya’s land conflict puzzle. Yet,

as Boone et al. (2019) observes, reducing land conflict in Kenya to problems of

institutional regulations still leaves a lot to be desired. Overall, by identifying and

discussing the common areas around which land questions are hinged, this literature

review offers a means to sort through the fragmented research on land conflicts in

Kenya. Specifically, it offers a window into understanding “how particular land-related

conflicts are performed, stimulated, interpreted and used by different actors at

different levels, both for private gain as well as for ideological reasons” (van Leeuwen

and van Der Haar 2016: 102).

Literature review for this article benefited from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Council (SSHRC) grant, under Insight Development Grants.

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NOTES

1. “Land grab” is broadly understood as a form of corruption involving irregular

allocation of public lands (see Klopp 2000).

2. Okoth-Ogendo defines the Commons as “ontologically organized land and associated

resources available exclusively to specific communities, lineages or families operating

as corporate entities… [and that] as a general rule, this is the manner in which agrarian

resources in Africa were, and largely continue to be organized” (Okoth-Ogendo 2002:

107).

3. During colonization, a series of ordinances targeting land use patterns were enacted

by the Colonial Office to allow for the appropriation of lands for European settlement

and for large-scale farming/agriculture by British settlers. Crown Land Ordinances

(1902, 1915 and 1926) brought all lands under the authority of the Colonial Office,

allowing for the protection and delimitation of the Highlands for the pre-eminent

European settlement. Access to or transfers of these lands were overseen by the

colonial governor through the European Highland policy. Trust lands, on the other

hand, were established by the colonial government for exclusive use of Africans with

no guarantee in terms of security of tenure. This followed the declaration, by the

colonial government, that all lands were under the authority of the Colonial Office and

the Queen of England. For a detailed discussion of these policies, see the authors cited.

4. See the report by the 1999 Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Tribal Clashes in

Kenya https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/tjrc-gov/ [archive].

5. See International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) article, “Why Unresolved

Land Issues Lay at the Heart of Displacement in Kenya’s Coast Region.” July 2014.

http://www.internal-displacement.org/expert-opinion/why-unresolved-land-issues-

lay-at-the-heart-of-displacement-in-kenyas-coast-region [archive].

ABSTRACTS

Land governance continues to be a topic of high interest within policy and academic circles. The

manner in which land institutions should (or should not) go about reforming national land

policies has been a highly contested topic given the complex and multilayered nature of land-

related conflicts. The purpose of this literature review is to identify and discuss how, why, and by

whom land conflicts are mobilized to generate tension, conflict, and violence over land in Kenya.

The article argues that, in addition to “global land rush” narratives, the structure of politics is a

key organizing element of land conflict in Kenya. This is because politics define the kinds of

relationships people have with land, including the institutions that prescribe, manage, and

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oversee land rights. This literature review contributes more broadly to address land conflict and

ethno-political violence in Kenya.

INDEX

Keywords: land conflict, land rules, land reforms, land institutions, property rights, boundary

disputes

Geographical index: Kenya

AUTHORS

PHILIP ONGUNY

Philip Onguny is an Assistant Professor in the School of Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University

in Ottawa. His research revolves around ethno-political violence in sub-Saharan Africa and the

role of media in conflict transformation and peacebuilding. He is the co-editor of Lutte contre le

terrorisme en Afrique: Acte de bienveillance ou prétexte géostratégique published by the

University of Montreal Press.Saint Paul University, School of Conflict Studies. 223 Main Street,

Ottawa, ON K1S 1C4.

TAYLOR GILLIES

Taylor Gillies holds an MA in Conflict Studies from Saint Paul University in Ottawa.Saint Paul

University, School of Conflict Studies. 223 Main Street, Ottawa, ON K1S 1C4.

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Grabbing Land, Catching Votes!Land and the 2015 ElectionCampaign in Kilombero District,TanzaniaAdriana Blache

Introduction

1 Throughout 2015, in every village of the Kilombero Valley in Tanzania, the general

election generated fierce debates about livelihood, land and politics. In this

internationally coveted valley of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor (SAGCOT),

the election echoed nationwide debates about corruption, economic growth, poverty

alleviation, infrastructure development and the growing power of the opposition. It

also raised specific concerns over whether and how local development plans improve

livelihood. During political meetings, village assemblies and even informal discussions

in hoteli,1 future elected local government bodies continuously exploited the main local

object of concern: land. In this highly desired space of the valley, the effects of the top-

down SAGCOT initiative on local land politics can be analyzed through the campaign

discourses relating to land investments and land access. These discourses were used by

local elites as a strategy to maintain positions, expand socio-political power among

villagers, prompt mobilization for resistance, or garner votes. To counter specific

criticism of the internationally and locally debated land grabbing issue, local elites and

political party candidates used a plethora of discursive resources to enhance their self-

declared objective of “carrying the voice of the people.” They promised to involve

villagers in the different steps of development projects by using a participatory and

inclusive approach and securing land through legal demarcation and title deeds. These

rhetorical tools went hand in hand with concrete strategies involving institutional and

physical violence, or solidarity and cooperation at different scales.

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2 This article aims to understand how struggles for land access and control shape space

and how election campaigns highlight the complexity and the heterogeneity of the

social, political, and economic powers between villages and among villagers. I will first

analyze how government leaders and candidates use land regulations and tools to

maintain their authority over local politics. This will help understand their role in

development planning and in the way village subdivisions can be used as a means of

control by district and ward political agencies, especially during election times. This

geographical approach to land tenure aims, more broadly, to highlight the link

between control of the physical space and control of the social space, as well as

between space and politics.

3 Thus, I look at the role of election as a singular event in the so-called “participatory”

processes for negotiations on land transaction which are drawn up by international

institutions yet always involve the local level in one way or another. Generally,

research on land grabs has highlighted inequalities in accessing negotiations: women

and young people are generally not involved in decision-making processes that are

often conducted by “representatives of traditional authorities and some elders [who]

participate in consultations” (Kraut 2014: 294). However, it should be noted that

detailed studies of these processes and of the integration of villagers within public-

private partnerships are still limited. In addition, the consequences these negotiations

have on the restructuring of social bonds within communities and families, depending

on the socio-geographical situations of the spaces where the investments occur, are not

well known either. We will see how these “top-down” initiatives—especially upstream

and during the elections—engender social differentiation, transform local

representations, and create enmity among the wards. These processes are the result of

leaders’ discourses aimed at dividing the organization of any resistance and/or gaining

new voters. On the other hand, some candidates organize collective action and

resistance in support of people’s desire to keep “their land.” They may also resort to

physical violence. Lastly, the article will address the reactions, strategies and,

ultimately, voting behavior of local people. These vary according to different

geographical locations or activities and the emergence of resistance committees,

themselves riddled with deep socio-political tensions. These representations, in an

“area of movement” (Haggett 1965), are not only related to the necessity of keeping a

piece of “land” rather than a socio-political “space.” They are also linked to the role

and impact of people migrating from other already “grabbed” lands, or from urban

areas, in search of new investments.

There Is a Politics of Land because Land Is Political2

The Geography of Power

4 At the national level, campaign discourses during Tanzania’s 2015 general election did

not necessarily center on land issues, even though John Magufuli, the presidential

candidate of the party in power and former single party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM),

repeatedly promised to “reclaim [unused] land [that] will be given to poor farmers and

livestock keepers” (The Citizen 6 September 2015). After he was elected as the new

president of the country, he further stated that “land reforms [were] needed for

promoting incentives to the actual tiller of the land for the promotion of agricultural

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production” (The Citizen 28 November 2015). Agreeing with those who contest “the

neocolonial land grabs” and with Kawe Member of Parliament (MP) Halima Mdee’s

declarations about land conflicts in the Boko area,3 the opposition candidate of the

CHADEMA (Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo), Edward Lowassa, also declared that

foreign investors would be asked to work in partnership with local communities (The

Citizen 8 September 2015; The Guardian 9 November 2015).

5 Interestingly, the Kilombero Valley villagers, who gathered to watch the national news

on TV every evening in their village’s hoteli, were more interested in what their ward4

candidates had to say about land than they were in what the presidential candidates

had to say. This was because, more generally, ward representatives are “directly

involved in local politics and can bring concrete changes” (Focus group Mofu,

interviews Namwawala 08/2015). Elections at the ward level are closely linked to their

everyday experience, that is, to the proximity and tangibility of power, as political

promises are “more likely to happen” (Interview with G.N., Ihenga village, 08/2015) and

to impact their lives. Indeed, during elections, the “social network, proximity [that the

ward and MP candidates have] to the centers of power, the availability of certain

government if not private resources are considerable advantages”5 (Martin 1988: 162)

in gaining villagers’ support. The party that a candidate represents is not the most

relevant indication of voting behavior: villagers are quite likely to vote for an

opposition candidate at ward level or as member of parliament, and for a ruling party

candidate at national level. Support can vary between, for example, the kitongoji,6

village chairman and village committee elections—all of which happened in

December 2014. In the villages of the valley, which were created mainly thanks to the

growth of the railways during the Ujamaa period and are today threatened by loss of

access to land, past and present land development policies vary significantly. During

the election, political meetings reinforced existing power relations but also provided a

forum in which people’s concerns could be raised. In this article, I therefore consider

that political events need to be addressed “not on the front of formal institutions, ‘but

on that of actions that aim to maintain or modify the established order’” (Balandier

1995: ix), quoted by Martin 1988: 97). Politics is the expression of symbols,

performances, discourses and conceptual logic that stem from organizational,

institutional, rules and systems of social norms. Politics is not the prerogative of the

state, but it unfolds through the relational dynamics between several levels, from the

local to the global and vice-versa, in ways that are conditioned by the spaces on which

they are being built.

6 Starting from this premise, an exploration of land issues in the 2015 election campaign

requires adopting an approach anchored in the “geography of power” (Raffestin &

Turco 1984) according to which “politics is built in space and space builds politics”8

(Dulucq & Soubias 2004: 9). This perspective embraces the general idea that “there is a

politics of space because space is political”9 (Lefebvre 2000 [1974]). Indeed, societies

have always built their socio-political organization on the resources they could exploit.

Land is one of these: it is, to quote Karl Polanyi, “an element of nature (…) linked with

the organizations based on family, neighborhood, job and belief—along with the tribe,

the temple, the village, the guild and the church.” (1983 [1944]: 254). In the geography

of power, power is not seen as coming from the “top” but it flows at and from every

scale and is inherent to social, economic, political, and cultural relations (Foucault 2001

[1977]). Power does not follow a “zero sum game” whose attributes would be acquired

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by the “dominants” over the “dominated” (Raffestin 1980). I link the conceptual

framework of the geography of power to the perspective developed in political

anthropology, and more specifically the anthropology of development (Balandier 1967;

Bailey 1969; Long 1994; Olivier de Sardan 1995). This considers conflicts—but also

cooperation—related to access to and control over the same coveted resources, land, as

being part of a “political arena” (Olivier de Sardan 1995; 2004) made up of multiple

actors, intertwined scales and competing dynamics. Lastly, as “particular political-

economic moment,” elections and electioneering can shape and reveal power

relationships concerned with land, which is one of the most coveted resources in East

Africa (Rutten & Owuor 2009; Médard 2008; Boone 2011). According to Catherine Boone,

with regard to the 1992 Kenyan election, “election-time political effects of land-related

tensions can be dramatic” (2011: 2). Indeed, candidates use land as a patronage

resource to gain support, promising “to reward supporters with land rights and to

revoke the land rights of non-supporters” (Ibid: 310). These are part of the dramatic

dynamics which this article will explore.

Coveted Land in the Kilombero Valley

7 Tanzania is one of the main countries affected by the so-called “farmland rush” or

“land grab,” which has been the subject of international debate since 2008. The

phenomenon, as defined by the international institutions and a majority of researchers

—bar a few exceptions11—would not cover land surfaces acquired before 2000. This

suggests that it is a new phenomenon, yet grabbing land is rooted in a long process of

land appropriation and concentration in Africa. Clearly, “it can rightly be asserted that

this phenomenon was at the heart of the colonial enterprise in Africa, and has

continued to define its post-colonial political and economic interactions with

international capital (Richard et al. 2010). What is new, and has raised concerns among

advocates for rural land rights, is the scale and pace of these acquisitions” (Mollel 2014:

112). Some authors characterize the land grabbing phenomenon in Tanzania mainly

with reference to the reallocation of colonial estates to new investors (Charlery de la

Masselière & Racaud 2013). The Kilombero Valley, however, is a highly coveted space

and has seen different types of land enclosures, encroachments or dispossessions at

different scales of space and time, not only involving colonial estates. Recent

investments have targeted either conservation areas or estates set up during colonial

times or during Ujamaa Vijijini; these areas have been reallocated to major

international actors (Sulle & Nelson 2013; Kimaro & Hieronimo 2014; Geenen & Hönke

2014). The colonial estates which were abandoned by the colonizers or parastatal

companies have been occupied and used by farmers and pastoralists who are referred

to as “invaders” or “squatters” by government officials or new investors.

The Land Enclosures in Kilombero

8 In the Kilombero Valley, some estates were demarcated and established under the

colonial regime before being nationalized in the 1960s and then privatized in the late

1980s. For example, the Kilombero Sugar Company Ltd (KSCL) owns two 12-hectare

sugar cane estates, one on either side of the Great Ruaha River in the north of the

valley (Martiniello 2015; Sulle and Smalley 2015). The cultivation of sugar cane in the

valley was introduced by the Asians in the 1930s. In August 1960, the plantation under

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28

the aegis of the erstwhile Dutch consul (Martiniello 2015: 7) was created, supported by

colonial laws and financial instruments (Sprenger 1989; Beck 1964). In 1967, it was

nationalized and in 1975 it was placed under the control of the Sugar Development

Corporation (SUDECO12), financially supported by international institutions (the

International Finance Corporation, the Commonwealth Development Corporation

(CDC), the Standard Bank of East Africa, and the Netherlands Overseas Finance

Company). In the 1960s-1970s, Ujamaa Vijijini led to the creation of several villages

around the plantation (Huizer 1971). In 1997-1998, when structural adjustments

programs were adopted, the government sold it to Illovo Group and ED&F MAN British

Commodity Trader Company who revived production and the out-grower scheme and

expanded its area of control (Mwami 2011; Martiniello 2015).

9 In 1992, in the south-east of the Valley, in Ulanga District and in the west of Kilombero

District, the CDC acquired 28,000 ha of land in compensation for the Tanzanian debt

held by the CDC at that time. This investment covers 8,000 ha of teak on four different

plantations and 20,000 ha of conservation area that serves as an environmental

corridor between the Selous Game Reserve to the east and the Kilombero wetlands and

Udzungwa National Park to the west. One of the four plantations is located near the

Matundu Forest Reserve (part of the Kilombero Nature Reserve), to the west, on the

“Ruipa site” near Namwawala village. Likewise, in the south-west of the valley, with the

same “conservationist and reforestation” objectives, another large company is Green

Resources Ltd, established under the Clean Development Mechanism with the support

of the Norwegian embassy. This company bases its activities mainly on “plantations,

carbon offsets, forest products and renewable energy [and has] 34,000 ha of land, with a

further 120,000 ha in the process of acquisition” near Uchindile, straddling Kilombero

District, Mufindi and Kilolo (SAGCOT 2012; 2013; Bond et al. 2012).

10 Other large-scale plantations were demarcated during Ujamaa Vijijini, such as the

Mngeta Farm which was established in 1976 through a joint-venture with North Korea

—The Korean-Tanzania Joint Agricultural Company (KOTACO), implemented in 1986

and abandoned in 1995 by the Korean partner (Oakland Institute 2015). In 2006, the

Rufiji Basin Development Agency (RUBADA) set up a joint-venture with InfEnergy—part

of Agrica Ltd, a British company registered in the Guernsey Island tax haven—to revive

the paddy farm on 5,900 ha, with the support of international institutions such as the

World Bank, the British Development Fund (DFID 2013), and Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation for the out-grower schemes and development aid for the surrounding

villages.

11 Another plantation was demarcated by SUDECO during Ujamaa Vijijini (1974) on the so-

called “Ruipa site,” mentioned above, in order to cultivate sugar cane. This project was

revived in 2005 and is now the focus of the SAGCOT project. In this article, I will mainly

explore this case study, still under negotiation, as it can highlight the power relations

that unfold during the decision-making process—giving detail about this complex

situation later.

12 In the valley, the enclosures also concern conservation areas such as the Udzungwa

National Park established in 1994, the Selous Game Reserve established in 1982, and the

RAMSAR site set up on 796,735 ha in 2002. A total of 91.4% of the Kilombero District is

thus covered by conservation areas (SAGCOT 2012). Since 1956, the Kilombero

floodplain and peripheral areas of woodland have been designated as a Game

Controlled Area (GCA) and since 2002 as a RAMSAR site. Since 2012, the Kilombero GCA

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29

has been managed by the Belgium Tanzania Corporation (BTC) and the European

Union, in partnership with the SAGCOT for its environment component (BTC 2016),

under the name KILORWEMP. A German company, AMBERO, is working with the BTC to

define the borders of the GCA and create Wildlife Management Areas. These are zones

within villages which will be reserved for tourist hunting and therefore not used by

villagers.

13 Finally, large-scale investments do not target the historically controlled estates, but

can affect spaces used by peasants, pastoralists, teachers, traders, and doctors who

have been living there for more than fifty years, mainly with customary right of

occupancy (CRO) granted by the local government. In October 2015, oil companies and

Tata Petrodyne Swala Oil & Gas Plc Tanzania signed a farm-out agreement for the

exploitation of oil and gas on a surface area of up to 6,000 ha in the Kidatu basin, north

of the valley. About 27,300 ha in the Kilombero Basin (the RAMSAR site in the center of

the Valley) and Kilosa (in Kilosa Valley) were also surveyed (Swala Energy website).

Furthermore, in 2009, to meet the growing demand for investment in agricultural land,

the Tanzanian government put in place new economic strategies through the Kilimo

Kwanza (Agriculture First) initiative under the Agricultural Sector Development

Program (ASDP). At the African World Economic Forum (WEF) 2010, President Jakaya

Kikwete decided to create a corridor of agricultural modernization, SAGCOT, which

covers a third of the country. From Dar es Salaam to Tunduma, on the border with

Zambia, the corridor represents a delineated space in a heavily irrigable area in which

ecological and climate conditions would allow significant agricultural production that

could be easily transported and exported through the port of Dar es Salaam or to other

regions of the East African Community.

14 The Kilombero Valley is located within the Kilombero cluster, one of the six clusters of

the SAGCOT. It is considered to be the country’s breadbasket and is therefore one of the

most coveted areas, as highlighted by the government project: “These nearly

800,000 hectares of flood plain are among the most valuable in Tanzania for large-scale

paddy rice and sugarcane production due to seasonal flooding and potential for large-

scale irrigation schemes” (SAGCOT 2013: 27).

Land Conflicts and Evictions

15 Demographic growth rates are high in the Kilombero valley (117% since 1988, 26% since

2002 for a total population of 407,880 in 2012 according to the 2012 National Census).

This growth is essentially due to high rates of immigration of pastoralists and agro-

pastoralists since 2000, as well as farmers, workers and investors attracted by new

opportunities created by the large-scale plantations. In the valley, evictions and the

mobility they create are rooted in a long history. Resettlement planning started in the

1940s under British colonial rule and continued during the Ujamaa Vijijini period.

