Original Article

Young Perspectives on Pastoral Rangeland Privatization: Intimate

Exclusions at the Intersection of Youth Identities
Caroline Archambault

Universiteit Utrecht, International Development Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Abstract The recent privatization of Maasai rangelands in Southern Kenya has not only facilitated
land grabbing by outsiders, but, more pervasively, has given rise to intimate exclusions, whereby the
young generation’s access to land and land-based resources has changed dramatically. Yet, young people’s
views and experiences are neglected in local, academic and policy debates on land tenure reform. On the
basis of long-term fieldwork and mixed methods approaches in a community that has recently undergone
privatization, this article explores young perspectives on this process, demonstrating the unique positions
of youth as compared with adults and the divergent views of youth shaped by other intersecting social
dimensions of difference, such as class, gender and ethnicity. Bringing in young perspectives deepens our
understanding of the role of tenure change in development and social transformation, providing critical
insights.

La privatisation récente des pâturages des Masaï du sud du Kenya a non seulement facilité l'accaparement
des terres par des parties étrangères, mais, plus systématiquement encore, a donné lieu à des exclusions
profondes qui ont radicalement modifié l’accès de la jeune génération à la terre et à ses ressources. Pourtant,
les opinions et les expériences de la jeunesse ne sont pas considérées dans les débats locaux, universitaires et
politiques sur la réforme foncière. Basé sur une méthodologie mixte et une longue étude de terrain dans une
communauté qui a récemment traversé un processus de privatisation, cet article examine les perceptions des
jeunes concernant ce processus. Il met en évidence les divergences de points de vue entre les jeunes et les
adultes, divergences dues à d’autres dimensions sociales de la différence qui s’entrecroisent, telles que la
classe sociale, le sexe et l'origine ethnique. La prise en compte des opinions des jeunes apporte un précieux
éclairage et permet ainsi de mieux comprendre les effets des modifications des régimes fonciers sur le
développement et la transformation sociale.

European Journal of Development Research (2014) 26, 204–218. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2013.59;

published online 30 January 2014
Keywords: land privatization; youth; social change; pastoralism; Maasai

Introduction

Recent studies have highlighted how expectations of growing commercial returns from agriculture,
food and energy security strategies, combined with cheap land in the South, have driven an
unprecedented ‘rush’ or ‘grab’ for land in the Global South (Borras et al, 2011; Cotula, 2012).
While much of this literature focuses on land acquisitions by foreign investors, there is recognition
that national elites are important actors in this process and that national policies and tenure regimes
in the South are critical factors enabling land transfers. In many African countries, Kenya no
exception, this rush for land is taking place at a time when decades of neoliberal economic policy
and increasing local competition for land has led to widespread processes of land registration and
land titling (Peters, 2009). In some cases, this has, perhaps inadvertently, increased the vulnerability
of local populations to displacements through land acquisitions and grabs.

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 Young Perspectives on Pastoral Privatization

Such is the case in the southern rangelands of Kenya, home to the Maasai, where previously held
collective holdings have been undergoing the process of privatization into individual free-hold titles in
an effort to safeguard the land from encroachment by neighboring ethnic groups, national elites and
the state. Unfortunately, this protective measure of tenure reform has also opened up the possibilities
of purchase, which has resulted in widespread land sales, creating boundaries of exclusion to critical
grazing resources and disrupting pastoralism. While reports from different communities implicate
land speculators, national elites and even foreign entities in these purchases, this article shifts attention
away from outside acquisitions and instead focuses on the ‘intimate exclusions’ that rangeland
privatization has given rise to within communities and within families (Hall et al, 2011). More
specifically, this article analyzes the impact of privatization on the young members of society in the
community of Elangata Wuas, where large-scale foreign land acquisitions have not yet occurred but
where selling of newly acquired individual parcels has accelerated. While young people are not only
officially excluded from tenure decision making, they are also grappling with the new forms of
exclusion that enclosure has introduced. Young people’s perspective on and experience with land
tenure reform has been neglected in local, academic and policy debates. Historical and cultural
conceptualizations of the child as incompetent and an assumption that young people lack interest in
such matters has contributed to a view that their participation in land planning is unnecessary (Francis
and Lorenzo, 2002; Knowles-Yanez, 2005). However, following the more recent movements around
children’s rights, youth activism and participatory development, combined with the new and growing
field of Children and Youth Studies, much greater attention is being placed on including young
people in community decision making and participatory development strategies (Frank, 2001).
Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the community of Elangata Wuas, this article
sheds light on how school-going youth mediate powerful governing narratives of privatization as
modernization in relation to their own particular circumstances and at the intersection of other
aspects of social identity (ethnicity, class and gender). In doing so, this article lends support to
more recent calls for a relational study of children and youth and development, in which
children’s ideas and actions are understood in relation to other social actors, adults and other
children (Mayall, 2002). The recent interest from the development policy arena in integrating
young perspectives has come with a risk of flattening childhoods, reducing them to a single
variable and unitary perspective. This article illustrates how other identities apart from age,
including gender, ethnicity, class, socio-economic status and various family characteristics,
importantly shape the views and positions of young people on the issue of privatization.
Traversing these social distinctions, however, there is widespread recognition among young
people that privatization is reconfiguring social relations in Elangata Wuas. Among adult
landowners privatization has created conflicts among neighbors over land allocations, boundaries
and trespassing. But among young people the central tensions of exclusion are even more
‘intimate’, inter-generational and familial, as young people under private land holdings more
directly depend on community elders, parents and siblings to gain access to land.
Bringing in young perspectives to issues of land tenure transformation deepens our under-
standing of the role of tenure change in processes of development and social transformation, and
provides necessary insights for a truly integrated and informed land tenure debate aimed at
identifying more socially equitable outcomes.

