Paper short abstract:

It is often assumed that peasants resist or reject large-scale land deals. Yet peasants in Kenya are reacting to the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport corridor in diverse ways. Analysing their reactions reveals that identity influences whether groups reject, resist, or seek incorporation in land deals.

Paper long abstract:

The Lamu Port—South Sudan—Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor in Kenya will include the world's longest heated pipeline once construction is complete. This mega-infrastructure project will eventually transport crude oil from northern Kenya to a refinery on its coast, and is meant to increase Kenya's energy exports and incorporate its remote northern regions into the national economy. Spanning over 2,000 km, LAPSSET will bisect myriad rural land uses, including community conservancies, national protected areas, pastoralist group ranches, and small-scale farms, with implications for corresponding livelihoods and ecologies. Accordingly, the goal of this paper is to analyse how different groups of rural land users are reacting to LAPSSET, and why they are reacting in the ways that they do. While conventional scholarship on rural social movements claims that peasant groups almost always resist or reject large-scale land deals, analysing rural reactions to LAPSSET reveals the complex, variegated nature of peasant agency. For example, while groups such as pastoralists are rejecting LAPSSET, others such as small-scale farmers are seeking incorporation in land deals. This paper ultimately argues that identity - along with belief, knowledge, and value systems - not only influences whether groups reject, resist, or accept large-scale land deals, but that it is also shaped by reactions to such developments. The analysis in this paper is based on nine months of fieldwork carried out in Kenya between 2014 and 2016.