16 Nowadays the valley is the focus of conflicts involving pastoralists and farmers. In a

context of high demographic growth and an increase in mobility, where local demand

for land is increasingly sensitive, the reallocations of estates to new international

investors has led to new conflicts over land. In 2006, evictions of pastoralists and agro-

pastoralists from Mbarali district, Mbeya region, following the privatization of rice

farms, led to an increase in the arrival of people in the Morogoro region and especially

in the Kilombero valley (Tenga et al. 2008; Maganga et al. 2009). Here, conflicts have

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30

significantly increased since the establishment of the Kilombero GCA in 2012. This site

covers a total of 108 villages—72 villages in Kilombero and 36 villages in Ulanga (Siima

et al. 2012: 134). According to the RAMSAR site agreement (2002), “the bulk of the

estimated population is confined to a strip of 858,850 ha of mixed arable land, wetland

and Miombo woodland. The only room for expansion is into the floodplain or south-

west along the valley.” According to the Legal and Human Rights Center (LHRC), the

Kilombero GCA could involve 126 villages and remove access to arable land for more

than 600,000 people in Kilombero and Ulanga districts (LHRC, interview with Godfrey

Lwena, Namwawala ward councillor, 20-08-2015). Researchers reported killings,

stealing of pastoralists’ cattle, and revenge attacks that led to murders or the burning

of yield crops. Pastoralists and farmers complain that the RAMSAR site enclosed

400,000 ha of grazing and farming lands. In 2012, police-patrolled operations used

trucks to evict more than 200,000 cattle. Between 2012 and 2014, several altercations

between policemen and pastoralists resulted in injuries and killings, notably in Chita

ward (Kitabu 2012; Nindi et al. 2014; interviews with villagers Ifakara; IWGIA 2013). The

RAMSAR site enclosure is an even more sensitive issue for the villages surrounding the

newly established plantations. The recent renewed enclosure of 5,900 ha by the

Kilombero Plantation Ltd, only exacerbated the scarcity of land created by the

proximity of the RAMSAR site to the east and the Udzungwa and Lyondo escarpment

forest to the west, and significantly increased local land conflicts.

17 The involvement of international financial institutions, agribusiness firms and national

government agencies in the enclosure of large-scale plots of land is part of a complex

and long-standing system of actors. Recent investments are one more factor to

consider. They go hand in hand with a discourse on “development” aid in which the

private investor is seen as a necessary social actor. The analysis of development

projects within large-scale investments will now allow us to address the formation of a

“local political arena” (Olivier de Sardan 1995) within which “local development

brokers” (Bierchenk 1993) or “gatekeepers” (Ansom, et al. 2014; M’Bokolo 2004: 389;

Peemans 2014) evolve.

From Post-Colonial “Local Elites” to Post-SocialistLocal Governments

Beyond any Historical Determinism: the Social Construction of

Local Decision-Makers

18 Numerous studies highlight the predominant role of national and local elites in land

grabs, especially in the Great Lakes region and in East Africa (Wolford et al. 2013;

Ansoms et al. 2014; Bernstein 1981). It is claimed that so-called “foreign investors”

often collaborate with the “locals” or employ them in key positions at different stages

of their investment programs, notably when negotiating land access with village

authorities. However, the various waves of land grabs in the region have always

involved numerous actors at global, regional, national and local levels. Indeed, “at

various periods of the history, local African elites have used their status and power as

well as their familiarity with the institutional and legal contexts to acquire large land

concessions” (Claessens et al. 2014: 83). They are more likely to be able to navigate the

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31

complex institutional landscape and thus to “gain comparative advantages at the

expense of poorer and less well-connected actors” (Ibid).

19 Bearing in mind the role of the “local elites” (Ansoms et al. 2014) in land grab

processes, it is crucial to explore the history of their formation given that they “do not

develop out of the blue. They are the product of local stories, and operate within

networks” (Olivier de Sardan 1995: 16113). It is also necessary to define what we mean

by “local elite” and the extent and limitations of this concept. The term “local elite” is

often used to designate the “authority,” representing those who have more financial,

economic and socio-cultural capital than others, yet without describing how these

individuals—and the group they may form—acquired this status, that is to say, in which

situation and through which mechanisms they became such an “elite.” They may also be

referred to as “local development brokers” (Bierschenk et al. 2000), “gatekeepers,” the

“rich and powerful,” or the “the powerful chiefly” (Martin 1988). All these terms refer

to the category of those who generally dominate the decision-making process and the

economic and political development of the villages. However, power is not necessarily

in the hands of those who are recognized as “policymakers.” It can also be acquired,

controlled, or maintained by individuals, groups, or institutions in particular political,

economic and cultural circumstances. These may be “traditional authorities,” linked to

national NGOs, community activists, wealthier farmers, entrepreneurs arriving from

urban areas or other densely populated spaces in search of land or new activities to

develop, highly educated people returning to their home village, church leaders, elders,

etc.

20 In Tanzania, Martin showed how colonization led to regional and social imbalances,

based upon ecological disparities and the specific interests of the colonial state. The

policy changed in the mid-1950s, which saw an increase in official financial and

technical support for commercial agriculture in Africa, widened the “gap between

wealthier farmers and others” (Martin 1988: 187). Favoring the “‘tractor farmers’;

“these famous modernist peasants [were] dear to the heart of the colonial

administration”14 (Ibid.: 187). These “modernist peasants” were already in a “better”

position before the colonial period, being traditional chiefs and therefore in a position

to increase their power. Based on a study carried out in 1969, Martin argues that social

differentiation was mainly the result of the importance of non-agricultural resources

and wages from public service jobs. Although agricultural and land resources were not

directly linked to social differentiation, it is recognized that the other incomes

generated by non-agricultural resources and wages from public service jobs were

earned by the “wealthier colonial farmers”—sometimes considered as “colons right-

hand men” (Fanon 1961)—who could concentrate lands and enhance their economic

capital while aiding the penetration of the colonial machine. Furthermore, British

colonization through the Colonial Office had already initiated a vast decentralization

program, expressing in 1947 the desire to “develop an effective system of local

government” (Calas 2006). In 1967, three years after independence, Julius Nyerere,

advised by the Company MacInsey and Company Inc. (Kubala 1993, quoted by Calas

2006) developed a vast decentralization program and argued in favor of it in his book

Decentralization (Nyerere 1972). After independence and the adoption of a single-party

government supported by a cumbersome structured governmental system, a majority

of the wealthier farmers took political positions. They used the political infrastructure

and policies to “reap the benefits to access credit, agricultural inputs, land; initiating,

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32

despite the abolition of private property, enterprises of concentration”15 (Martin 1988:

187). Indeed, civil servants and permanent members of the party who were elected or

nominated were supposed to control the redistribution and use of land in the villages.

However, in order to maintain control over these resources, notables and wealthy

farmers concluded alliances with local policymakers. On the other hand, inserting

notable leaders in the circle of local government was a means through which local

government members could have a direct influence over local resources and control

local populations. Thus, they could channel their political opinions, thanks to the

authority and socio-cultural capital held by the notables and the already established

local clienteles and social network. It was further exacerbated “in 1967 [with] the

creation of the Regional Development Fund [which] gave to the civil servants/

permanent [members of the party] the means to build networks capable of including

clienteles patronized by notables.”16 This privileged relationship between civil servants

from the local government and the “wealthier farmers” benefitted both parties,

assuring the social position of the farmers while allowing control over the rest of the

population (Martin 1988: 220). According to Huizer (1971), indeed, “the wealthier

farmers were found to exercise considerable control within the Ujamaa system,

because they were in a position to transfer usufruct rights of lands to poorer peasants

who, in exchange, had to serve the ‘patron’ in several ways. This included participating

in communal work parties, but also in electing the ‘patron’ to key positions in the

TANU branch or ten-house cell. This patron-client relationship encroached on the

egalitarian ideas behind the Ujamaa programme. It was difficult, however, to introduce

anything into the villages without the consent and support of the local elites” (Huizer

1971: 28-29). Finally, little by little, drawing on these alliances, the wealthier farmers

entered politics, and some of them are still governing the villages today.

21 It is important to bear in mind that the dynamics at local level are still today governed

by patronage, brokerage networks and factional rivalries involving external and local

actors. During the electoral campaign, the different political brokerage networks in

presence built up new nodes, while factional rivalries, competitions and alliances

involved the district authorities and representatives of parastatal and foreign

companies. A “cycle of factional struggles involving citizens, community leaders,

administrative or appointed [or elected] political leaders”17 (Martin 1988: 223) forms a

complex system of stakeholders, linking people in the villages to the highest level of

government. This explains the coexistence of multiple centers of power, of different

importance and jurisdiction that are “more or less articulated, hierarchical or

competing, and often fall under successive historical sedimentation”18 (Olivier de

Sardan 1995: 165).

The Ruipa Site and the 2015 Elections Campaign

22 To exemplify my argument, I will now describe the situation observed in the Ruipa site,

located at the center of the Kilombero Valley. In 1976, SUDECO surveyed and

demarcated 9,272.54 ha with a view to establishing a sugar cane plantation in the Ruipa

Valley, close to the Kilombero River. However, 400 parastatal companies went bankrupt

that year, so the plantation could not be set up at that time. As a consequence, the

demarcated area was colonized by people arriving as part of the Ujamaa Vijijini

program and the TAZARA railway development (Chachage 2010). The first village was

Mofu; then Mbingu, Namwawala and Idete grew up along the railway. The only

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historical proof of the demarcation today is a map showing the blocks of the intended

plantation. This area represents 62% of the affected villages. At the outset, the total

project was divided into six blocks (A, B, C, D, E and F), but due to a significant

population increase, SUDECO abandoned blocks D, E and F. The three remaining blocks

represent: block A Kisegese: 863.53 ha; block B Namwawala & Mofu: 6,032.55 ha and

block C Mbingu & Mofu: 2,376.46 ha. Namwawala and Mofu are the most affected

villages, where “population is nearly 10,000 people each” (Kipobota et al. 2009). In 2005,

the government and the SBT, through the district officers, wanted to reallocate

“ownership” of the land to a private foreign investor, Illovo Group, which already

controlled the Kilombero Sugar Cane plantation in Kidatu. In 2012, Illovo pulled out of

the “multi-billion deal “due to endless conflicts” (Rugonzibwa 2012). Conflicts were

intensified by the establishment of the RAMSAR site to the east and the expansion of

the Matundu Forest Reserve to the north-west and of other already established

plantations like the Mbingu Sisters farm in Mbingu (1,214 ha), the Mofu Farms Ltd

(500 ha) in Ihenga hamlet, the Usafirishaji Mikoani Union debating ownership of a land

area (1,500 ha) in Chiwachiwa, the KVTC sites of Ichima and Narabungu sites in the

Matundu Forest Reserve close to Namwawala and Idete villages, and the Idete prison

farm (6,000 ha).

23 The land was earmarked as “free land for investment.” It was promoted during the

Agribusiness Investment Forum held in Dar es Salaam in November 2012, as a final

stage of “site preparation in order to promote and lease it to qualified investors”

(SAGCOT 2012: 30). However, the current situation as observed during field work and

reported by the villagers shows that the area is densely populated and the scarcity of

land has led to severe local land conflicts. Interviews revealed that ownership of this

land is not in the hands of the government, and the so-called participatory process

required to acquire and allocate village lands is not respected. On the contrary, since

2005, several events highlighted the arbitrary exercise of power and the coercive

nature of consultations with villagers. In 2008, the Village Land Use Plans for

Namwawala, Mofu and Kisegese, proposed by the district authorities to the Villages

Assemblies, show the area demarcated for the sugar cane plantation, under the names

“uwekezaji” (investment) or “shamba la miwa” (sugar cane plantation). The Village Land

Use Plan had to be agreed by the Village Assembly and fraudulent VA minutes were

produced by the village leaders, using the names of dead people, children and

foreigners in order to provide district authorities with the necessary documents

(interviews in Idandu 30 July 2015; LHRC 2010; Bergius 2015). In Namwawala, during a

Village Assembly on 31 January 2009, following the radio announcement by district

authorities saying that villagers should prepare themselves for the upcoming valuation

process, villagers, together with the acting village chairman, started to organize

themselves as a resistance committee. Villagers in Mofu, Kisegese and Namwawala

organized a committee to monitor the order, but district authorities prevented them

from doing so; those “who would go against the national interest would be punished,”

they said through a national newspaper. The same has happened several times since

then (Chachage 2010; interviews Godfrey Lwena, 08/2016). Several cases of corruption

also occurred during the negotiation process, involving both village and district

authorities. They resulted in case N°40/2012 being brought before Tanzania’s High

Court.

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The Land Transfer in the Political Struggle of the Campaign

24 This section describes in greater detail the power relationships outlined above, which

have been built up on the basis of the historical social networks existing in the different

villages involved. In the oldest village, Mofu, there are six main families—which I will

call N, C, M, K, S, and Mb—all the members of which are related. The local government

was historically ruled by N, the wealthiest family. In January 2010, the father was

elected CCM ward chancellor and his son village chairman. Ever since the colonial era,

when the men were traditional chiefs of the villages, members of the N family have

increased their influence and consolidated their power by acquiring large plots of

lands, marrying several wives, expanding their “control area” and accumulating socio-

political and economic capital. Interestingly, all the prominent families who gained

power are related; the CHADEMA candidate from the C family, for example, also told us

that the previous ward chancellor from CCM was his uncle. During the 2015 campaign,

some people said that “those people know how to make money, so if we elect them,

they will redistribute it to us, they will bring development in Mofu.” Opponents,

however, insisted that “things have to change, we don’t want this family governing us

anymore, it’s like a monarchy” (interviews with Mofu villagers, 23 August 2015). During

the campaign, the N son was candidate for the ward election and was in favor of a new

investment, which could bring “development,” “money” and new opportunities to

Mofu village. In Namwawala village, newcomers who were running businesses wanted

the investment in the Rupia site to be successful because it would bring more clients,

new roads, electricity and market access. But claims to retain access to the land area in

question could also come from wealthier farmers: in Namwawala, Godfrey Lwena, the

ward candidate for CHADEMA, was the only person to have an official title deed for one

of his plots, where he resides. His father, Joachim Lwena, was the village chairperson

from 2000 to 2004 and has been a resident of the area since 1971. He possesses several

plots and his son is also a representative of the Namwawala resistance committee.

25 In the Ruipa site, “the pluralistic configuration of interests” (Ansoms et al. 2014)

highlighted during the campaign reflects a number of different factors, including the

amount of land held and its localization, the main socio-economic activity, the link

with political administrators, or the time spent in this area. Voting intentions varied

according to the issues at stake: the farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists who live

on the project area in Myomboni (former hamlet of Mofu) and Idandu (former hamlet

of Namwawala) were calling for official right of occupancy and legal recognition of

their village. They were pushing candidates to give priority to the land issue, judging

the future elected bodies or individuals in terms of their sincerity and power. Even

within the same political party, candidates could disagree on the issue of future

investment in the Rupia site. Those who lived on the coveted land fought to raise this

issue during the campaign while others were keen to welcome the investment.

Tensions were visible even during the primaries organized to select the candidate. The

CCM in Namwawala ward did not select the candidate who was living in the planned

area, Mr. S, who was also a member of the resistance committee. On the contrary, they

voted for a candidate who lived in Ifakara, far from the planned area. During the

electoral campaign meetings held in the villages, as well as in hoteli discussions and

street-corner talks, villagers repeatedly debated local practices of cronyism. For

instance, one day, in a hoteli in the center of Namwawala, women shouted at Mr. C, who

had just been chosen as the CCM candidate. They argued that “he is for the investment

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because he has no land there.” Indeed, Mr. C, also the former Ward Executive Officer,

had promoted inward investment in the Rupia site since 2000. Nevertheless, due to the

popularity of the CHADEMA candidate in Namwawala, the CCM candidate had to

change his position and promised that villagers’ land rights would be secured.

About “Modernization” and “Development”

26 Election campaigns bring to light political patronage networks as well as nepotism and

clientelism both through discourse and practice. Those who want to gain power make

rhetorical use of future development plans to control both the space and the social

network that is built on it and that shapes it. The promised “development” is often top-

down, designed and developed by international funding agencies, public and private

institutions, companies and pension funds. Indeed, since colonization, the ideology of

development has historically been adapted—in discourses and practices—from the

international level to the local socio-economic level for the expansion of capitalism.

Therefore, “we must reiterate that the principles of development have strengthened

the administrative and technical coercion of the rural world. (…) The ideology of

development deals with nature, space and society. The main idea is that nature is a

given capital (the famous ‘natural resources’); forgetting that this ‘nature’ is or was

already ordered, mediated and socialized in the organization of native societies”19

(Charlery de la Masselière 2014: 42). In Tanzania, from the colonial period and the

Ujamaa Vijijini program after the Arusha declaration to the Iringa declaration in 1974

and now the new Kilimo Kwanza initiative, many “development” plans have linked

together land and agriculture, having a structuring effect on both landscapes and local

governance practices. After the economic crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the

implementation of the three-year Economic Recovery Plan drawn up by the IMF and

the World Bank was a milestone in the development of the country's agricultural and

land policies. In 1997, the government created the Tanzania Investment Act No. 26 and

established the Tanzania Investment Center (ICT) to “coordinate, promote, facilitate

and encourage investment in Tanzania” (ICT 1997). Then, in 1999, Vision 2025

established a development program for the long term, in particular with the

implementation of the initiative Mkakati wa Kukuza Uchumi Na Kupunguza Umaskini

Tanzania (MKUKUTA)—the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (URT

2005).

27 As part of MKUKUTA, Kilimo Kwanza was set up in 2009 with the objective of giving

agriculture a central role in the Tanzanian economy in order to promote the country’s

growth and development. To attract investors, the government has actively promoted

private investment and facilitated it through the TIC and the Tanzania Investment Act

of 1999. The SAGCOT gives priority to foreign investors: “strengthening the private

sector in the country is one of our priorities” (Mary Michael Nagu, Minister of State for

Investment & Empowerment, 2015). Furthermore, to counter the recent worldwide

criticisms of “land grabbing,” the government stipules that: “Tanzania does not

discriminate against businesses conducted or owned by foreign investors. It has no

recent history of expropriation or nationalization” (SAGCOT 2012). The first official

objective of the government through the SAGCOT is to link smallholder farmers with

agribusiness “to improve agricultural productivity and increase rural incomes and

employment opportunities” (SAGCOT 2013).

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28 The SAGCOT is not well known in the villages. Field work revealed that most of the

villagers were not familiar with this program and even district officials had only heard

about it. It is seen as a “top-down,” non-inclusive and fairly obscure initiative.

Nevertheless, everyone is aware that the valley and its development attract a great deal

of attention, and plans for the establishment of large-scale farms are well known. Local

elites use the discourse of the international organizations to implement top-down

development projects, that is, to bring “development” through the necessary foreign

investment, modernize Tanzanian agriculture by connecting small-scale farmers to the

market, and set up estates and out-grower schemes. The investments planned for the

Kilombero valley do not concern the enclosed space per se. The 2015 electoral campaign

revealed that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in development projects was at the

heart of the candidates’ promises. It highlights the importance of the “project-

language” (Olivier de Sardan 1988: 166), used by “modernist” notables and officials,

who are ambitious, open to the outside world and interested in politics: thus, “they can

talk together, they have a common language”20 (Martin 1988: 220).