Elangata Wuas

Elangata Wuas, the predominantly Maasai community that features as the central site of this
study, is a former group ranch that stretches over 200 000 acres in the southern district of Kajiado

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and is home to approximately 10 500 residents1. The group ranch was first established in 1972 as
part of a tenure experiment designed by the newly independent government to modernize Maasai
pastoralism (Ng’ethe, 1993). The Maasai have long been viewed as inefficient livestock
managers and such narratives still persist today (Galaty, 2002). They are perceived as maintaining
an irrational love for cattle that inhibits them from modernizing and commercializing their
production. The narratives maintain that the main drive for Maasai is the accumulation of
livestock, even at the expense of the environment, paying no attention to the carrying capacity of
land and sustaining perverse incentives to destroy the commons. Privatization of communal land
has long been viewed as the solution to Maasai inefficiencies. Such narratives of mismanagement
have justified numerous displacements of the Maasai, including colonial annexations, large
conservation acquisitions, private land allocations to elite, and encroachments by neighboring
ethnic groups or national elites (Galaty, 2013). The group ranch system was believed to be a
temporary tenure compromise, a replacement of what was believed to be an open-access com-
mons with a collective holding that could easily be further transformed into individual private
holdings. Under the group ranch model, a designated group would collectively hold title to a
demarcated piece of land. Group ranch membership was open to all adult males who customarily
resided in the designated territories at the time of initial registration. The ritual circumcision of an
age group marks male adulthood among the Maasai. In the context of group ranch membership
this meant that all circumcised men were eligible for membership.2 Members elected a
management committee, bestowed with the responsibility for the day-to-day management of the
ranch. Major decisions would be voted on by the entire membership during the mandatory annual
general meeting. It is important to note that both women and young people were excluded from
becoming members of the group ranch and therefore had no direct, formal ownership or control
over land use and property arrangements.
In total, 129 group ranches were established in the Rift Valley Province, which encompasses
Maasailand (Ng’ethe, 1993). They varied significantly in size and population. Elangata Wuas group
ranch comprised 489 registered male, adult members. Alongside the creation of Elangata Wuas group
ranch, 17 large estates (each with over 1000 acres and some with as much as 5000 acres) were given to
influential Maasai elite from the community as private holdings. The justification for allocating these
estates was to demonstrate to the community the advantages of individual private title.
In 1989, the Elangata Wuas membership followed the wave of privatization that swept
through the southern rangelands and voted to dismantle the group ranch and privatize their
holdings. Consistent with other communities, the reasons included dissatisfaction with the
management of the group ranches and growing concern that this tenure experiment did not
ultimately protect Maasai from further encroachments (Galaty, 1992; Mwangi, 2006). Privatiza-
tion involved a deciding vote by the registered membership, followed by the sub-division of all
non-public utility lands into equal-sized parcels to be allocated to each registered member. Owing
to corruption in the first attempt at allocation, it took until 2006 before Elangata Wuas members
started to receive their private titles for their 270-acre shares.
Elangata Wuas is ecologically typical of a semi-arid rangeland. Low altitudes, variable and
little rainfall, and poor soils combine to produce an environment with little agricultural potential.
Consequently, the community depends largely on livestock husbandry (keeping cattle, goats and
sheep, and a few camels) as their primary economic activity. As has been found in other Maasai
regions, livelihood strategies have diversified and pastoralism is almost always part of a portfolio
of livelihood pursuits (Homewood et al, 2009). The majority of families complement livestock
rearing with non-pastoral income-generating activities (IGAs) (wage employment, small business
and petty trade). A household survey administered in 2008/2009 revealed that 80.7 per cent of
houses owned livestock but only 27.2 per cent of houses relied exclusively on pastoralism as the

