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The Persistence of the Commons: Economic Theory and Community Decision-Making on Land Tenure in Voi , Kenya

by Ellen M. Bassett Abstract Projects to secure land rights for the urban poor have been implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa for thirty years. A recurrent issue is providing sustainable land tenure for settlement residents/project beneficiaries. Commonly, individual titles have been used. Often recipients sell their land rights to more affluent city dwellers, exacerbating the growth of slums. Policymakers […]

Securing Reform? Power Sharing and Civil-Security Relations in Kenya and Zimbabwe

by Alexander Noyes Abstract While international actors use power sharing to resolve a vast range of conflicts in Africa and view state security reform as critical to achieving durable peace, there is a distinct lack of studies that examine the relationship between power sharing and security sector reform. This paper argues that, in the cases of […]

What is in a Coconut? An Ethnoecological Analysis of Mining, Social Displacement, Vulnerability, and Development in Rural Kenya

by Willice O. Abuya Abstract Studies have shown that corporate-community and state-community conflict in mining communities in Africa revolves around at least four issues: land ownership, “unfair” compensation practices, inequitable resource distribution, and environmental degradation. These issues underpin conventional discourses on equity and compensational justice. A relatively obscure line of analysis concerns the meanings that […]