29 Conceptions of foreign and wealthy investors are rooted in a long history. Some

authors defined the Kilombero Sugar Cane Ltd plantation as a “‘frontier area’ (Cliffe

1977), characterized by the penetration and settlements of European (and other

foreign) farmers, increased capitalist production methods, the ensuing need for labour,

and the integration of smallholders within the circuit of agribusiness” (Martinielli

2015). Interestingly, on 22 October 2015, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda held a

conference with the Kilombero Sugar Plantation Ltd representatives. He congratulated

the “residents of Kidatu and Kilombero [who] have been able to construct decent

houses, run some auxiliary businesses, and most importantly take their children to

school” (The Guardian 22 October 2015), thus highlighting the links between multi-

scalar political relations and agricultural development. Indeed, the out-grower schemes

and jobs generated by the plantation had attracted new investors and new workers,

creating a de facto land market and prompting demographic growth that has

transformed urbanization dynamics.

30 The promises of what Prime Minister Pinda called “market-led development” were re-

appropriated and repeated by local ward candidates in different villages of the valley.

They do not hesitate to exploit the promotion of investment to enhance their power

and influence voting. Similarly, local politicians promise employment, development

and better social services in the investment areas. However, field data from the 2015

election prove not only that these promises are never fulfilled, but that sometimes

what happens is in fact the opposite of what was initially promised. In some places, the

same people who had been eagerly waiting for employment not only end up never

getting a job but are actually evicted from their land. Ariel Crozon revealed similar

processes in the 1995 election, when CCM members and opposition party members

were all engaged in “reckless promises to the peasants” (Crozon 1998: 164). In 2015,

candidates promised to get rid of “irresponsible investors” and instead “recognize the

rights of peasants and pastoralists on the land,” while others promoted investment for

“communication, social services (school, health services, employment for youth and

women), and money.”

31 By promising development through modernized agriculture as opposed to traditional and

unproductive agriculture, the market-led ideology behind the SAGCOT program is

accompanied by the dominant thinking on the availability of land in Tanzania, which

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highlights the abundance of “idle and unused lands.” Since the colonial era,

development models based on agricultural production have always postulated the need

for effective demarcation to establish confined spaces and private property—with only

partial recognition of customary rights. During the election campaign, meetings held to

present the land targeted for investment to villagers focused on the two issues of legal

recognition of ownership and the securing of land. In Mofu, Namwawala and Mbingu

villages, wealthy farmers who did not fear any loss of land argued that those who had

arrived after the demarcation in the 1980s were “illegal squatters” and “invaders” who

should “go back to their land they were living on before” (Mofu focus group, 08/2015)

and leave space for the new plantations. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the

coveted lands also claimed legal recognition of ownership, based upon the customary

right of occupancy (CROs) they had obtained from the village council. However, they

were granted their CROs in controversial circumstances: the village chairpersons were

said to have sold some plots to the newcomers illegally, since they were fully aware of

the SUDECO demarcation. The superposition of different types of rights is materialized

in the Village Land Use Plans in the villages concerned.

32 Mofu is the oldest village in the Ruipa site. Its inhabitants know the history of the

planned SUDECO plantation of 1976 even though they had settled in the 1950s in an

area that was not directly concerned by the project. During the last election, ward

candidates and their supporters repeatedly promised development through land. A

former village chairman explained: “Through the investments roads will be improved,

social services improved (schools, health), employment and hence financial incomes for

individuals and for the village in general, population will also increase as more people

will come to look for jobs” (Mofu focus group, 08/2015). Taking as an example the KSCL

plantation, the candidates also exploited the imagined abundance of capital, modernity

and prosperity that investors would bring in.21 The former village chairman continued,

insisting that investors could “use the money earned by selling sugar cane to buy rice

for consumption purposes” (20 August 2015). According to him, villagers would benefit

from cultivating sugar cane, seen as “more profitable and less labor-demanding than

paddy” (Ibid.). Political candidates in favor of the plantation also talked up the benefits

of infrastructure development and money circulation. For instance, the CCM candidate,

a member of the wealthiest N family, drew a parallel with Mngeta where, he said, “even

corporate responsibility is assured.” He used expectations of “employment,” “road

construction and maintenance,” and “electricity and water access” to promote the

Rupia investment and simultaneously campaign for his political candidacy: “This is

what will happen for us too, trust me” (CCM political meeting, Mofu village,

August 2015). These promises resonate with those made in Mngeta in 2008. There,

village representatives and district authorities had similarly promised that roads would

be improved, electricity and water supplied, and land and new jobs made available for

all thanks to the new company (interviews and focus groups, 8 August 2016). However,

seven years later, as field work revealed, the main road had been cut off by the

company, there is no electricity supply, water is polluted from the spraying of

herbicides by airplane, and employment is mainly casual, for an average monthly

salary of 150,000 Tsh (61€). In spite of this, today’s candidates continue to use their

ability to travel and establish business relationships out of the villages to create a

picture of development based on large-scale agriculture.

33 On the Ruipa site, opposition to the sugar cane plantation has been strong, and even

stronger in the hamlets directly targeted by the sugar cane project. These hamlets are

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principally composed of people who were evicted from the northern part of the

Kilombero valley, especially from Msolwa Station—Magombiro hamlet—following the

expansion of KSCL plantation in 1998. In 2002, some villagers moved to Idandu (Cha

Moto, Michundani hamlets), Namwawala (Namwawala A, Kichongani hamlets) and

Mofu (Miyomboni, Ihenga hamlets), all of which are located in the area concerned by

the sugar cane project. These villagers related their experiences of the evictions and

the increased capital inequalities in the villages surrounding the plantation.

Interviewees spoke of “neocolonialism” and insisted that “development would only

benefit the companies” (interviews in Idandu, Kirukutu and Kichongani hamlets,

08/2015). They mentioned a number of challenges they had had to face since the

privatization, notably that they had been crowded onto less fertile land. Farmers did

not want to be displaced again, qualifying themselves as “cattle, slaves in their own

country” (focus group Idandu, 08/2015). It is no surprise that they made up the bulk of

the resistance committee created in 2009. Denouncing government corruption at

multiple levels, they blamed investors for their “irresponsibility,” employing the same

terms as those used in official discourses and taking as examples what happened in

Kidatu and Mngeta. Opponents were also pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, mainly the

Sukuma, originally from Shinyanga, Mwanza, Simyu and Mara regions. Following the

privatization of a rice plantation in the Uanga plain of Mbarali district in Mbeya region

(Matee and Shem 2006), they were evicted and migrated into the valley. They came to

Morogoro region on the advice of the former Regional Commissioner, Mr. Steven

Mashishanga, himself a Sukuma. The evictions of 2012-2014 in the Kilombero Valley

have not been forgotten and people mistrust or are tired of the ruling party. During the

2015 campaign, the opponents and resistance committee members proved to be very

influential; they were able to mobilize villagers and influence political party members.

They could also help a candidate by persuading voters to vote for him or her. The

candidates, always in need of more support, had as a result to adapt their discourse to

please their potential electors.

Conclusion

34 After Tanzania’s October 2015 general election, the three wards of the Kilombero valley

located on the sugar cane plantation project switched from the ruling CCM to the

opposition party CHADEMA. The two constituencies of Ifakara and Mlimba in

Kilombero District, which is part of historically CCM-ruled Morogoro Region, were also

won by the CHADEMA. This opposition win reflected dissatisfaction with the ruling

party and its local elites, notably with the way they had managed land at the local level

for decades. The electoral process itself was highly tense in the whole district. The main

reasons given by the villagers interviewed in different areas of the district were lack of

development (lack of electricity while the district provides the whole Morogoro region

with the Kihansi Hydropower plant; lack of tarmac roads and water access) but also

evictions and land enclosures. Another factor cited was high immigration rates and

demographic mobility. In Ifakara, the district capital city, press releases highlighted

aggressive and sometimes destructive behaviors during voting day: “37 people

allegedly stormed the voting centre, set fire to government buildings and destroyed a

district council motor vehicle” (Daily News 29 October 2015).

Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est / The East African Review, 53 | 2019

39

35 Finally, the 2015 campaign brought to the fore issues of access to and control over land

and made it possible to understand how the struggles for land significantly shape

space. We have seen that these struggles for land are not new; they are rooted in a long

history of land conflicts and appropriations. The election highlighted those tensions,

revealing the complex and unstable webs of power relations between different actors at

different geographical and institutional scales who are involved in the access to and the

maintenance and control of land. Local elites and wards candidates used the existing

institutional land governance framework either to empower villagers and help them

retain access to land or to facilitate the planned investments through coercive

consultancy. The election also had an impact on land negotiations and allocation. The

High Court case was postponed during the election, but more than one year on it was

still pending. One consequence of this is that the Land Tenure Support Programme

(LTSP), initiated by the elected president John Magufuli on 18 February 2016 and

financed by DFID, SIDA (Sweden aid) and DANIDA (Denmark aid), cannot be

implemented in the villages concerned by the case until the judgment is handed down.

Paradoxically, Kilombero, Ulanga and Malinyi districts in the Kilombero valley are the

three pilot districts at the national level. Large-scale enclosures have always created

conflicts, but with the new LTSP, the SAGCOT, the prohibited access to the Kilombero

Game Controlled Area and the expansion of the forest reserve, conflicts over land and

the dynamics of power relationships will undoubtedly continue well beyond the

election year.

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NOTES

1. Hoteli means “restaurant” in Kiswahili.

2. Lefebvre 1974.

3. Kawe MP Halima Mdee is well known in Tanzania for arguing against land grabbing

and for denouncing political bodies involved in illegal land investments. She has been

an MP since 2005 and is a member of the CHADEMA Central committee as well as the

Chairperson of CHADEMA Women’s Wing at national level (www.parliament.go.tz/

administrations/31 [ archive]). In 2014 she publicly accused the former Minister of

Land, Housing and Settlements, Anna Tibaijuka, of fueling land conflicts through her

ownership of large plots of lands (http://pesatimes.co.tz/news/legal-environment/

tibaijuka--halima-mdee-at-loggerheads/tanzania).

4. In Tanzania, the ward is the administrative level made up of at least three registered

villages. In January 2015, several wards and villages of the Kilombero valley were

divided. We will explain later how this subdivision, carried out just before the

campaign, altered the local political dynamics.

5. My translation from French: “(…) son entregent, sa proximité des centres du pouvoir,

la disponibilité de certaines ressources gouvernementales sinon même privées sont des

atouts considérables” (Martin 1988: 162).

6. Hamlet in Kiswahili.

7. My translation from French: “(…) non sur le terrain des institutions formelles, mais

sur ‘celui des actions qui visent le maintien ou la modification de l’ordre établi’

(Balandier 1995: ix)” (Martin 1988: 9).

8. My translation from French: “La politique se construit dans l’espace et l’espace

construit la politique” (Dulucq & Soubias 2004: 9).

9. My translation from French: “Il y a politique de l’espace parce que l’espace est

politique” (Lefebvre 2000 [1974]).

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10. Similar declarations were also made during the Ugandan election campaign,

notably by the FDC Presidential candidate, Dr. Kizza Besigye, who “decried the high

cases of land grabbing in the sub-region, promising to end the vice once voted into

power” (Saturday Monitor 2016). He further “pledged to return all grabbed land to

owners” (Vision Group 2016). Even his opponent, Museveni “seeks to find solutions to

historical land injustices in Uganda, land disputes and conflicts” (Ibid.).

11. See for example Peemans 2014, Ansoms et al. 2014; Martiniello 2015; Mollel 2014.

12. SUDECO was a parastatal company established in 1974, and is now the Sugar Board

of Tanzania (SBT).

13. My translation from French: “Les courtiers du développement ne tombent pas du

ciel. Ils sont le produit d’histoires locales, et fonctionnent à l’intérieur de réseaux.”

14. My translation from French: “‘Agriculteurs à tracteur’ ; ces fameux paysans

modernistes chers au cœur de l’administration coloniale” (Martin 1988: 187).

15. My translation from French : “En tirer des bénéfices concernant l’accès au crédit,

encore ; aux intrants agricoles ; à la terre, amorçant, malgré l’abolition de la propriété

privée, des entreprises de concentration” (Martin 1988: 187).

16. My translation from French : “La création, en 1967, du Regional Development Fund,

donne aux fonctionnaires/permanents les moyens de constituer des réseaux capables

d’inclure les clientèles patronnées par des notables” (Martin 1988: 219).

17. My translation from French: “Un engrenage de niveaux de luttes factionnelles

associant les citoyens, les notables, les responsables administratifs ou politiques

nommés [ou élus] par le centre” (Martin 1988: 223).

18. My translation from French: “On a affaire à une coexistence de divers centres de

pouvoir, d’importance et d’aire de compétence différentes, plus ou moins articulés,

hiérarchisés ou concurrents, et relevant souvent de sédimentations historiques

successives” (Olivier de Sardan 1995: 165).

19. My translation from French: “Il faut redire que ce sont bien les principes du

développement qui ont renforcé la coercition administrative et technique du monde

rural. (…) L’idéologie du développement implique un projet sur la nature, l’espace et la

société. L’idée principale est que la nature est un capital donné (les fameuses

‘ressources naturelles’) ; exit le fait que cette ‘nature’ est ou était déjà ordonnée,

médiatisée et socialisée au sein de l’organisation des sociétés ‘indigènes’” (Charlery de

la Masselière 2014 : 42).

20. My translation from French: “Tous [notables/fonctionnaires] sont ‘modernistes’,

ambitieux, ouverts sur le monde extérieur, intéressés par la politique: ils peuvent

parler ensemble, ils ont des langages communs” (Martin 1988 : 220).

21. Since the privatization of the Kilombero Sugar Company, the villages surrounding

the plantation have been rapidly urbanized and people arriving from outside the valley

continue to invest in land and infrastructure facilities, attracted by the sugar cane

market. The main crop grown is sugar cane and most of the previous food crops (rice,

maize, cassava) have been uprooted.

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INDEX

Keywords: land, SAGCOT, Kilombero, 2015 election campaign, voting

Geographical index: Tanzania | Tanzanie

AUTHOR

ADRIANA BLACHE

LISST-Dynamiques Rurales, University of Toulouse II – Jean-Jaurès, Toulouse, France.

adriana.blache@gmail.com

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46

Negotiation on BiodiversityConservation and its FutureProspects: Evidence from Tanzania’sBurunge Wildlife Management AreaHelene Stephene Francis

Introduction

1 This paper explores how negotiations amongst actors in Tanzania’s Wildlife

Management Areas are being practiced and their consequences on the maintenance of

biodiversity1 resources. The main objective is to understand the interaction and

negotiation between actors for conservation policy interventions. Biodiversity

maintenance can consist of three main types: it can follow a centralized approach, rely

on privatization, or depend upon co-management systems (Gaesing 2012). In the 1980s,

conservation structures in some parts of the world, including Africa and Asia, shifted

from purely protected areas to co-management (Ibid.). This shift reflected empirical

studies on natural resources indicating that purely protected areas had a negative

impact on the surrounding communities and caused tension (Ibid.; Lamarque et al.

2009). McNeely (2002) notes that such areas are characterized by a lack of

harmonization in conservation interventions, resulting in tensions, grievances and

conflicts. Dewu (2016) adds that insufficient negotiations and exclusion of local

communities in the maintenance and use of resources exacerbate conflicts. Based upon

these shortfalls, the idea emerged that it was crucial to take into account the practices

and expectations of the communities living close to or in the protected areas

(Bragagnolo et al. 2016; Sylvester 2016). For instance, in the 1980s and 1990s, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

and the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) supported the integration of conservation

and human development activities to enhance the sustainability of biodiversity

resources (Neumann 1997; Nelson et al. 2007).

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2 In addition, the Brundtland Commission of Environmental and Development (1987)

advocated for increased interaction between actors in conservation-related policy

intervention in order to promote the sustainable use of resources. Different

conventions were introduced with a similar objective, such as the Rio de Janeiro

climate convention (1992), the Kyoto Protocol (1998); Copenhagen Climatic Convention

(Namangaya 2011), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both these

conventions and global agendas seek to increase the role of local communities in the

protection of natural resources as well as for the use of resources. Resources

maintenance requests that communities take part in conservation interventions and

benefit from them (Kicheleri et al. 2018; Sulle et al. 2011; Moyo et al. 2016; Namangaya

2016). As a consequence of these new international conservation discourses, reinforced

through the formulation of policies like Forest Policy 1998, Wildlife Policy of 1998,

Forest Act 2002, National Environmental Policy of 1997, National Biodiversity Strategy

and Action of 2001, Wildlife Act 2009, a number of programmes have been implemented

that aim to increase the inclusion of local communities in conservation policy

interventions.

3 In Africa, countries like Zambia, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia have successful

managed to integrate local communities (Wilfred 2010; Kicheleri et al. 2018). In others,

like Tanzania, the conservation of wildlife resources is less successful. Relevant

literature shows that decision-making regarding resource conservation is too

centralized (Nelson et al. 2007; Nelson 2011; Benjaminsen et al. 2013) and most

conservation interventions in rural areas are met with resistance because of limited

access to resource use rights, unfair share of resources, and corruption (Nelson 2011;

Benjaminsen et al. 2012; 2013). These outcomes contradict the Tanzania Wildlife Policy

of 1998 that stipulates local community consultation, participation and empowerment

through resource management. The policy also supports local communities by giving

them wildlife user rights, enhancing their engagement and taking responsibility in

conservation activities (Shauri, 999). Lastly, it adopted the establishment of WMAs in

order to support conservation of wildlife resources within community land (Kicheleri

et al. 2018). Yet, it has been shown that the requirements for establishing the MWAs

lack efficiency and may result in too much paperwork (Shauri 1999). These

requirements include: call for a village assembly in order to negotiate and agree upon

the establishment of a WMA based on Village Council recommendations; after the

agreement, villages form a Community-Based Organization (CBO) and register it; the

CBO prepares a strategic plan; the respective village prepares a land use plan which

then must be surveyed and registered; prepared land use plans are subjected to

Environmental Impact Assessment; village prepare by-laws to support the land use

plans; the CBO prepares a Resource Management Zone Plan; the CBO applies to the

Director of Wildlife for AA status; CBO/AA applies for user rights; CBO/AA enters into

investment agreements; thus investment in WMA established depends on the

Environmental Impact Assessment. The engagement of actors with varied interests and

expectations require intense and repeated negotiations in the sense of “a process of

combining conflicting positions into a common position” (Alfredson and Cungu 2008) in

fostering policy implementation (Blasiak et al. 2017). Considering that none of

Tanzania’s WMAs have been free from conflicts nor successful in fostering resource

maintenance adequately, this paper seeks to understand negotiations concerned with

WMAs as an arena in which different actors have different interests and capacities to

influence decision-making and implementation. These differential interests and

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48

capacities explain why, unlike conceptions of negotiation as an equal and democratic

process, actors involved use the different instruments available to them to try to fulfill

their own interests, sometimes even resorting to manipulation, intimidation, and

concealment of information etc. The identification of the actors involved, their role and

resource contribution, and the actual negotiation that took place is based on the in-

depth exploration of a case study,2 the Burunge Wildlife Management Area situated in

Babati District, Manyara region, in northern Tanzania.

The Burunge Wildlife Management Area

4 The Burunge Wildlife Management Area (BWMA) can be accessed through the Great

North-South National road. It occupies almost 283 km2 of the Babati District. Over the

years, it has been used as a corridor for wildlife movement, as wild animals move

between Lake Manyara and Tarangire National Park. Burunge is one of the areas in

Tanzania earmarked for the conservation of wildlife resources due to its location.