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only IGA. A total of 17.3 per cent of houses engaged in cultivation and 62.4 per cent of houses
had a non-pastoral and non-agricultural IGA. For women, the most common non-pastoral/non-
agricultural IGAs included charcoal burning, selling milk, grass and/or firewood, and owning or
running a shop. For men, the most common IGAs were working at a neighboring marble quarry,
fencing and/or digging wells, and charcoal burning.
As is evident in other communities, privatization has disrupted livestock mobility and access
to key pastoral resources (Kimani and Pickard, 1998; Lesorogol, 2008; Mwangi, 2007). Community
members have been excluded from critical water and grazing resources by the common practice of
fencing private land and growing incidences of land sales. Residents must now negotiate, sometimes
even pay for, access to land and resources through their various social networks. This has created
significant social tension in the community as neighbors find themselves in conflicts over boundaries
and access corridors and monitor closely incidences of trespassing. There is, consequently, a
widespread sentiment that pastoralism is much more difficult to pursue in this environment and has
become unviable as a primary livelihood pursuit for future generations.
Given these pressures to diversify among the younger generation, it is not surprising that there
has been a rapid and dramatic increase in school participation. On the basis of a 2005 household
survey focused on education, over two-thirds (66 per cent) of children aged 6–15 years at the time
of the survey were pursuing primary school compared with just over a third (39 per cent) of
people having ever attended primary school among those aged 36–45 years at the time of the survey
(Archambault, 2007). For the young generation, the school has become an essential site within which
notions of personhood and identity are negotiated. Schooling has reduced dramatically the time the
young generation spends at home with parents and other family members and the extent to which
they are involved in household routines, including the pursuit of pastoralism and other land-based
activities. The school environment is an obvious and central site of governmentality (see Morarji, this
volume). With the explicit mandate of educating the young generation to be modern citizens of the
state, narratives of pastoralism, privatization and modernization are prevalent. There is a great deal of
space in the curriculum devoted to teaching young students about farming, including beef and dairy
farming. Yet pastoralism is marginalized. For example, it does not feature alongside farming and
fishing in the eight units devoted to ‘Occupations’ in the English curriculum. It is relegated to a sub-
unit in Grade 6 Social Science on ‘Pastoralism in Kenya and Uganda’, where statements such as ‘The
animals are kept in large numbers and are hardly sold’ reveal national prejudices and discourses of
pastoral mismanagement. In the Science curriculum a mention of herding is sidelined by much more
elaborate discussions of ‘modern’ methods of strip paddocking, tethering, zero grazing and stall
feeding. Privatization of pastoral rangelands is not explicitly discussed in the curriculum but
representations of modern life as settled living in the pursuit of agricultural or urban occupations give
a strong suggestion that customary collective tenure is anachronistic and not in keeping with the
nation’s modernizing trajectory.
The educated young generation is actively pursuing livelihoods outside of pastoralism. On the
basis of the 2008/2009 household survey, the large majority of families in Elangata Wuas had at
least one child reported to be living outside of the natal homestead (Archambault, 2013). The
large majority of these children (65 per cent) were daughters married in other homes and
communities and younger people moving out for the purposes of schooling (24 per cent). Until 3
years ago, Elangata Wuas did not have a secondary school, and therefore children had to leave the
community to pursue studies beyond primary. There are still no tertiary educational opportunities
in this area, which consequently contributes to out-migration by the young educated in pursuit of
higher learning and vocational studies. The data also indicates that 12 per cent of children living
away from their natal homesteads had moved out for the purposes of employment. Especially the
educated youth often seek employment opportunities in Nairobi or other neighboring towns.

