Kenyan Land Disputes, Political-Tenure Evolution and Social Conflict Theories Summary

In a number of Kenyan regions, land ownership and land use rights are often in dispute resulting into land disputes. These land disputes have far reaching negative effects on the certainty of land markets, tenure and food security, economic production and reduction of poverty. Often, the land disputes lead to; civil strife, loss of lives, population displacement, destruction of property and international humanitarian crisis. A trace of the tenure-political evolution reveals failure of land order which was occasioned by colonialists and later the successive Kenyan governments. To consolidate power; the colonialist took proprietary powers over land. Among others this led to suppression and subversion of indigenous land governance structures, institutions and laws and the emergence of the state and its agents as the dominant factor in land relations. This was bitterly contested by the natives leading to Kenya’s independence. However, at independence the Kenyan elites confirmed and safeguarded the unpopular property rights, laws and administrative structures acquired during the colonial period thus prolonging the existing and breeding new land disputes. Land disputes are purely a type of social conflict given their causes, form and their net effects. Though the general theories of social conflicts are known, comprehensive and systematic knowledge of the theories behind land disputes is still limited and inconclusive. This discussion paper looks into the nature of causes of Kenyan land disputes and tenure-political evolution to discuss the Kenyan land disputes in the context of the known general theories of social conflict. Kenyan land disputes are discussed in the context of theory of Materialist Interpretatio