Map 1: Location of the study area

5 Currently, the BWMA is composed of ten villages with an estimated total population of

35,000 people.3 These villages are Mwada, Minjingu, VilimaVitatu, Magara, Olasiti,

Sangaiwe, Kakoi, Maweni, Manyara and Ngolei. The area is inhabited by different

ethnic groups. Some are demographically dominant, like the Maasai, Mbugwe,

Waarusha, Barbaig, Iraqw, Nyiramba and Nyaturu. Some ethnic groups have migrated

in the area, such as the Bene, Hehe, Safwa, Manda, Nyakyusa, Kisii, Jaluo and Rundi who

come from within or outside the country.

6 The study was conducted in the three semi-arid villages of Magara, Minjingu and

Vilimavitatu. The selection of the three villages for data collection regarding the

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49

BWMA and the negotiation process relied upon the high prevalence of conflicts in

Minjingu and Vilimavitatu and high immigration rates in Magara. In these villages,

economic activities depend on farming and livestock keeping (Moyo et al 2016). The

main animals kept are cattle, goats, sheep and monkeys and the crops produced include

both cash crops (rice, sunflower, sesame, onion, garlic and cotton) and food crops

(maize, sorghum, beans, and finger millet). Maize, rice and beans are mostly produced

in Magara. A majority of residents in Minjingu and Vilimavitatu are either pastoralists

and or agro-pastoralists. Some people are involved in other activities such as handcraft,

petty trading, beekeeping, fishing, hunting, casual work, etc.

7 The process of establishing BWMA started in 2003 and continued until 2006. According

to Kicheleri et al. (2018), it followed the Wildlife Management Area Regulation of 2002

which was revised in 2005 and 2012. It was also developed following the Wildlife

Conservation Act no. 5 and no. 12 (Kicheleni et al. 2018).

Actors in Burunge WMA

8 Several actors with different roles and interests in BWMA were revealed as indicated in

table 1. The government and NGOs are part of them, both of whom are interested in

promoting conservation. However, grassroots actors including pastoralists and farmers

are keen to have more land for grazing and farming respectively. Others, like hand

craft makers, see the importance of conservation but need to access doum palm

material freely. Concerning the interaction of actors in the WMA arena, one key

informant at Villimavitatu said:

We are lucky that we have many people to interact with but we have different viewswith regard to conservation. At the beginning we were told that after contributingour land we shall enjoy a lot of benefits, but this has not happened, especially formost of us poor [people].

9 With these claims, Kamanzi (2007) and Gareau (2012) contended that different actors in

development policy interventions interact with different perspectives, mandates,

experiences, views and objectives, as they originate from different backgrounds.

Scholars in natural resources conservation argued that actors’ interaction have socially

increased complexity, particularly on resource governance and conflicts (Nelson et al.

2007). According to Kicheleri et al. (2018) local communities expected to have direct

benefits attained from their land converted into conservation. However, since 2006

their expectations and promises from District officials remain uncertain.

S/

nActors Role Resources Interests

1

Local communities

(farmers, livestock

keepers,

herbalists,

traders)

Participate in selecting

representatives Propose

different land uses

Make sure their

activities do not

obstruct wildlife

resources

Provide and decide on

appropriate land for

conservation

Benefit from

conservation;

Undertake their

activities without any

interference; Access

basic needs from

conservation area with

no kind of objection

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50

2 Village assembly

To engage all

community members in

decision making and

approving the size of

the land to be allocated

for conservation and

other uses

Provide land and make

decision

To promote

community

participation in

decision-making;

Ensure the interests of

local communities and

benefit from

conservation

interventions

3 JUHIBU*leaders

Prepare annual report;

Share the report with

selected community

members and District

Prepare monthly and

quarterly reports

Oversee management of

WMA and benefit are

shared accordingly

Provide assistance such

as advice, Ensure

allocation of revenue

Support local

communities in access

to resources wherever

is needed

Conservation of

wildlife resources

Ensure equal share of

revenue by community

members under

association Advise

member association on

the use of revenue

4 District council

Enforcement of laws;

Oversee the

management of

conservation areas;

Participate in meetings

prepared by JUHIBU

Provide advice and

education on the

importance of

conservation; Provide

assistance especially

when there is a

problem of human

encroachment and

whenever wildlife

encroach on local

communities farm

Protection of wildlife;

To see actors follow

the established laws

and regulations

5

Investors

(Business

operator:

ChemChem lodge,

Maramboi and

Osupuko lodge)

Entering into contracts

with the AA to

undertake business

Attract tourists;

Provide tourism

services

Generate and increase

profit from wildlife

conservation activities

6 Wildlife Division

Responsible for making

rules for WMA

management

Make rules and submit

to the Ministry

responsible for Natural

resources

To see rules are

adhered to

7

Ministry of

Natural Resources

and Tourism

Receive rules from

Wildlife Division

Provide technical

support, Approve rules

Support

implementation of

laws and guidelines

8 Non-

Governmental

Organizations

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51

AWFFinancial and Technical

support

Financial support

establishment of WMA

and, Early funding for

construction of

JUHIBU* buildings

Interested in

conservation of

natural resources

Chemchem

Association

Foundation

Anti-poaching

Enforcement of laws

related to conservation

of natural resources

Training the

community against

illegal poaching

Promote conservation

and laws responsible

for the management of

Wildlife resources

Honey Guide

Foundation

Training Village Game

scout to resolve Human

Wildlife Conflict

Resolving conflict

related to HWCSupport conservation

9Authorized

Association

Managing WMA on

behalf of the villagers

Connect the local

communities and other

actors (District, Central

government and NGOs

working in the area)

Interested in

conservation of

wildlife Ensure

benefits are shared by

member association

*JUHIBU: Jumuiya ya Hifadhi Burunge is the Swahili name for the Burunge Wildlife Management Area(BWMA)

Source: Field data 2019.

Actor’s Role and Resources

10 According to the JUHIBU secretary, actors have diverse roles in supporting the

conservation of wildlife resources. At village level, community members determine and

propose different land uses including land for WMA, whilst the village assembly

approves the land use plan. The Ministry of Natural resources and Tourism is

responsible for approving rules prepared by Wildlife Division and overseeing its

enforcement in collaboration with the local authorities. According to discussion with

key informants,4 The Wildlife Division has different roles, such as policy formulation,

regulation and coordination of conservation activities in collaboration with other

stakeholders e.g. African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). These roles are similar to those

discussed in the work by Kicheleri et al. (2018). While responding to the question of the

role of actors, a Wildlife Officer acknowledged that, “each of them act accordingly,

except local communities in some villages take more time to develop land uses like

Vilimavitatu.”

11 However, the District Town planner declared that the local community’s roles are

influenced by groups and individual interests which are not yet harmonized. According

to the Wildlife policy of 1998, the local community has the mandate to plan for their

land in collaboration with higher levels of decision-making. Yet researchers see that

decisions with respect to conservation are still centralized (Nelson et al. 2007; Nelson

2011; Benjaminsen et al. 2013). Scholars Noel and Kangalawe (2015) quoted from Bruns

(2003), argue that actors can fully exercise their role if they are empowered to

participate in policy interventions.

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52

Awareness and Negotiation on the Establishment ofBurunge WMA

12 Awareness creation remains a crucial element in negotiating development intervention

practices. According to the Wildlife officer it was first made in order to familiarize the

whole community with the program. However, the three villages included in this study

had different impressions concerning awareness creation, as an interviewee from

Magara explained:

Officers from the district provided us with education on how to manage wildlifearound our area. However, I do not know exactly what policy the officials usedbecause we were not given any written documentation to direct us during theawareness campaign.

13 Responding on the same issue, in the group discussion one interviewee is quoted as

saying:

The education provided by district officials made us aware of the importance ofwildlife, although the education needs to be continuous to get clearer informationabout conservation and the benefits.

14 However, Minjingu village had different perceptions with regards to awareness

creation, as was illustrated by the Chairman.

We as members of Minjingu, cannot fool you; after meeting with district officers,they explained the intention of the WMA. Following their explanation, we found itmight be a good idea, however we asked the officers if we can join the WMA, but wefirst need to know the contribution of other villages before we make our decision.

15 In responding to the similar issue, one person explained that:

We have never been member of WMA, why… These people intended to grab ourland because they could not listen to our opinion, and if they wanted us to be partof WMA they could come back and make a clear agreement. But because of theirhidden intention, they decided to grab even our investor without our consent.

16 Before the commencement of WMA, Minjingu village had its own investor where the

village came to agreements concerning the investment and revenue. Unfortunately,

after the establishment of WMA, the investor was now paying revenue to the district

council.

17 In Vilimavitatu village, one elder was quoted as saying that:

Awareness with regards to conservation of wildlife and the surroundingenvironment was carried out. These officers informed us of the requirement for theestablishment of WMA including; preparation of land use, determine our own landuses and setting aside areas for conservation, prepare bylaws and form associationgroups.Concerning the policy, the respondent continues to argue that, “I do remember thepolicies that were introduced.”

18 According to the Wildlife district officer, the awareness campaign was carried out in

order to familiarize the community with the Wildlife policy and conservation practices.

However, both the discussion and in-depth interviews give the impression that the

majority are not clear about the conservation policies. Some literature, Martini et al.

(2017), suggests that proper awareness creation has great and long-term consequences

regarding the implemented project. The thesis further contends that clear

understanding of the project makes the community active in resource maintenance and

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53

improving their wellbeing. However, community awareness in the visited villages seem

to be only partially done, hence active participation is lacking in Minjingu and

Vilimavitatu. These views are in line with Kamaruddin et al. (2016) who point out that,

limited awareness among actors in conservation areas may reduce their effectiveness

in policy implementation. Likewise, Steg et al. (2014) regard awareness as very

important in the management of environment, however, it may or may not influence

the engagement of actors. This shows that there are some factors which can influence

actor’s decisions, like social norms, financial resources and psychological effects

(Kamaruddin et al. 2016) quoted from (Zsoka et al. 2013).

Equal Benefits Sharing

19 There is evidence that entire communities, especially villages under WMA, have

experienced some benefits associated with conservation, excluding villages which have

not signed the agreement. Despite the benefits accrued, the revenue collected has been

used for development activities such as construction of school classes, toilets, village

and ward offices. Table 2 indicates the amount of revenue collected annually,

expenditure and what is distributed to each village. However, despite the benefit

shared, Minjingu village is an exceptional case, as explained by JUHIBU Secretary,

Wildlife Officer and some community members during data collection. The study noted

that, although Minjingu appears in the list of villages under WMA, it has never received

any money since its inception. Surprisingly, Minjingu as a village has never joined or

worked with WMA. Yet the government minutes at district office indicates that the

village signed an agreement to join WMA. Nevertheless, the interview carried out with

one of the elders in this area claimed that,

20 “The former chairman and member who were sent to investigate other villages before

joining WMA used to sign false agreements without community consent, the document

indicates that the agreement for Minjingu joining the WMA was illusory. The chairman

added that “those people who signed the agreement had bad intentions.” On the

contrary, JUHIBU secretary argued that, “Minjingu, because of constant conflicts going

on and its misconception of the WMA, has not followed the procedures, thus the village

has not received any revenue since its inception but their share is kept until when they

are ready to follow the required procedures. The secretary further noted that, the

district officers together are trying to negotiate with Minjingu, in order to join WMA

and enjoy the benefits obtained from conservation intervention.

21 In the discussion, the Wildlife District Officer argued that, “Minjingu had a different

notion of benefitting compared to others, and due to selfishness, they wanted first to

know what other villages will contribute.” The study revealed that Minjingu had

entered into a contract with a tour operator and enjoyed benefits before the WMA

enterprise. The emerging concern here is equal share of resources without clear

information on the contribution of each member.

22 The explanation above shows how officials contribute to grievances and conflicts,

because of unclear information spreading to grass root level. Similarly, Wertheim

(2002) points out that actors sometimes may withhold information in order to further

their own interests. On the contrary, Alfredson and Cungu (2008) show that

negotiations play a vital role in communicating issues pertaining to actors’

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54

engagement, solving problems and helping to create opportunities during policy

implementation.

23 Generally, different villages have different perceptions regarding the revenue obtained

from WMA. For instance, Magara appreciate the amount that they receive each year as

shown in Table 1. However, such contribution has been used for development activities

only. Individuals have never enjoyed the money obtained from conservation of wildlife

resources. Overall discussion and key informant interviews indicated that individual

members and group member association are yet to benefit from WMA. Despite the

objective of WMA being to benefit community members and improve their livelihood,

community members complain that life is tough, and poverty has increased. Although

people are complaining, the revenue collected is used for development activities, which

community members were supposed to donate towards. This study’s findings reflect

Namangaya (2016) who noted that conservation has reduced the individual

contributions needed for development activities, such as the construction of village

offices, classes and school toilets.

Financial

yearCollection Expenditure

Shared with

Member villages

Revenue enjoyed

by each village

Number of

Villages

2006-2007 37,496,988.00 8,296,411.00 18,748,494.00 2,083,166.00 9

2007-2008 75,256,890.00 24,243,022.00 37,628,445.00 4,703,555.00 8

2008-2009 64,595,376.00 34,211,010.00 32,297,688.00 3,588,632.00 9

2009-2010 227,618,815.00 101,338,183.00 113,809,407.00 11,380,940.00 10

2010-2011 391,459,764.00 150,325,192.00 195,729,882.00 19,572,988.00 10

2011-2012 473,738,859.93 175,940,789,00 236,869,429.00 26,318,825.50 9

2012-2013 275,430,040.00 163,041,379.00 137,715,020.00 13,771,502.00 10

2013-2014 412,593,088.50 175,515,557.51 206,296,544.25 20,629,654.00 10

2014-2015 820,945,000.00 290,810,232.10 410,472,500.00 41,047,250.00 10

2015-2016 795,272,230.00 383,923,202.82 397,636,115.00 39,763,611.00 10

2016-2017 1,268,810,655.00 460,869,316.22 634405,327.50 63,440,532.75 10

Source: Burunge CBO report 2018.

Negotiation on Land Uses

24 According to the District Planning Officer, over 95% of the residents in Burunge are

agro-pastoralists and farmers. Land resources are therefore very important for

achieving their day-to-day needs. Despite such importance, land has been a scarce

resource due to the population increase (both human population and animals as shown

in Table 3 & 4). According to the Village Executive Officer (VEO) of Magara, the

population has increased, for instance in 2007 the village consisted of around 900

people, but now the village is estimated to have a population of 4,000 people.

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55

Population of each village

Year 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Village

Vilimavitatu 3,522 3,665 3,784 3,905 4,032 4,161

Minjingu 2,911 3,038 3,136 3,237 3,342 3,450

Magara 3,356 3,503 3,615 3,732 3,852 3,977

Source: District Planning Officer, 2019

Total

Year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Village name Type of animals

Vilima-vitatu Cows 5,578 5,718 5,991 6,115 6,238 6,360 6,483 6920

Goats 6019 5,356 6,594 6824 7056 7,284 7,286 7,521

Sheep 415 481 502 592 621 695 727 792

Donkey 75 82 86 98 102 110 123 126

Magara Cows 532 557 590 710 834 832 959 1,088

Goats 508 610 617 619 629 626 875 937

Sheep 178 205 259 273 300 321 347 382

Donkey 30 33 38 42 47 50 50 53

Minjingu Cows 9,514 9,739 9,869 10,003 10,129 10,256 10,256 10,380

Goats 3,947 4,124 4,346 4,580 4,800 5,030 5,264 5,498

Sheep 1723 1998 2038 2124 2,415 2519 2665 2879

Donkey 138 150 188 203 217 252 261 295

Source: Livestock officer, 2019

25 While responding to the issue of land uses and its scarcity, the District Wildlife Officer

declared that the population has increased in recent years due to the birth rate and

migration of people from Babati, Arusha, Kilimanjaro and other places. This increase

has been caused by a lack of internal control. Other reasons for such an increase in

population are likely to be the presence of arable land in Magara and the potential area

for livestock keeping in Minjingu and Vilimavitatu. However, the district is negotiating

with some villages to develop and/or redevelop a land use plan in order to

accommodate the increased population as well managing wildlife resources.

26 Conversely, in Vilimavitatu, redevelopment of the land use plan has been in the process

but has been prolonged due to the existence of bush lawyers. According to the Wildlife

officer, bush lawyers influence community members, advising not to accept the plan

because more land will be used for conservation. On a similar note, the District Town

planner indicates that the land use plan in Vilimavitatu is in chaos because the

majority need their land to be planned for grazing rather than other uses. During an in-

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56

depth interview, it was revealed that negotiations on land uses and land use plan has

consumed so much time because community members request the district to reduce

the conserved land for other uses.

27 Map 2 shows the percentage of land contributed by each village. For instance, the

Vilimavitatu conservation area occupies 65.7 while Magara occupies 14.3%. According

to the Wildlife Policy, land use plans promote sustainable use and empower local

communities to appropriately decide on different uses (Noel and Kangalawe 2015)

quoted from (URT 1998). However, Moyo et al. (2016) show that in Vilimavitatu,

facilitators used to suggest land for conservation especially in areas in which local

communities found to be less productive. Areas suggested by officials, especially those

bordering Tarangire National Park and wildlife migratory routes in those days, are

today perceived by local communities as being important for farming and livestock

activities. Decisions made by officials reflect Wertheim’s (2002) argument that, in

negotiation process, some actors may manipulate, force or sometimes withhold

information in order to meet their own interests.

28 In Minjingu, the land use plan has been developed since 1997, when Kakoi and Olasiti

was part of Minjingu. According to the Wildlife officer, the two villages, Kakoi and

Olasiti, were formed out of Minjingu village, yet up to now lack their own land use.

According to the Chairman at Minjingu, “District leaders have forced these two villages

to form so as to take our land easily.” Nevertheless, the discussion with pastoralists at

Minjingu see the conservation as an important activity, but do propose the area to be

reduced so as to get more pasture land that may contribute more directly to individual

and household livelihood.

Map 2: Burunge WMA and Percentage of land by each village

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57

Conclusion

29 Negotiations on biodiversity conservation under Burunge WMA amongst actors are

found to be less able to support the active engagement of actors, particularly local

communities. This has been attributed to several reasons. The first reason is the

interaction of actors with divergent interests and power relations. Generally, actors

from the government and Non-Governmental Organizations negotiate and emphasize

their interests, rather than realizing the need and expectation of the local

communities, thus interfering with the maintenance and proper use of resources.

Therefore, clear negotiation amongst actors on land uses and the benefits to be

obtained is crucial as it has a great impact on conservation as well as the local

community’s livelihood. The local community should also be empowered in decision

making, in order to be able to determine their own land for various uses whilst

projecting future demand based on the changes that are taking place.

The author gratefully acknowledges support for this work from IFRA who supported financially

during data collection. Second, the author wishes to thank the supervisors Dr. Ally Hassan

Namangaya for great discussion during proposal development and Makarius Victor Mdemu. Also

the author is grateful to the officers at Babati district council and respondents from Minjingu,

Vilimavitatu and Magara village for their cooperation during data collection.

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NOTES

1. Biodiversity is described as the varieties of all forms of life on earth, including

different living organism. It includes both biotic organism and biotic processes

(Simpson 2002; Swingland 2001).

2. This qualitative study relies upon recorded data from both in-depth interviews and

focus group discussion in Swahili. Key informants were farmers, livestock keepers,

handcraft makers and hunters as well as BWMA leaders, district officials, village

executive officers and ward Executive officers. The data collected were analyzed

through content analysis.

3. Discussion with District Planning officer in 2019.

4. District Wildlife officer and JUHIBU secretary.

ABSTRACTS

This study was carried out in order to understand negotiation amongst actors in the Burunge

Wildlife Management Area (BWMA) in Tanzania. It adopted a qualitative approach of negotiation

amongst the diverse actors involved, who have different roles and interests, in conservation

policy interventions. Firstly, results show that negotiation processes during awareness

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60

campaigns amongst the communities targeted lacked consensus because of inadequate

information. Secondly, without clear positioning on the share of resources and land rights,

notably taking future changes into consideration, unintended and undesirable outcomes

occurred. The study concludes that the overall negotiation made lacked an appropriate platform

for consensus to be reached, leaving aside the interests of the local communities. Therefore, it

recommends that for the future endurance of wildlife management areas in general, negotiation

amongst actors should be explicit, with a clear platform on agreed terms.

INDEX

Keywords: biodiversity, conservation, Wildlife Management Area, Burunge, Tanzania

Geographical index: Tanzania | Tanzanie

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Music, Riddles and Proverbs inKenya’s Presidential Elections: RailaOdinga’s Oratory Style and the 2017General ElectionGordon Onyango Omenya

Introduction

1 Music as a performing art and cultural production is a fundamental feature of life in

Africa. Biko (1979: 42) affirms that “music in African culture features in all emotional

states” and remains an essential companion to the people as they “share the burden

and pleasures of work.” Viewed in this light, music becomes relevant in most activities

of everyday life. It is on this account that the richness and diversity of any particular

type of music can be assessed. According to Wafula (2001: 4), the significance of a

particular music or song as a form of speech utterance arises not only from stylistic

considerations but also from what it communicates. In other words, music is not only

about structural forms and rhythmic styles, but also about what it tells us about society

and about ourselves: music is a mode of self-writing capable of revealing the complex

layers of our being and of society (Nyairo and Ogude 2003). Moreover, Black African

music shares a common heritage but the music of each local community or ethnic

group has its own independence and is part of the ingredients that give each form its

uniqueness. In view of this, this paper looks at music production as popular culture in

Kenya and how it has been used in the construction of national or subnational identity

and power politics. It specifically explores the use of riddles in songs during the 2017

electoral campaign to gain support in politics. The National Super Alliance (NASA)

presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, consistently used riddles and music either to

criticize his opponents, notably Uhuru Kenyatta from the Jubilee party, but also as a

tool to identify with a certain group of people from Western Kenya, the Luo. This paper

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will thus examine the effects of music and riddles before and during Kenya’s last

general election.

Music and Popular Culture

2 In the last two decades or so, popular culture has gained prominence as a major site of

political and social contestation in Africa. With the direct control of mainstream

cultural production by both government and cultural industry, and particularly

through heavy censorship by repressive regimes, popular culture often expresses

disavowal of the nation-state. Music in Africa in general, and Kenya in particular (a

country notorious for its lack of tolerance for dissenting cultural activities), has

provided an alternative site for contesting and subverting some of the repressive

institutions put in place by the ruling elite. The power of music lies in the fact that

music has a captive audience situated in locales outside the regulated zones of the

national leadership (Nyairo and Ogude 2003). If some songs in a music album may

enable different affiliations and multiple identities to be expressed, others may

enhance “the terrible singularity that is often striven for and sometimes realized” by

those seeking to “transform mere categories into unitary and exclusive groups”

(Brubaker and Cooper 2000: 1)

3 Njogu and Maupeu (2007) observe that during Kenya’s run-up to the 2002 general

elections, in which the then ruling party KANU was removed from power, the national

desire for change in Kenya was brought forth by artists. Two musicians, Joseph Ogidi

and Jahd Adonija, under the name Gidi Gidi Maji Maji, performed Ting Badi Malo and I

am Unbwogable to the great delight of voters. Unbwogable became the song used to

mobilize voters in support of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Since then,

members of the political class have consistently hired artists to sing their praises and

support their political platforms. It was the case, for instance, during the November

2005 National Referendum on the Draft Constitution of Kenya when the government

and opposition hired artists so they disseminate their political agendas.

4 Grassy et al (2013) argue that the history of popular music cannot be divorced from

that of social, cultural and political movements, and yet the question remains: if music

is politically efficient, how can we measure its impact? It is not clear what role music

plays in the struggle for political, ideological and social change. While musical practices

and the writing of songs can undeniably strengthen existing activist groups, can it also

truly change minds or upset the established order and destabilize it? If there are such

things as soundtracks for rebellions and revolutions, do they merely accompany fights

or can they quicken the pace and bring about change themselves?

5 Popular music has a hand in the building and solidification of (sub) cultural

communities. Songs have expressed the emergence of new group identities in the fall of

Communism, the breakup of Yugoslavia and during other political schisms in Latin

American countries more recently. People sing and play the old regimes away, or they

use music to connect with fellow migrants or refugees in an upset political landscape.

Songs serve as a bridge between past and present by pairing traditional patterns to new

instruments, new technology, and new media—sometimes associating nostalgia with

expectations for change. They can also smooth out the transition to a new life and a

new identity as individuals and groups assimilate into another culture. Reversely, they

can reflect new cultural antagonisms and class conflicts and follow the radicalization of

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group identities (Grassy et al. 2013). In the case under study in this paper, popular

music is used to explore how Kenyan popular songs’ idioms of praise and protest were

used as a tool of political mobilization and identity construction in Kenya’s 2017

presidential campaigns.

Raila Odinga and the Proverbs

6 In Africa, proverbs are the most widely and commonly used oral arts. They are

regarded as a significant rhetorical force in various modes of communication, from

family and clan transmission of knowledge to friendly chats, political speeches,

religious sermons, lyrical poetry and, increasingly today, in the mass media (Wolfgang

2014). According to oral literature scholar Finnegan (1970), “in many African cultures, a

feeling for language, for imagery, and for the expression of abstract ideas through

compressed and allusive phraseology comes out particularly clearly in proverbs.”

Omollo (2017) extends this argument by stating that doubtlessly proverbs—as tested

wisdom with considerable authority—play a part in the ongoing struggle toward

progress on many social and political fronts in an interconnected world. As traditional

and also newly coined wisdom, to wit “Act locally, think globally,” proverbs contribute

to connect local and national issues to the global sphere of politics. Although proverbs

provide the much-needed entertainment in political discourse and make it possible for

politicians to avoid plain language, which could be boring, they are at times so versatile

and devoid of any inherent meaning that, depending on the circumstances and context

of use and the skillfulness of those who use them, they can mean almost anything

(Orwenjo 2009). This characteristic makes them an easily available means of driving a

point home and convincing the audience but, in some contexts, also a tool for

manifesting propaganda.

7 In his many years in politics, Raila Odinga undoubtedly learned much from the

sermonic and proverbial rhetoric of his late father and skillful politician Jaramogi

Oginga Odinga, as one could observe during the 2017 presidential election, as well as in

previous presidential elections as far back as 1997, 2007 and 2013. With proverbs—some

in Dholuo and others in Kiswahili—, Raila Odinga managed to score a solid balance

between intellectual formulations and traditional folk language (Wolfgang 2014).

8 At a 2017 campaign rally in Luo Nyanza province, Raila invoked the following proverb:

Kuot Ogwal ok mon dhiang’ modho pi (Luo) “The grumbling of the frog does not prevent a cow from drinking water.”

9 This proverb meant that regardless of the power of the state and its agencies, Raila and

his followers could execute their political objectives. It sold Raila to his followers as a

brave leader who can successfully confront the ruling government, thereby attracting

those who feel oppressed by the system and hope for a change of rule or ruler. Orwenyo

(2009) supports this argument, indicating that this proverb means that the mighty will

always have their way, even though the weak are allowed to have their say. This is a

proverb that points to the nature of politics in Kenya today; it effectively indicates the

uncompromising, winner-takes-it-all attitudes that permeate the Kenyan political

space.

10 In many of his 2007 campaign rallies, Raila used the proverb Mbiu ya Mgambo ikilia ina

jambo (When the buffalo-horn sounds, there is something of importance). This was the

case in his speech in Bomet, a county formerly under the governorship of Mr Isaac

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Ruto, a Kalenjin who fell out with Jubilee government. Mr Issac Ruto had also formed

his own political party known as the Chama Cha Mashinani (CCM), a party whose

ideology was aimed at bringing resources to the grassroots. This proverb connects Raila

Odinga to the CCM people. The party symbol of CCM is a trumpet and in most of its

rallies, the CCM supporters would carry and blow horns. Traditionally, a horn was

blown when people gathered for a communication. The horn was not just blown

anyhow but only purposefully. In the Bomet rally, Raila justified his reason to visit the

region. He told the audience that it was purposeful and planned that his team would go

to Bomet and invite Isaac Ruto to join the NASA team. Besides, he had things to share

with the audience, saying:

Na tumekuja kupiga mbiu ya mgambo. Na kuambia nyinyi ya kwamba kuna maneno. Mbiu

la mgambo ikilia? (Crowd: kuna jambo!). Si kuna jambo?

“And we have come to blow the buffalo horn. And to tell you that we have aproblem. When the buffalo-horn sounds? (Crowd: There is a problem!). There’s aproblem, isn’t it?” (see Omollo 2017).

11 It can thus be argued that Raila rhetoric and use of proverbs in political rallies was

informed by practical wisdom and pragmatic judgment. The use of a proverbial

language gives his speeches a colloquial and metaphorical expressiveness that enables

him to communicate effectively with people of different ethnic, social, and linguistic

backgrounds with the main objective of drawing them behind him. On the political

stage, Raila stressed and used a number of proverbs to bring his message of hope and

moral values across within a highly competitive, polarised and contested political space

of Kenya (Wolfgang 2014).

12 Raila does not only use riddles and proverbs but also songs or football commentaries

with rhetoric strategies such as allegory, allusion, analogy, anaphora or onomatopoeia

to call his supporters to take action. This manner of delivery conveys his message

clearly to the audience. Sometimes, the public is provoked or encouraged to argue on

an aspect or two. For example, Biblical names such as Canaan, Misri, Joshua, Caleb have

raised numerous comments from both his competitors and supporters (Omollo 2017).

For his supporters, Canaan is likened to a Kenyan state or country where all their

problems (unemployment, poor health care, water shortages amongst others) shall be a

thing of the past or taken care of by Raila’s government. Unlike Canaan, Egypt (Jubilee

government and state) is likened to problems and tribulations the way Israelites

suffered while under slavery in Egypt.

13 Raila frequently uses the proverb “Ahadi ni deni” (A promise is a debt) to reprimand the

Jubilee government led by Uhuru Kenyatta for its unfulfilled promises to Kenyans. For

instance, during the 2017 campaign, the Jubilee alliance pledged to put up stadiums in

all the counties. In his campaign rally in Busia, on 25 June 2017, Raila brought forward

that the Jubilee promises (ahadi) were empty promises. Similarly, the Jubilee

government promised to provide laptops to all pupils in lower primary schools in

Kenya, a promise which was never honoured. He told the crowd that:

Waliongea juu ya laptop… mumeona? Walisema watajenga stadium, mumeona?. Basi ahadi

ya Jubilee ni kama kunyamba kwa punda.

“They talked about laptops… Have you seen (them)? They said they will buildstadiums… have you seen (them)? So the promises of Jubilee are like a donkey’s fart{which is so rare}.”

14 Equating Jubilee’s failure to deliver on its promise with the fart of a donkey is like

saying that Jubilee’s promises will never be fulfilled. In other words, the Jubilee

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government has not respected the principle of the “social contract” as defined by

Rousseau as a way of moral governance that involves moral and political obligations

from those who rule towards those who are ruled (Hampton 1986). The image of the

donkey is very symbolic since Raila’s staunch supporters also use it to depict the

mighty nature of Raila. For instance, on one occasion when Jubilee supporters attacked

Raila during campaign periods, one of Raila’s supporters was captured on NTV

exclaiming that:

Kutukana Raila ni kama kuchuna matako ya punda.“Insulting Raila is like pinching the buttocks of a donkey (which elicits instant backkicks).”

15 And such people should come and kneel before Raila as they ask for forgiveness saying

Raila mwana (Raila the son), Raila baba (Raila the father), Raila Roho mtakatifu (Raila the

Holy spirit) three times.

16 Raila used the same proverbs and riddles from one rally to another. For instance, on

23 October 2017, in Kisii, he said:

Dalili ya mvua ni nini? Mawingu yametanda!

“Clouds are the sign of what? (rain), It is about to rain heavily.) This proverbglorified Raila as the clouds and his becoming president as the much-needed heavyrain over ‘a very arid’ Kenya.”Mjinga akierevuka, mwerevu yu mashakani “When a fool becomes enlightened, the wise person is in trouble.”

17 In other words, Raila was bringing forth the failures of the current “wise” rulers and

therefore encouraging (enlightening) the people (fools) to stand up and protest against

such (by voting out the current manipulative regime). He had used a short version of this

proverb during a rally in Kisii and Kisumu on 20 October 2017. On both cases, these

words referred to the bungled election of August 2018, which the Supreme Court

annulled in favour of the National Super Alliance (NASA). It was on this basis that the

NASA leader decided to come up with a policy of “Adopt a polling station” and an

amorphous parallel tallying centre which he disclosed was in the ‘clouds’.1 This was to

ensure that whatever results sent to the IEBC central tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya

matched with NASA’s figures to ensure a transparent and accountable election process

free from electoral malpractices leading to the popular phrase to NASA supporters:

Wakihesabu, tunahesabu; wakijumulisha, tunajumulisha; wakipeperusha, tunapeperusha;

wakitangaza, tunatangaza.

“When they {IEBC} count, we {NASA} count; when they tally, we tally; when theyrelay {results}, we relay; when they announce results, we announce.”

18 However, after the nullification of the presidential elections by the Supreme Court,

Raila and his team added another phrasethay says: Wakiiba, tunawanasa (if they steal

[election], we nab them). As tools for political action, much of the purposes of proverbs

appeal to traditional values, identity formation and evokes proximity to everyday life

experience of common people (Tholani 2000).

The Riddle Technique

19 On many occasions, Raila reinforced proverbs through riddles (kitendawili), like in Busia

on the 25 June 2017:

Kitendawili… Tega! Alikimbia usiku uchi akachoka akalala fo fo fo. Alipoamka asubuhi

alipata aibu kubwa. Yeye ni nani? Yeye ni nani? Yeye ni nani?… Mmeshindwa. Mnipatie

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mji… Busia… Huyo ni mchawi, huyo ni Jubileee. Miaka nne wamelala fofofo. “Riddle! He ran naked, got tired and deeply fell asleep. When he woke up he got soashamed. Who is this? Who is this? Who is this?… You have not gotten the rightanswer. Give me a town… Busia… That person is a witch, that person is Jubilee. Forfour years they were sound asleep.”

20 In Kisumu on 20 October 2017, Raila brought in another riddle:

Kitendawili… Tega! Akibadilika kuwa mnyama, tunamwua… Na kuna njia mingi wa kumwua. Ni nani huyo… Mmeshindwa, mnipatie mji… Kisumu. Sawa huyo ni paka mnajua paka saa ingine anakwa kama paka mwitu, anakula vifaranga, siyo? Si anauliwa… Unaweza kushika yeye unamweka kamba unamfunga juu ya mti, siyo? Unaweza kuchukua kisu, siyo? Unaweza kuchukua mawe, unaweza kuweka yeye ndani ya gunia, unafunga gunia unapeleka kwa mto unarusha huko, siyo? Nitatoa ujumbe kwenu vile kumwua huyo paka. “Riddle! When it changes into an animal, we kill it… and we have so many ways ofkilling it… what is it referring to? You can’t get the answer… okay, it is a cat. Giveme a town… Kisumu., you know sometimes cats change their nature, become wildand eat the chicken, isn’t that true? When that happens, it must be completelydestroyed, not so? You can do so by tying a rope around its neck and hanging it on atree or you can slaughter it or you can stone it or even tie it inside a gunny bag anddrown it in a river! Later, I will share with you how I will kill that cat (Jubileeparty).”

21 In this riddle, Raila argues that sometimes a cat can become a wild cat and when that

happens, there are so many ways of killing such a cat since it can change and start

feeding on the chicken. He leaves his audience hanging by telling them that he will

release a statement on how to kill the cat (Jubilee). Perhaps this meant his idea of

boycotting the election. Nevertheless, there is a gleeful expression whenever Raila

utters the word kitendawili. The call and response chorus became a hallmark of his

public speaking. The extent to which this kitendawli was entrenched in the collective

psyche of the masses is unbelievable. This is the mass that fanatically identifies with

Raila who is able to (re)construct identities in different political times and space.

22 A riddle is a statement or question that necessitates the audience’s inventiveness to

realize its intended meaning since it is crafted and told figuratively. Riddles are

effective tools of communication owing to their ability to provoke and engage the

audience. They are both puzzling and entertaining. Raila uses riddles to introduce

stories. This enhances mental alertness and makes the audience ready for a story. It

also improves on the concentration of the listeners (Omollo 2017). Yet, Orwenjo (2009)

believes otherwise and argues that political campaigns in Kenya and Africa at large

usually involve seeking support and votes from a largely illiterate or semi-literate

mass. The politicians, aware of this, exploit it by avoiding talking about real issues

affecting the electorate and which they could end up being unable to tackle effectively,

and instead resorting to populist proverbial clichés and riddles in a vain display of their

oratory prowess.

23 Lastly, Raila also uses proverbs or riddles to talk about himself. For instance, he uses

Raila ni mweupe kama pamba (Raila is as white as a cotton wool) to highlight the fact that

he has not been tainted by corruption cases like his opponents. These words are aimed

to construct the identity of Raila as a corruption free person who can be entrusted with

the leadership of the state, and as one who is able to lead a government of people who

are not greedy and who are not thieves unlike government officials who are portrayed

as people who loot the national coffers. As politics and political discourse require of the

speaker to have extraordinary abilities to convince the interlocutors, it is important

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that they express themselves clearly, coherently and with little effort, ambiguities or

tautology. Especially in campaign meetings, politicians need not only to be effective

salesmen of their party’s ideologies and viewpoints, but also to discredit and belittle

opposing ideologies and ideas. In most cases, this invariably calls for some dose of

influence: this is where proverbs and riddles come in handy.

The Power of Music

24 Music facilitates interaction between community members and represents an arena

where the populace can voice their support or disapproval for leaders, air grievances,

and join in a communal activity. It is on this basis that music can be considered a

heuristic research object to gain insight into the history and present-day concerns of

Kenyan society (Wanjala and Kebaya 2016). In critical studies that engage with actual

songs, such as Haugerud (1995), Gecau (1997), and Masolo (2000), the relationship

between popular music and politics is clearly underlined. These studies affirm that in

Kenya, protest music provides an alternative space within which to explore political

intrigues. For instance, Haugerud (1995) argues that subversive music plays a key part

in exposing the political inconsistences of the state’s official discourse. While focusing

on popular musicians such as Daniel Owino Misiani, Masolo (2000) illustrates how

popular music exists in opposition to the state’s version of national culture, thereby

forcing popular musicians to resort to allegories and allusions to pass on their political

messages. According to Frith (1996), different people interpret music differently and

music can convey several meanings simultaneously. Thus, music is not a mere

monolithic reflection of a society at a given time, nor is it a static marker of identity. It

is also an integral part of the daily activities that constitute individual subjectivity.

25 Wanjala and Kebaya (2016) observe that music’s relationship to identity is usually

understood in terms of processes of reflection, symbolization, homology, and

expression. MacDonald et al. (2002: 5) capture this situation more precisely in pointing

out how “[i]n today’s world, deciding what music to listen to is a significant part of

deciding and announcing to people not just who you want to be but who you are.”

Noteworthy is the notion that identity is always constructed from the cultural

resources available at any given moment. Rather than durable and stable, identities are

contingent, fragile, unstable, and changeable. The point has been made that the

construction of identity as a form of self-understanding through music is brought into

play when identities need to be or are being changed. Music helps that process by

changing itself, or better by being changed by the musicians who want to participate in

the construction of new identities and the symbolic representations of these identities

to others, so that others’ understandings of the group can change as well. Therefore,

music as a performance and as a context provides a particularly fruitful arena for the

expression of multiple identities (Wanjala and Kebaya 2016). Identity and ethnicity are

relative and fluid concepts that vary according to the social situation, the comparison

group, or the historical period. Moreover, a person may have “shifting multiple

identities” (Mazrui and Shariff 1994: 8; Willis 1993).

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Raila in Music

26 This is very characteristic of Raila Odinga whose identity becomes fluid and dynamic

depending on the political space he is occupying during a particular period of time. The

issue of identity construction and popular music has been captured well in Raila’s

presidential campaigns of 2017. This is evident in the way he evoked memories of

people in time and space and makes them identify with the situations he put forth.

Most of these memories are associated with historical developments, which would

make his supporters endeared to him, and feel part and parcel of his political cause.

27 During a rally in Kisumu, Raila chanted the popular song “Kisumu dalawa” to evoke the

memory of the people, thus taking them back to the days when they were being raised

up in Kaloleni (a low-class estate) and playing football:

Raila: Kisumu, Kisumu dala waaa… (“Kisumu, Kisumu, our home”) All: Kisumu dalawa, Kisumu Kisumu dalawa, Kisumu dalawa (“Kisumu our home,Kisumu, Kisumu our home, Kisumu our home”)Raila: Kisumu gi Nyong’o dalawa (“Kisumu, the home of Prof. Nyong’o our home”[Prof. Nyong’o has been a long-time member of parliament for Kisumu RuralConstituency and a close confidant of Raila]).

28 The song contributes to local or regional identity construction as it helps Raila identify

himself with not only the Kisumu people but also with the ordinary citizens of Kaloleni.

By intentionally mentioning the name of Prof. Nyong’o, Raila is passing a message to

his supporters that he identifies with Nyong’o and they should elect Anyang Nyong’o in

the forthcoming gubernatorial elections. On this basis, it can be argued that the

treatment of particular music or more precisely song as a form of speech utterance in

political rallies arises not only from stylistic considerations, but also its importance as

an avenue to communicate a message and influence people (Wafula 2001).

29 In Vihiga’s rally on 24 June 2017, Raila identified with members of the Luhya nation. He

started by greeting them in their mother tongue, saying:

Vandu va Vihiga, mirembee! (“People of Vihiga, hello!”). Mirembe andi! (“Hello again!”). Ulimwoyoo? (“Are you okay?”)

30 The matter of language, especially a first language, has been cited as an important

factor in the attribution of identity. Makoe (2007) observes that it is through social

interaction that humans construct their identities and realities; and language,

including symbolic behaviour (other ways in which meanings are communicated), plays

a major part in the construction of meanings associated with messages from certain

people using a particular language. The role of language and the social conditions in

which it is used are important both in defining social, political and economic spaces

and the practices and activities that take place therein. The context is, therefore,

created by the sort of talk and symbolic expressions produced in the political spaces by

both the politician and his followers. Raila thus used the local language in Vihiga as a

marker of identity to make him easily identify with the locals. This is in line with

Burke’s (1995) observation that one can persuade the others only if one is able to speak

their language.

31 This approach to identity construction was evident during a NASA rally on 10 January

2017 in Mumias where Raila argued as follows:

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Mimi nikiwa Mumias niko nyumbani (“When I am in Mumias, I am at home”). Mimi ni mjukuu wa Nabongo Wanga (“I am the grandson of Nabongo Wanga”). Uhuru akicheza naitisha ile spirit ya Nabongo Wanga tunaonana na yeye mundu khumundu

(“If Uhuru jokes around I invoke the spirits of Nabongo Wanga and I square withhim man to man”).

32 In Bungoma rally on 23 June 2017, he evoked the cultural memory of the people of

Bungoma who are predominantly Bukusu. He reminded them of their legendary

prophet Elijah Masinde and of the spiritual, cultural and political importance of Mont

Elgon in the political aspirations of Bungoma region. The attention of the people in the

rally was arrested by the vivid description of the past events of their place. He also took

his Bukusu supporters down the memory lane by reminding them of his father’s

political connection with the Bukusu community as a possible way of identifying with

their aspirations. He started by saying that:

Tuko hapa Bungoma, tunaangalia mlima Elgon, Sigulu Masawa… Hapa ndio Elija Masinde wa Nameme alikuwa anaangalia huko alafu anaomba kwa mungu. Na yeye ndio alitabiri vile mambo yatakuwa eneo hii. Mimi nilitumwa na Jaramogi kwenda kuchukua yeye kuleta yeye Kisumu. Gari ikawa na shida na karibu mimi na Masinde karibu tukufe. Wa Nameme ndio aliambia Jaramogi eti utawala wa eneo hii ya Kenya itatoka ziwa ya Victoria. Wa Nameme alikuwa anajua kutabiri.“We are here in Bungoma facing Mount Elgon, Sigulu Masawa… Here is the placewhere Elija Masinde, the son of Nameme, would come and face the mountain as heprayed to god. He is the one who prophesized the way things would be in thisregion. I was sent by my father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga to come and pick him fromBungoma and take him to Kisumu… on the way our vehicle developed somemechanical problems and Masinde and I almost died. The son of Nameme is the onewho told Jaramogi that political leadership of this region {Bungoma} would comethrough Lake Victoria. The son of Nameme knew how to prophesy.”

33 He talked about the inter-ethnic relations between the Luo and the Luyia community

through football encounters. He argued that in the colonial period the Luyia and Luo

communities were playing football, which was a marker of their identity. He reminded

his audience about the Remington Cup, an inter-district annual football competition

that pitted the Luo of Central Nyanza against the Bantu Kavirondo of North Nyanza in

the 1950s and 60s (Cohen and Atieno-Odhiambo 1989). Time and space thus become an

important factor in persuasion for political support. In his address, Raila specifically

explained that the Remington Cup:

Ilikuwa mchuano kali kama FA Cup. Team ya North Nyanza walikuwa wakichuana na team ya Central Nyanza. Team ya North Nyanza walikuwa wakiimba na supporters wao:“It was highly competitive like the English Premier League. The team from NorthNyanza would meet with their arch rival from Central Nyanza. The North Nyanzateam together with their supporters would sing the following song”: Ulihelwa, eing’ombe

“You will be given a cow” (meaning that the players would each be given a cow ifthey won the game)Ulihelwa eing’ombe “You will be given a cow”Ulihelwa, eing’ombe mulahi wa mama eing’ombe “You will be given a cow, mama’s favourite, a cow.”Team ya central Nyanza walikuwa wanaaimba:“Team from Central Nyanza were singing”:Kamanene kamanene kamanene

“Just like before, just like before” (meaning that the Central Nyanza team wouldstill defeat the North Nyanza just like they have always done in their previous

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encounters.)Kamanene, kamanene Kamanene

“Just like before, just like before”Kamanene kamanene, kamanene

“Just like before, just like before”Wololo wololo wololo wololo

Wololo wololo wololo wololo

Wololo wololo wololo wololo

34 These memories help Raila pass his ideologies to his supporters and infuse a sense of

belonging. In Bungoma rally, the fact that Raila identified with Masinde Muliro, an

anti-colonial rule activist, and sang a song of cheer used during football matches

among the Luhya was enough to win him support. Shobe (2008) affirms that football is

one of the many cultural institutions inextricably wrapped up in the economic and

political processes that shape places and societies worldwide. Cohen and Atieno-

Odhiambo (1989) argue that, in a crucial sense, the colonial period in Kenya was a six-

decade long colloquy among all sorts of people about culture, identity markers,

boundaries, core values and ethnicities. These core values resonated through the

football clubs, the clan associations and notably the Luo Union branches. During the

1950s and 1960s, John Cosmas Owade Bala Korguok, broadcasting on the Luo

programmes of the state radio, did more than any other person to reiterate these core

values among the Luo (Cohen and Atieno-Odhiambo 1989). In view of this, it is no

surprise that Raila uses football and popular music as a vehicle of reimagining and

creating both national andethnic identities for political reasons while at the same time

articulating his particular political interests and those of his party.

35 Specific campaign songs can set the tone and reflect the message of modern campaigns.

It can give candidates an opportunity to assert their celebrity status and even to

challenge party traditions. Using pop songs for politics is nothing new—Bill Clinton

used Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop and Barack Obama used William’s Yes We Can, for

instance. Candidates consider music a key element for establishing their personality

and inspiring followers. In Kenya, whenever general elections are held, local

entertainment scene becomes abuzz with politically inspired songs. These would be

performed to hype up political parties, or presidential contenders making use of live

shows to headline or stir up campaign gatherings. Besides spicing up the pre-election

rallies, numerous original hit songs have spawned off the back of heated presidential

polls pitying proponents affiliated to the two main political parties (The Standard

Newspaper, 19 December 2008). The aim of producing campaign songs is primarily

driven by the need to use popular art as a tool to communicate to the masses. “Music is

the only language that transcends barriers between people from different

communities. As a vehicle for campaigns, it serves an effective role as a powerful

unifying factor” (The Standard Newspaper, 19 December 2008: 18). Yet, it is difficult to

pinpoint whether the popularity of most campaign songs translate into additional

votes, since there is no specific statistical data to prove it. However, the power of

music, especially in the subliminal mind is indisputable. For instance, the two songs by

Onyi Jalamo and Amos Barasa used by NASA are catchy, popular and appealed to a

wider NASA (and to some extent Jubilee) audience. The two songs also represented a

new wave of change, which the masses identified with.

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Raila Odinga and Genealogy

36 One specific aspect of Raila’s political speeches is tied to his use of genealogy. Tracing

his roots to one of the Luhya tribes undeniably endears him to the Luhya community.

Belonging to the Luhya and the Luo communities makes it possible for him to enjoy the

advantages of tribal politics. To be more specific, Raila Odinga traces his roots to the

Wanga Kingdom. He argues that the Wanga Kingdom is the present Mumias/Matungu

region. To him, “Luo traditional oral history says that the Wanga were of Luo origin”

(Odinga 2016). The form of political autobiography is extended narrative. Raila Odinga

is skilled in rhetorical narrative technique and thus he is more likely to reveal the

persuasive potential of the form than someone who is not (Omollo 2017).

37 One of the popular songs which became NASA’s signature tune and the official

campaign song was Tibim, composed by artist Onyi Jalamo. This song provided a

revolutionary space for the NASA supporters to express themselves and pass their

revolutionary message to Jubilee opponents while at the same time constructing

diverse identities that characterize NASA supporters based on their age, gender, ethnic

background. Tibim is popular and relevant to the “Ohangla” audience, that is, to a

category of people who identify with a form of a fast-moving music from the lakeside

region of Kenya. “Ohangla” music is also very popular with the youth. It is mostly done

in Luo language, another marker of identity. Onyi Jalamo sung about his anticipation of

a Kenya finally united because of Raila’s victory. The song is celebratory and rooted in

the Luo culture of pakruok (praise giving). Its lyrics is as follows:

Kenya duto oramo Raila kawo telo (“Kenyans have vowed that Raila is bound to take power”) Kenya duto oramo Raila kawo telo

(“Kenyans have vowed that Raila is bound to take power”)Nairobi oramo Raila kawo telo

(“Nairobi{ans} have vowed that Raila is bound to take power”)Kisumo oramo Raila kawo telo

(“Kisumu {Kisumu people} have vowed that Raila is bound to take power”)Pwani Mombasa oramo Raila Kawo telo(“Mombasa (the people of Mombasa) have vowed that Raila is bound to takepower”)

38 In Dholuo, “tibim” means a thunderous sound coming out after hitting something hard;

it is thus onomatopoetic. It may be suggested that “tibim” was used in reference to a

sounding defeat against Jubilee party. The bulk of the song is made up of lyrics that

name a politician and request the replies “tibim” and “tialala” from the audience.

39 Affiliation with a particular subculture is not random. Songs, sounds, and styles are

important features in any subculture because they embody certain values and attitudes

that the group members share. The immediacy of songs like NASA’s “Tibim,” however,

does not lie in the lyrics alone. The power of music to embody imagined worlds is

crucial in the production of feelings (Simonett 2000). Onyi Jalamo’s music creates a

feeling of Kenyanness. Moreover, the song enumerates Raila’ great achievements. He

mentions Raila’s struggle for democracy in Kenya and his role in the realization of a

devolved system of government through the 2010 Constitutions, notably saying:

Seche oromo we aywanie ngolo

“Time is up, let me sing for you”Wuo nya Alego… NASA, NASA

“The son of a woman from Alego… NASA, NASA”

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Onyi jalamo an awacho kendo anwoyo

“Onyi Jalamo, I am saying and repeating this”Wang’ni to wololo, wang’ni to wololo

“This time round it is no joke”Amolo Odinga gik maitimo dongo… ikelo democracy

“Amolo Odinga, you have done great things… You have brought democracy”Ichaki ikelo devolution, ichaki ikelo devolution

“You have brought devolution, you have brought devolution.”

40 Most fascinating is the imaginative component of this song. The singer argues that

power is not given on a silver platter but rather taken (“telo ikawo”). This idea is

revolutionary, as it does not recognize the electoral process of voting. There,

imagination is not simply a daydream or idle escapism, but rather an empowering

force. Because music offers strong images of characteristic identities, it is a source for

identity and pride (Simonnete 2000). The lyrics point to the difficulty to dislodge from

power the incumbent president through election. Thus, “Tilim” revisits the outcome of

the 2007 and 2013 general election: Raila consistently asserted that he won these

elections but that his victory was “stolen” through rigged election. In the lyrics below,

“Tilim” call for people to take their spears and shields (voting cards). The singer states

that NASA principle leaders, such as Kalonzo, Wetangula and Mudavadi, have vowed

that they are taking power in the same vein as their supporters in Nairobi and Siaya.

The singer’s sentiment is that if power cannot come through the ballot then it must

come through unorthodox means, saying: “Wangi onge gima iweyo makata kochuno to

wadonjo gi balangewa” (This time round we are leaving nothing to chance and, if

possible, we shall get into power through the backdoor). He portrays a society fed up

with the regime in power. This is the joyful climax of the song. The pleasure which this

song produces relates to the cultural enjoyment of identity. It is, as Frith (1992) puts it,

“a pleasure of identification” with the music, with the performers of that music, and

with the people mentioned and praised in the song.

Agwambo telo ikawo, tinga ok mi ng’ato

“Agwambo leadership is taken and not given” Donge seche oromo chieng rieny gokiny

“The time is now when the early morning sun is shining”Seche oromo kaw odunga gi tong

“The time is now to carry your shield and spear”Kalonzo oramo ni telo ikawo

“Kalonzo has vowed that leadership is taken”Wetanguala donge oramo ni telo ikawo

“Wetangula has vowed that leadership is taken”Mudavadi bende oramo ni telo ikawo

“Mudavadi has also vowed that leadership is taken”Nairobi, wangni onge gima iweyo

“Nairobi people we are not leaving anything to chance”Siaya wang’ni onge gima iweyo makata kochuno to wadonjo gi balangewa

“Siaya people this time there is nothing we are leaving to chance and if it is notpossible we shall use other means to get power.” Wuo nyalego, Agwambo tinga, Agwambo tinga, Raila nyundo, in e ruathwa

“Son of the lady from Alego, Agwambo tractor, Agwambo tractor, Raila hammer,you are our hero.”

41 The song is inclusive as it mentions leaders from the different parts of Kenya that NASA

has secured alliances within. All the NASA principals are “tibim”:

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Raila igwe, Kenya tibim

“Raila King, Kenya tibim”Kalonzo igwe, Ukambani tibim

“Kalonzo King, Kamba land tibim”Wetangula igwe, Western tibim

“Wetangula King, Western tibim”Mudavadi igwe, Waluyia tibim

“Mudavadi king, Luyia nation tibim”Kidero igwe, Nairobi tibim

“Kidero King, Nairobi tibim”Joho igwe, Mombasa tibim

“Joho Igwe, Mombasa tibim”Rasanga igwe, Siaya tibim

“Rasanga King, Siaya tibim”Ranguma igwe, Kisumu tibim

“Ranguma King, Kisumu tibim”Obado igwe, Migori tibim

“Obado King, Migori tibim”Awiti igwe, Homabay tibim

“Awiti King, Homabay tibim”

42 In his revised NASA “Tibim” song, Jalamo decries the sufferings of Kenyan workers and

of ethnic communities. He also brings to the fore several corruption cases that Raila

had exposed, like the Eurobond and the NYS scandal where millions of shillings were

lost. The singer also explores the status of Kenyan workers, mentioning the doctors’

and teachers’ strikes, with a call to Raila to save Kenya (Raila okoa Kenya). He further

mentions youth unemployment. Although he is dejected by the status of the country,

he is optimistic when he says freedom is coming (Wakenya tunataka ukombozi)—We

Kenyans want freedom).

Conclusion

43 This article explored the use of popular music and the narration of riddles, proverbs

and historical facts by Raila Odinga, the 2017 NASA presidential candidate. It is evident

that, from his extensive use of proverbs and riddles, Raila has been able to attract large

following, which vividly sheds light on the significant rhetorical force of this mode of

communication. Songs, proverbs and riddles helped convince his supporters that he

was the ideal candidate for Kenya’s presidency as well as a way of selling his political

ideas and vision. Although riddles were also used by his opponents to ridicule him—

calling him “Yule jamaa wa vitendawili” (“that guy of riddles”), Raila charmed his

audience. Finally, the use of Onyi Jalamo’s song “Tibim” reveals how much songs have

become a discursive presence in Kenya’s political space. Popular music serves popular

mobilization against unpopular regimes. The generation and spread of popular forms

are not as spontaneous and informal as one would sometimes wish to imagine. Popular

forms can, in fact, be very deliberately engineered products. NASA’s “Tibim” song

strategically incorporated idioms of praise (for NASA leaders) and of protest (against

the Jubilee regime) in multiple ways.

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NOTES

1. Adopt a Polling Station was a policy by Raila Odinga which was to ensure that NASA

supporters remained at the polling station after polling in order forestall rigging of the

presidential election. Similarly, the parallel tallying centre, was a NASA owned centre

which was to tally and relay election results from constituency levels in order to

minimize rigging of elections and to neutralize monopoly of the Independent Electoral

and Boundary Commission as far as tallying of results was concerned. The results of the

parallel tallying centre were to be stored in the iclouds where state operatives could

not interfere with them.

ABSTRACTS

Popular art is an effective medium for expressing individual and collective representations and

aspirations. It helps to share experience and captures the contradictions and dynamics prevalent

in society. In Kenya, every election has been characterized by the use of popular music and other

types of popular means of expression. Songs as well as riddles and proverbs are consistently

being used during electoral campaigns. This was evident during the 2017 general election during

which Raila Odinga, the National Super Alliance (NASA) presidential candidate, campaigned

through popular music and used proverbs and riddles to draw his supporters behind him. This

chapter examines some of Raila’s campaign speeches to further understand the importance and

efficiency of oratory style and popular culture for political mobilization and identity

construction in Kenya.

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INDEX

Keywords: Raila Odinga, songs, riddles, proverbs

Geographical index: Kenya

AUTHOR

GORDON ONYANGO OMENYA

Kenyatta University, Kenya

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Language Shift or Maintenance? ASociolinguistic Analysis of theIlwana Language of Tana RiverCountyBichang’a W. Nyaigoti

Introduction

1 The term “language shift” emerged in the 1960s in the period when Sociolinguistics

was first gaining prominence as a field of study in Applied Linguistics (Fishman 1964;

1994). Yet despite its popularity and prominence in sociolinguistic literature, there

exists, as of yet, no fixed definition or conceptualisation of the term. Bodomo et al

(2009: 2) have broadly defined “language shift” as “a process in which successive

generations of speakers, both at individual and at community levels, gradually lose

proficiency in their mother-tongues or the language of their speech community in

favour of other languages.” This process may ultimately lead to language loss among

individuals, or even language death for an entire community.

2 Winford (2003) notes that language shift can be the result of extensive language

contact, while, on the other hand, language maintenance tends to arise from the

mechanisms of borrowing and code switching. Baker and Jones (2008) have defined

“language maintenance” as the promotion or protection of the native language of an

individual or of a speech community. Maintenance of a language occurs when a

language retains its vitality even when placed under pressure (Batibo 2005).

3 Previous studies of language shift and maintenance have tended to focus on cases in

Western countries, yet 30% of the world’s endangered languages are to be found in

Africa (Bodomo et al. 2009; Nettle and Romaine 2001). Despite the global figures and

reports by Unesco (2003; 2009; 2001) indicating that 90% of the world’s languages are

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endangered, little research has been conducted in African countries to investigate their

complex linguistic ecology, which differs significantly from the Western case studies.

4 In Kenya, studies on language shift and/or maintenance are sparse. The Minority

Rights Group (MRG) (2005: 7) states that the Ilwana language, spoken on the coastal

region of Kenya in Tana River County, is one minority language out of the 42 ethnic

speech communities in Kenya. The MRG further states that Kenyan minority languages

are becoming increasingly endangered on account of not being taught or used in

schools. Although the Ilwana language has been highlighted as an increasingly

endangered minority language (Batibo 2005, Ethnologue 2015 and MRG 2005), there is

no comprehensive research to authenticate this sociolinguistic status. In this sense,

relying on general statistical figures and observations about the high percentage of

endangered languages can be misleading. There is a need for in-depth qualitative field

research to determine the precise linguistic situation.

5 This paper presents the findings of a sociolinguistic study that sought to investigate the

extent to which the Ilwana language has undergone shift or been maintained in various

domains of use. This study examined the level of language proficiency among the

sampled respondents, the domain use of Ilwana, and sociolinguistic markers or

indicators of language shift. This paper is divided into four main sections. First, the

introduction examines the historical background of the Ilwana language and situates

the study within the discourse of language shift and maintenance. Second, the research

methodology and theoretical framework are examined. Third, the findings of the study

and presented and analysed. Finally, a conclusion underscores the need for further

research on Kenya’s minority languages, documentation of the findings, and

revitalisation programs.

Historical Background of Ilwana and other Tana RiverLanguages

6 Tana River County hosts a number of Bantu and Cushitic speech communities. The

dominant ones are the Pokomo and Orma, while the smaller or minority communities

include the Bajuni, Waata/Sanye, Wardei, Ilwana/Malakote, Dahalo, Munyoyaya, and

Somali. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (Republic of Kenya 2009)

and the Population and Housing Census (2011), the Pokomo community consists of

94,965 people, Orma 70,000, Wardei 46,000 (by 2011), and Ilwana 16,800. The

Munyoyaya community has a population of 15,000, which is also associated with the

Swahili community, though they speak the Orma dialect and conduct fishing along the

northern part of the Tana River. The Waata/Sanye community has a population of

12,582 and is associated with the Mijikenda, both being found in Tana and Lamu. The

Dahalo community consists of 2,400 people who speak Cushitic but mostly use

Kiswahili, as the former is near extinction. They are found in Lamu and Tana River. The

Boni/Aweer community is associated with the Mijikenda. They comprise of 7,600

people and are found in Lamu and the lower parts of Tana River. This statistical

information suggests there may be an interest in examining how the complex matrix of

dominant and minority languages along the Tana River have coexisted with such close

association between neighbouring speech communities.

7 According to Nurse (1994: 214), existing linguistic data suggests that a three-stage

historical scenario may account for the Ilwana language’s genealogy. In the first stage

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(pre-1600), the Ilwana people genetically belonged to a Bantu sub-group called Sabaki,

which is close to the Swahili. The Ilwana were also closely related to the neighbouring

Pokomo to the south, a small southern Somali community, and various other small

Cushitic groups like the Dahalo, Waata and Munyo. During the second stage

(1600-1875), the Orma arrived in the Tana area in the late 17th century and settled in

the hinterlands with their cattle (Martin 2007: 42). They soon dominated all the other

communities along the Tana River thanks to their aggressiveness, military strength,

and cultural superiority. This dominance was curtailed, however, by the entrance of

the Somalis in 1875. The third stage (from 1900 onwards) was characterised by a

relative calm and equilibrium. As a consequence of these three stages, the Orma settled

to the west of Tana and the Somalis to the east, leaving the Ilwana and the Pokomo

sandwiched between them along the river. It is claimed, however, that the Orma

exerted a greater linguistic and social pressure on the Ilwana prior to 1900. Following

the mid-1900s, most Ilwana speakers were reportedly bilingual, speaking both Ilwana

and Orma. The Wardei started arriving in Tana Delta from 1972 onwards (Townsend

1978). This period was characterised by the highest level of language transfer, which

Heine and Nurse (2008: 3) refer to as “grammatical replication.” The current linguistic

situation of the Ilwana and their neighbors, however, is not clearly known.

8 The Ilwana people are East Coast Bantus living along the banks of the Tana River in

north-eastern Kenya (Nurse 1994). They currently occupy three wards in the Bura

constituency: Chewele, Sala and Madogo. The Wawilwana’s settlement in the early

1900s stretched nine kilometres northwards into Garissa, but by the mid-1900s the

Somalis had pushed it further into the southern part of River Tana. The name “Garissa”

is said to have come from a Munyoyaya man, “Garisso,” who lived in the town before

Europeans came to Tana River. The name “Tana” originates from the Pokomo word

“Tsana” or “Chana,” meaning “river,” which was pronounced as “Tana” by the

Europeans (Townsend 1978).

9 The Ilwana were introduced to Islam in the early 20th century. Nurse (1994) observes

that the Ilwana are fluent in both Ilwana and Kiswahili, that those who have gone to

school speak English as well, while others speak Somali and Orma. Arends et al (1995)

state that the “Milakote” (which came to be pronounced “Malakote”) refers to a blended

culture from both sides (Pokomo and Orma/Somalis/Borana). This implies that the

Ilwana people have had many years of contact with the Bantu and Cushitic

communities. This has influenced their language and culture. It can therefore be

hypothesised that the language contact situation may have had far-reaching linguistic

and socio-economic implications for the Ilwana language.

The Languages surrounding Ilwana

10 The Ilwana people occupy a 150-mile strip along the north-eastern part of the Tana

River, bordering Garissa County. As Figure 1 illustrates, the Ilwana people are

surrounded by many dominant and minority speech communities that have influenced

the language in various ways. Firstly, they border the Pokomo community, with a

population of some 90,000, as per the 2009 census, to the south of Tana River County.

The Bantu-speaking Pokomo people occupy the Tana Delta and are divided into the

Lower Pokomo (Milanchini), who are mainly Christians, and the Upper Pokomo

(Milajulu), who are majority Muslim. Secondly, the Orma people, with a population of

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around 70,000, as of 2009, border the Ilwana on the western part of Tana River. They

speak a Cushitic language that belongs to the Oromo family found in Ethiopia. Due to

persistent attacks by Somalis, they were shielded by the Pokomo and Ilwana. Thirdly,

minority speech communities also surround the Ilwana community. They include

Cushitic groups such as the Sanye/Waata (population of 13,000) and the Wardei

(population of 46,000 as of 2011), who co-exist with and share the language of the Orma

people. The Munyoyaya or Korokoro people (population of 15,000 as of 2009), who

speak a language close to Orma, occupy the land stretching from Garissa to Mbalambala

on the northern side of River Tana. Finally, while bordering the Somali community that

occupies the eastern part of Tana River, the Ilwana people also co-exist with some

Somali immigrants living in Tana River regions like Madogo and Bura.

Figure 1: Speech communities neighbouring Ilwana

11 In Figure 1, above, it can be seen that there are some six speech communities

neighbouring the Ilwana people. There is also, however, a seventh category of minority

languages (such as Bajuni, Dahalo and Boni) with a very small number of speakers,

although their influence on the Ilwana is insignificant as the languages have become

extinct. These neighbouring speech communities have exerted enormous socio-

economic and linguistic pressure on the Ilwana community, potentially leading to the

decline of the language in domain use (Nurse 1994). As most socio-economic and

religious facilities are shared, including common market centres, schools, health

centres, government offices and mosques, it is necessary to use the lingua franca,

especially Kiswahili, for communicative purposes. The language contact situation and

the sociolinguistic influence of these communities on the Ilwana language have,

nonetheless, not been subject to comprehensive research and documentation. This

scenario prompts the following question: how has the language contact situation

contributed to Ilwana language shift and/or maintenance?

Research Methodology

Sample Demographics

12 The study sample consisted of 100 Ilwana respondents residing in Chewele, Sala and

Madogo. It was not feasible to select the informants randomly, and some variables such

as educational background, occupation, and age were not represented equally for

various reasons. Firstly, there are no official government records that differentiate

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Ilwana speakers in terms of age, occupation, gender, or educational background.

Secondly, there are no Ilwana, Orma or Pokomo clubs or organisations through which

the researcher could make direct contact with individual members of the community.

Thirdly, the topic seemed to be very sensitive for most people of Ilwana origin owing to

their minority status, meaning some were hesitant to respond to questions. Purposive

sampling and a social networking model were used through a friend of a friend.

Tables 1 and 2 present the demographic characteristics of the informants by age,

gender, occupation and education background.

Table 1: Distribution of the sample by age

Age No. of respondents

5 – 10 0

11 – 20 37

21 – 30 35

31 – 40 18

41 – 50 4

51 – 60 4

61+ 2

Total number of respondents 100

Table 2: Distribution of the sample by gender

Gender No. of respondents

Males 54

Females 46

Total number of respondents 100

Table 3: Distribution of the sample by occupation

Occupation No. of respondents

Students 40

Teachers 4

Civil servants 4

Police 3

Homemakers 22

Drivers 4

Nurses 4

Craftsmen 5

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Mechanics and technicians 5

Traders 2

Shop assistants 3

Retired 1

No occupation 3

Total number of respondents 100

Table 4: Distribution of the sample by educational background

Educational background No. of respondents

Illiterate 3

Standard 1-8 15

Form 1-4 52

College education 16

University education 14

Total number of respondents 100

Data Collection

13 The data was collected using the Swadesh wordlist of 100 lexical items, as well as

interview schedules, personal observations, and structured questionnaires. This

process was supported by research assistants, community leaders and village heads,

who all helped in the distribution of questionnaires and the organisation of face-to-face

interview schedules. The questionnaire was designed to collect data on language use in

various domains, as well as attitudes towards and degree of proficiency in Ilwana,

Kiswahili, and any other Tana River languages. The data was coded, transcribed and

analysed qualitatively.

Theoretical Framework

14 This study was guided by Fishman’s (1964) domain theory and Matras’ (2009) theory of

language contact. The domain theory is grounded on the maxim: who speaks what

language when and where (Fishman 1991). The who premise is used to identify speakers

(such as the Ilwana of Tana River and surrounding speech communities), the what

question is used to refer to the dialect(s) under study (for example, the Ilwana and

neighbouring dialects), while when refers to the time of interaction, and where to the

locales of interaction or domains of language use. The domains or contexts of language

use include the home, school, market, office, public or communal functions, religious

situations, and so forth. This theory was particularly important for the analysis of the

data collected on Ilwana language proficiency and language use in different domains.

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15 Matras’ theory is anchored in the argument that most contemporary societies are

multilingual and most people speak two or more languages. “Language contact” is

defined as sociolinguistic situations that characterise the interaction of speakers of

different languages, thereby leading them to influence one another (Matras 2009: i).

The central arguments of the framework hinge on the analysis of sociolinguistic

aspects such as language convergence, code-switching in conversation, replication of

linguistic matter or language transfer, lexical borrowing, grammatical and

phonological borrowing, and mixed languages.

16 The theoretical approach makes generalisations about various manifestations of

language contact in the realm of language and communication. The ultimate result of

language contact is that it may lead to language change when a borrowed linguistic

element is accepted and becomes commonplace. In this way, the morpho-syntactic

constructions, collective language learning and use of loanwords lead to language

convergence. Of great concern to the study are three sociolinguistic aspects of the

contact-induced influence on language and multilingual or bilingual status: lexical

borrowing, language transfer or replication, and code-switching.

Sociolinguistic Aspects of the Contact-Induced Influence on

Language and Multilingual or Bilingual Status

Lexical Borrowing

17 Matras (2009) argues that the Swadesh list is a lexico-statistical method that mainly

establishes genetic relatedness of different languages rather than determining the

stability of vocabulary in situations of contact. Nouns are more prominent among

borrowed lexical word classes, as made evident by existing statistics on borrowing. The

high frequency of noun loan words in any language can be attributed to their

referential functions in naming concepts, objects, activities and roles. It is on this note

that the study examined lexical borrowing as a key sociolinguistic aspect of the

language contact situation between Ilwana and other Tana River languages. The study

did not examine grammatical and phonological borrowing among the native languages.

Pattern Replication or Transfer

18 A distinction is made between borrowing and replication. Matras (2009) states that the

former focuses too much on ownership and boundaries between the linguistic items

involved. Replication is considered as a dynamic process of sharing a structure or

word-form, adopting, applying and using it: the nativisation of a structure or pattern.

The terms “copying” or “language transfer” refer to the creative use of an item within

the recipient language. As Matras (2009: 238) states: “Pattern replication is

characterised as a change to an inherited structure of the ‘replica’ language, inspired

by a structure of the ‘model language’.” This may result in a change of meaning.

Code-Switching

19 This sociolinguistic aspect is defined differently by different scholars. Some define it as

the use of different languages within an utterance, conversational exchange, or phrase.

Others argue that code-mixing refers to unique morphological structures derived from

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the blending of morphemes from different languages. These divergent definitions can

nonetheless remain contained by the single term.

A distinction is commonly made between “alternational” code-switching –alternating languages between utterances or sentences—, and “insertional” code-switching—the insertion of a word or phrase into an utterance or sentence formedin a particular base or frame language. (Matras 2009: 119)

20 These three sociolinguistic aspects play a key role in analyzing the extent to which the

Ilwana language has undergone shift or been maintained in various contexts.

Analysis of Data and Discussion

21 Analysis of the data is presented in three main sub-sections: analysis of language

proficiency, domain use and sociolinguistic aspects, and their contribution to language

shift and/or maintenance.

Language Proficiency

22 Table 5 represents the “can” questions that assess the informants’ proficiency in Ilwana

and Kiswahili. The table elicits data on the informants’ abilities to listen, speak, read,

and write in both languages. The informants were asked to rate their language ability

in the four language areas on a three-point scale. The possible question responses were

“Yes,” “No,” and “A little.”

Table 5: Response percentages: Language proficiency in Ilwana and Kiswahili

No. Language skillsYes

(%)

No

(%)

A little

(%)

1. Can you understand a conversation in Ilwana 50 27 23

2. Can you engage in a conversation in Ilwana 43 39 12

3. Can you read a text in Ilwana 19 69 12

4. Can you write in Ilwana 14 76 10

5. Can you understand Kiswahili 98 0 2

6. Can you read a text in Kiswahili 96 3 1

7. Can you write in Kiswahili 95 4 1

8.Can you speak any of Tana River languages e.g. Pokomo or

Orma15 75 10

23 The findings clearly demonstrate that the respondents rated their language abilities in

Kiswahili significantly higher than their Ilwana language proficiency. 98% of the

respondents could understand a conversation in Kiswahili, whereas only 50% could

understand a conversation in Ilwana. Interestingly, 96% and 95% of informants could

read and write in Kiswahili respectively. However, they rated their Kiswahili speaking

ability higher than their writing or reading abilities. While 43% could engage in a

conversation in

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24 Ilwana, only 19% and 14% of them could read and write in Ilwana respectively. This

could be attributed to the fact that there are no schools in the Bura Constituency that

offer the curriculum delivered in Ilwana language. Kiswahili and English are the official

languages of the school domain and the languages of instruction in schools. On this

matter, Gracia (2003: 27-28) writes, “When coupled with schooling that pays no

attention to teaching reading and writing in the ethnic home language, resultant

exposure to that language is minimal and productive skills in the language are severely

limited.” It can be argued that the Ilwana speakers’ language proficiency in Ilwana has

been decreasing with each generation, while there has been a remarkable increase in

Kiswahili proficiency. This leads to the conclusion that the Ilwana language has been

going through a gradual language shift.

Language use

Table 6: Response percentages: Language use in different domains

QuestionsOnly

Kisw.

Mostly

Kisw.

Kisw. &

Ilwana

Mostly

Ilwana

Only

Ilwana

No

responseTotal

1. What language do you use

when writing SMS or letters?78 3 19 _ _ _ 100

2. What language do you use

when you speak with your

neighbours?

10 10 20 47 12 _ 100

3. What language do use you

when speaking with your

children?

13 14 22 20 31 _ 100

4. What language do you use

with your parents and the

elderly?

12 11 22 14 41 _ 100

5. What language do you use

at home with your brothers

and sisters?

15 13 20 19 33 _ 100

6. What language do you use

during Ilwana social

occasions?

16 10 20 24 30 _ 100

7. What language do you use

when you meet friends in the

neighbourhood?

13 12 23 20 32 _ 100

8. What language do you use

when you meet friends at

school or university?

68 25 5 2 _ _ 100

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9. What language do you use

in official functions or in the

workplace?

70 26 4 _ _ _ 100

10. What language do you use

when invoking or praying?76 21 3 _ _ _ 100

11. What language do you use

when buying goods from a

shop or market?

66 32 2 _ _ _ 100

25 Table 6 shows that the majority of the respondents tend to use Ilwana predominantly in

the family, neighbourhood or home domains or contexts, to varying degrees, while

Kiswahili is used in formal contexts, especially at school and during official functions.

Questions 3, 4 and 5 show that there is a general trend among family members to

communicate with each other in Ilwana. More specifically, 21% of the respondents tend

to use “only Ilwana” when speaking to their children, whereas only 13% of them tend

to use “only Kiswahili.” Moreover, 33% of the respondents tend to use “only Ilwana” at

home when speaking to their brothers and sisters, whereas 15% use “only Kiswahili.”

This demonstrates that, over time, Kiswahili is starting to overtake Ilwana for usage in

the home domain. It seems that some parents do not have the willingness or desire to

pass on Ilwana to their children. This is a significant indication that Ilwana is likely to

rapidly fade away in the next generation or two. Such a conclusion is consistent with

Fishman’s (1991: 2000b) assertions that a basic principle for ensuring the maintenance

of an ethnic language is to enforce and encourage its use at home and in the

community.

26 With regards to the community, and as indicated in questions 2, 6, 7, and 8, it is evident

that Ilwana is used as a medium for social interactions with neighbours (47%), at Ilwana

social occasions (30%), and with friends in the neighbourhood (32%). However, with

friends at school or at university (88%), Kiswahili (68%) is predominantly used instead.

If we argue that the relative purpose of Kiswahili and Ilwana use in questions 2 and 8 is

to fulfil social needs, that is, to communicate effectively and to be better understood by

Ilwana people, then the fairly dominant but declining use of Ilwana in social and formal

occasions—“only Ilwana” (12% versus 0%), “mostly Ilwana” (47% versus 2%), “Kiswahili

and Ilwana” (20% versus 5%) − could be interpreted in one of two ways. Firstly, Ilwana

speakers are rapidly regressing in their spoken use of their ethnic language and

Kiswahili is gradually replacing it. Alternatively, there has been a change in the Ilwana

identity. The Kiswahili language is prestigious and the use of Ilwana is stigmatised in

the community, especially among students and the educated or working class. As

Mugaddam (2006: 129) notes, minority indigenous language speakers tend not to use

their own languages in public cosmopolitan contexts for fear of being stigmatised. By

speaking and communicating in Kiswahili, they show that they are part of the Bantu

nation, or, as they express it in local terms, watu wenye ungwana ama watu wangwana,

that is, “polite” or “kind” people.

27 To quote one of the students whom we interviewed about this issue, “… though I am a

Malakote, Madogo is my hometown. I was born in Madogo and my grandparents fought

with the Somali Shifta.” The Shifta was a heterogeneous Somali militia that agitated for

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the secession of the North-Eastern Province in the 1960s and 1970s, at a time known as

the “Shifta War.” The results also indicate that 78% of the Ilwana people tend to use

Kiswahili for writing personal letters, 19% tend to use Kiswahili and Ilwana, but none

use only Ilwana. This finding is consistent with our previous claim that there is no

additional or language-specific educational support given to the Ilwana people. This

means that their writing and reading skills in that language are severely limited. We

can also infer that the language inherited from parents and elderly people is passed on

orally, and not in written form. Finally, it is not surprising that Kiswahili, and to a large

extent Arabic, are the languages used when praying and invoking. This use of Arabic is

common among Muslims, whether Arab or otherwise, as Arabic is considered the

language of worship and prayer.

Sociolinguistic Aspects

28 Relying on the integrated theory of language contact, the study identified and analysed

three sociolinguistic aspects as indicators of language shift: lexical borrowing, language

transfer and code-switching. These aspects are examined below.

Lexical Borrowing

29 This sociolinguistic concept is examined at various levels of cross-linguistic analysis.

First, between Ilwana and Pokomo. Second, between Bantu and Cushitic languages in

Tana River. Third, among Cushitic languages.

30 Previous studies have documented the extensive borrowing from Cushitic Orma and

Kiswahili lexical items in the Ilwana language (Nurse 1994, Heine & Nurse 2008: 215).

The data in our corpus validates the argument that Ilwana is a mixed language. In

reference to the Swadesh 100 wordlist (see table 7 below), a few examples have been

extracted for illustration.

Table 7: Lexical relationship among Tana River languages

Noun Ilwana Sing. – Pl. Pokomo Sing. – Pl. Orma Sing. – Pl. Somali Sing. – Pl.

1. womanmoka –

wakamwalemuke – wake naden – naden

dumar – haween/

haweeno

2. man molome – mwali mulume – walumenamich/diir –

namich /diirrag/nin – nimano

3. person modo – dagha mutu – wantu nam – inama qof – ruux

4. fish seh – seh nisu –nisu qurtumi – qurtumi malaay – malaay

5. bird nyoni – nyoni nyuni – nyunishimpire –

shimpire

shimbir –

shimbiro

6. louse jawa – jawa nchawa – nchawa hinjiran – hinjiran injir – injir

7. tree mote – miti muhi – mihimuk – muk mukh –

mukheangeedh – geedho

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8. seed beu- beu mbeyu – mbeyubeyu – beyu guma –

gumaabuur – abuur

9. roothida – hidena

moze – mezemuzi – mizi

hidh – hidhena

hidh –hidh

xidhidh –

xidhidho

10. bark ipada – mapada kafi – makafi qoi – qoi qolof – qolfa

11. skin gogha – goghankingo – nkingo

gogha – gogha

goga –goga goga –

gogolemaqaar – maqaaro

13. bone mufupa – mifupa mufupha –mifupha lafen – lafen laf – laf

14. egg imayi – mayi igi – magi okokan – okokan ukun – ukumo

15. tail mkila – mikila mkila – mikila ege – ege seeyn – seema

16. blood sakame – sakame digha – digha dig – diggooryaan –

gooryamo

17. grease grisis – grisi bada – mabada gris – gris gris – gris

18. animal binesa – binesa binisa - binisa bines –binesxawayan -

xawayan

19. head kechwa – bhichwa kichwa – vichwa matta – mattamadhax –

madhaxyo

20. ear isikilo – masikilo sikilo – masikilo gur – guren dag – dago

21. eye izicho – macho jicho – macho ill – ill il – indo

31 Example 8: the word for “seed” is “beu” in Ilwana and “mbeyu” in Pokomo. This same

form is replicated in Orma and Munyoyaya, where the variant “beyu” is used. It can be

argued that since Bantus are historically known to be farmers, while Cushites were

nomadic pastoralists, the word was borrowed from the Bantu lexical form.

32 Example 9: the Orma word for “root” is “hidh” (singular) and “hidhena” (plural), while

the Ilwana equivalents are “hida” and “hidena.” This same lexical form is found in all

the Cushitic languages. Only Pokomo, a Bantu language, does not use this form.

However, it can be observed that the Cushitic morphological form “dh” is elided in the

Ilwana language. This is in line with the phonological rule that states that, where a

consonant exists in the foreign language (Cushitic), and in the absence of a vowel, the

Ilwana language inserts a vowel. This is illustrated below:

Ø → [+Cons.]/ V – V

33 Some words, which were possibly borrowed from Cushitic Orma, are given an

additional letter h, e.g. “gogha” in Ilwana as compared to “goga” (skin) in Orma and

Munyoyaya (Example 11).

34 In Example 16, the Pokomo have borrowed the word “digh,” meaning “blood,” from

either the Orma or the Wardei form “dig.”

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35 The data in our corpus also reveals that some words have been borrowed from English

and directly translated into the indigenous language, for example, “grisi” (grease)

(Example 17).

36 Example 18 shows related lexical forms (cognates) among Bantu and some Cushitic

languages, for example, the word “animal,” which is “binesa” in Ilwana, “binisa” in

Pokomo, and “bines” in Orma.

37 Overall, six out of the 60 nouns in the corpus (10%) appear in at least seven of the eight

Tana River languages under our study.

38 It is also worth noting the discernible correlation between Ilwana and Pokomo lexical

items. This phenomenon may not be surprising as they are both East-Coast Bantu

peoples belonging to the Sabaki sub-group. 23 of the 60 words (38%) are cognates.

Examples include:

Woman: Moka – muke (Example 1)Bird: Nyoni – nyuni (Example 5)Louse: Jawa – nchawa (Example 6)Seed: Beu – bewu (Example 8)Leaf: iramba – ramba (Example 9)Bone: mufupa – mufupha (Example 13)Tail: mkila – mikila (Example 15)Head: kechwa – kichwa (Example 19)Ear: isikilo – sikilo (Example 20)Eye: izicho – jicho (Example 21)

39 In view of the above, this paper argues that, despite the common ancestry, the Ilwana

language seems to have heavily borrowed from Pokomo besides Orma and Kiswahili.

This argument is informed by the Ilwana language’s minority status and the socio-

economic and linguistic dominance of the more populous speech communities.

40 Notably, there was also noted an instance of borrowing from Kiswahili through a

receptor language, like Pokomo, as seen in examples 13, 25 and 21 above.

41 Moreover, Marhan and Somali have equally similar lexical forms, and Marhan is

considered a dialect of the Somali language. For instance, 35 out of 60 nouns (58%) in

our corpus are cognates, which would appear to validate the claim that they share a

common ancestry. Similarly, Orma and Munyoyaya are closely related, as suggested by

the 43 cognates out of 60 words (71%).

Pattern Replication or Language Transfer

42 Replication (as discussed in Section 2 above) involves the act of copying a grammatical

aspect or syntactical feature. As a mixed language, Ilwana copies Cushitic plural forms.

For example, the following singular and plural forms do not conform to the Bantu noun

class system.

Man: molome – mwali

Person: modo – dagha

43 The word “molome” for “man” belongs to Class 1, but the plural form does not exhibit

the Class 2 plural marking. The same applies in the case of the second example.

44 Cushitic affixes in Ilwana consist of four plural markers as exemplified by: “-ena,”“-era,”

“-waki,” and “-imo” below:

-ena: ngoma (drum) – ngomena (drums) hida (root) – hidena (roots)

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book (cheek) – bokwena (cheeks) siba (lion) – sibena (lions)-era: simpo (stick) – simpira (sticks) saapu (palm) – sapwira (palms) lupaanga (machete) – paangira (machetes)-waki: siiru (knife) – siirwaki (knives) gheri (giraffe) – gherwaki (giraffes)-imo: bana (branch) – banimo (branches) babala (door) – babalimo (doors) nyaala (claw) – nyaalimo (claws)

45 From the above examples, it can be observed that, in Ilwana, plurals are formed with

suffixes, unlike a great many of the Bantu languages, in which plurals are formed with

prefixes. This is indicative of nominal plural borrowing from the Cushitic languages,

which is morphologically unmarked in the noun-only pairing Classes 9-10 (Nurse 1994).

46 Heine and Nurse (2008) validate some of the above observations. They note that Ilwana

upholds the Bantu class system, apart from two unusual singular-plural pairings. The

first pairing is class 1-10 for ethnonyms (names of ethnic groups), as demonstrated

below.

(1) Swahili (Sabaki, Bantu)M-pokomo (singular) Wa-pokomo (plural) (English: Pokomo person)(2) Ilwana (Sabaki, Bantu)Mo-bokomo (singular) Bokomo (plural) (English: Pokomo person)

47 The second pairing is Classes 9-2 for kinship relations, for which there is no change in

form. Examples include:

msoro – msoro (son)mati – mati (wife)bawarhah – bawarhah (husband)baba – baba (father)

48 The Ilwana language has also copied a small set of possessive pronouns from Cushitic.

There is a small set of new possessive pronouns. These are formed by a connectorplus independent pronoun, thus -a- 'of plus imi 'I, me' gives –emi my, mine'. Whilethis is easy to understand, and probably widespread world wide, it is definitely notwidespread in Bantu. It is a pattern found in Cushitic, however. (Nurse 1994: 216)

49 The above sociolinguistic aspects—lexical borrowing and pattern transfer—are

indicators that the Ilwana language has undergone an internal lexico-structural shift in

its word formation process. This shift has been gradually naturalised and upheld as the

norm. In accordance with the findings presented in this paper, Ilwana is evidently a

mixed language that copies Cushitic grammatical structures and patterns and

integrates them in its linguistic repertoire.

Code-Switching

50 Most of the speakers in Tana River converse in two or more languages. Kiswahili is used

as the lingua franca in various social domains, including schools, market centres,

government services, workplaces, and even religious functions. As a result, code-

switching normally occurs in shared socio-economic domains. Moreover, code-

switching is commonplace among young people, who select from their rich linguistic

repertoire a set of lexical items of their choice in order to communicate with their

peers. The Ilwana case study is a good example of this (as illustrated by Table 8, below).

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51 This sociolinguistic survey of the current state of the Ilwana language reveals two

fundamental observations. Firstly, it demonstrates that there is significant language

variation between the younger and older population groups. Secondly, it reveals that

there has been a sharp decline in the use of Ilwana in various domains. The first

scenario highlights the intergenerational language variation which is an apparent

indicator of internal shift. This in turn may have been occasioned by contact-induced

influence from other neighbouring languages. Where the older generations speak

mostly Ilwana amongst themselves, the young people prefer code-switching,

particularly in social interactions, as shown in Table 8 below.

Table 8: The Ilwana Lexical Choices across Generations

Language used by

younger generations

Language used by

the middle-aged

Language used by

older generations

Kiswahili

formEnglish gloss

1.a) NA moka wangu moka wemi mke wangu my wife

b) N/A moka wetu wakamwale wetu wake wetu our wives

2. a) modo huyu modo oyo modo oyo mtu huyuthis man or

person

b) modo hawa dagha hawa dagha hawa watu hawa These people

3. bwa – bwahera bwa – bwa bwa – bwambwa –

mbwadog – dogs

4. luala – luala luala – luala lokobe – gobekucha –

kucha

fingernail –

fingernails

5. seh – sehera seh – seh seh – shesamaki –

samakifish – fish

6. mti – miti mote – miti mote – miti mti – miti tree – trees

7. kichwa – vichwa kichwa – vichwa kechwa – bhichwakichwa –

vichwahead – heads

8. sikio – masikio isikilo – masikilo isikilo – masikilosikio –

masikioear – ears

9. jicho – macho izicho – macho izicho – machojicho –

machoeye – eyes

10. mfupa – mifupa mfupa – mifupa mufupa – mifupamfupa –

mifupabone – bones

11. mbegu – mbegu beu – beu beu – beumbegu –

mbeguseed – seeds

52 From the above examples, a difference can be seen between the younger and older

generations in their use of singular and plural forms. In examples 1 and 2, the younger

generations use moka and modo for both singular and plural forms, instead wakamwale

and dagha, respectively. In Example 1, the singular noun moka (wife) is combined with

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the Kiswahili possessive form wangu, instead of wemi (my). The same can be said of modo

huyu being used instead of modo oyo (Example 2.a.). In Example 3, the younger

generations use a different plural form, bwahera (dogs), instead of bwa, for both the

singular and plural forms (dog or dogs). In Example 4, they incorrectly use luala,

instead of lokobe, to refer to a person’s fingernails. Luala refers, in fact, to a lion’s claws.

Furthermore, Example 5 shows that the younger generations use seh (fish) in the

singular form, and sehera (fish) for the plural form. This is contrary to the norm, where

the word seh is used for both the singular and plural form.

53 The above examples demonstrate that the younger generations prefer a mixture of

Ilwana and Kiswahili. This is shown by examples 1 and 2. They also tend to add the

plural morpheme “-era” to the noun stem or base, contrary to the norm, as shown by

examples 3 and 5 above. These examples indicate that a gradual internal language shift

is occurring, as exemplified by the adoption of Kiswahili lexical items (through code-

switching), lexico-semantic change, and morphological restructuring among the

younger generations. This internal shift is an indicator that the language is highly

unstable and undergoing systematic shift from one generation to the next.

54 In terms of domain use, the Ilwana language is mostly used at home and at certain

communal social events. Due to shared socio-economic facilities, it is not used in

schools, religious discourse, government offices, or formal meetings. This scenario has

been influenced by neighbouring languages exerting enormous pressure on the Ilwana

language. This has led to a sharp decline in the domain usage.

Conclusion

55 In this paper, we have examined the notions of language shift and/or maintenance in

the context of Ilwana language use. The research has revealed that Ilwana speakers are

gradually shifting towards the use of Kiswahili. Based on the respondents’ answers to

the questionnaire and information disclosed in interviews, the shift may be attributed

to the following causes:

56 Firstly, the many years of marginalisation by successive Kenyan independent

governments, along with some three centuries of language contact with both Bantu and

Cushitic speech communities, leading to a reduced domain use of Ilwana and declining

proficiency, especially among the younger generations. The majority of the Ilwana

vocabulary has been borrowed from neighbouring languages, as demonstrated in

Table 7.

57 Secondly, the research findings indicate that the declining use of Ilwana at home and in

the community may be attributed to the little effort being made by parents to

encourage the use of Ilwana in their children. From this evidence it may be

hypothesised that the proficiency of the next generation will be severely limited. This

is consistent with Fishman’s (1991) assertion that, for an ethnic language to be

maintained, concerted efforts must be made to enforce it at home and in the

community.

58 Thirdly, the language shift has been accelerated by two major forces, one being internal

factors characterised by the limited domain use and declining proficiency of Ilwana due

to the growing influence of Kiswahili as a regional lingua franca, as well as the negative

attitude of the younger generations—particular students and the well-educated—

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towards speaking Ilwana. The second force concerns the external sociolinguistic and

economic factors resulting from language contact with surrounding communities. The

language contact situation has had a major impact on pattern replication, with massive

borrowing from dominant neighbouring languages like Pokomo and Orma occurring.

This has made Ilwana emerge as a language that unites the Northern/Cushitic and

Southern/Bantu linguistic varieties, as argued by Nurse (1994). This is a manifestation

of inter-ethnic tolerance, mutual integration and peaceful co-existence among the

Ilwana and surrounding speech communities.

59 Finally, this research paper concludes that for the Ilwana language to be maintained

and enhanced in its usage across various contexts, there must be institutional support

from the government and NGOs for the promotion of language revitalisation

programmes. These could include teaching Ilwana language literacy in lower primary

levels, adult literacy classes, and the printing and distribution of study materials, as

just some example. Furthermore, if the Ilwana people were listed as a distinct ethnic

group in the Kenyan national census, the Ilwana language could be more effectively

maintained. Finally, further research needs to be conducted on the phonological,

morphological, syntactical and semantical structure of the Ilwana language.

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ABSTRACTS

Tana River County is home to a number of Bantu and Cushitic speech communities. The

dominant groups are the Pokomo and the Orma, while other groups include the Waata/Sanye,

Wardei, Ilwana/Malakote, Dahalo, Munyo-yaya, and some Somalis. Of significant interest to this

study is the Ilwana language, which incorporates a unique linguistic blend of the Bantu and

Cushitic languages. This paper presents research findings about the extent to which the Ilwana

language has undergone language shift or maintenance. It focuses on Ilwana proficiency, the

domain use of this language, and sociolinguistic indicators about language shift and/or

maintenance. Findings suggest that the Ilwana language is gradually shifting towards Kiswahili,

and that it is predominantly used at home and in a few communal gatherings and events. The

results further reveal that there are significant linguistic similarities (cognates) with the

neighbouring Pokomo and the Cushitic Orma languages. Some of the lexical items also show

signification correlation with certain Kiswahili words. Lexical borrowing, language transfer and

code-switching are thus considered clear indicators of the linguistic blending that characterises

the many decades of language contact between the Ilwana and other Tana River ethnic groups. In

this sense, this paper argues that indigenous languages demand greater documentation as they

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play a fundamental role in promoting cultural preservation, collective and individual identity,

and regional and national cohesion.

INDEX

Keywords: language shift, language maintenance, sociolinguistic analysis, Ilwana language, Tana

River County

Geographical index: Kenya

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