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However, the employment market is very competitive and many of the youth have trouble
obtaining secure employment and return to Elangata Wuas. While some, especially young males,
remain idle and refuse to return to herding livestock, others (young educated women in particular)
are pursuing innovative forms of entrepreneurship. A very recent census of business ownership in
several of the town centers throughout Elangata Wuas, administered as part of the author’s
ongoing research program, revealed that women run the large majority of town businesses and
many of these women are young and educated. There has also been a recent diversification of
business ventures in town. Whereas a town, like Mile 46, the central town in the community, used
to only comprise general stores, bars and restaurants, today it hosts salons, car parts and repair
services, and mobile banking shops, among other new businesses. However, despite these new
opportunities outside of pastoralism and the strong narratives that devalue livestock husbandry,
many of the youth still aspire to maintain pastoralism as one of many livelihood pursuits. As is
evident below in the student essays, young students do not passively adopt national discourses.
Their own diverse narratives about the merits and demerits of privatization reflect the various
contexts and circumstances influencing the impacts of tenure change on their lives.

Methods

The adult perspective on privatization is based on research generated from three different research
programs spanning the last decade (2003-ongoing). The first was a 2-year ethnographic doctoral
study in anthropology on education and social change. Qualitative methods of data collection were
central to this study but several quantitative methods were also employed, including a large
household survey randomly sampling 15 per cent of homesteads and interviewing 182 husbands
and 263 wives. This research was soon followed by an interdisciplinary research program
investigating the causes and consequences of tenure change in nine communities, including
Elangata Wuas, across the Maasai rangelands of Southern Kenya. This program was initiated in
2007 and is still ongoing. A variety of methods of data collection have been utilized, including the
use of a household survey administered in 2008/2009. In Elangata Wuas, this survey was conducted
as a second-round longitudinal survey on the same homesteads in 2005, and captured 108 husbands
and 126 wives. Information was collected on basic socio-economic and demographic characteristics
followed by a series of open-ended qualitative questions prompting opinions on privatization. To
represent the adult perspective, this article draws heavily on the responses to a series of open-ended
questions eliciting opinions on whether privatization has been good or bad and how it has impacted
poverty, pastoralism, agriculture, livelihood pursuits, land disputes and social conflict, women,
Maasai culture, and corruption. We also asked respondents to share whatever message they would
like to send to the community regarding privatization.
A third research initiative in Elangata Wuas, started in 2010 and still ongoing, looks
specifically at gender dimensions of tenure transformation and incorporates a more explicit
generational perspective. Again, a variety of methods have been employed but there is a specific
focus on 12 family case studies.
Young people’s views on privatization were directly elicited for this article through an essay
method and follow-up qualitative interviews. These were not directly matched to the survey but
were an independent exercise. An essay composition competition was organized at one of the
central primary schools among Class VII and VIII pupils, who are typically between the ages of
13 and 15 years. It was held on 10 July 2012 and a total of 73 students participated, with 20 boys
and 18 girls from Class VII and 26 boys and 9 girls from Class VIII.3 Two Canadian volunteer
teachers at the school facilitated the competition. Such essay competitions are relatively common

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at this school, taking place at least on an annual basis.4 Essays were specially recognized and
awarded prizes (ex. framed certificates, geometry sets, crayons and other school supplies) in the
categories of Overall Best Essay, Most Creative, Best Grammar and Best Argument. All
participating students were awarded a certificate of participation during the award ceremony, all
essays were corrected and returned to the students, and all essays were compiled along with a
picture of the student into a book, which is displayed in the neighboring community library.
For this essay competition students were given the following instructions written in English on
a piece of paper and read aloud and were provided with a Swahili translation on the blackboard5:
Because young people in Elangata Wuas are too young to own land, they are often not asked their opinion
on land issues. Please write an essay on your opinion on land privatization in Elangata Wuas and make
sure to answer each of the following questions with detail.

1. Do you think privatization is good or bad for you?

2. What are some of the advantages for you of privatization?
3. What are some of the disadvantages for you of privatization?
4. Do you think it is important for young people like yourself to share their opinions on
privatization with the community? Why or why not?
5. If privatization were being voted on today, would you vote yes or no for privatization?
A short self-administered questionnaire was included on the instruction page and collected
information on basic family characteristics such as the occupation, level of education and
livestock holdings of parents, and some information on family size and age and level of education
of all siblings. Students were given two consecutive class sessions, amounting to 70 min, to
complete their essays.6
There are obvious limitations to this method. First and foremost one must be careful to not
overgeneralize the views expressed in these essays as views shared by all young people in the
Elangata Wuas community. These views are generated in a classroom setting where, as argued
above, students are exposed to particular discursive constructions on the topic of privatization.
Perspectives from non-educated youth, who have less exposure to these prevalent narratives of
modernization, may be quite different. The variation in essays and the nuances expressed by
students around the issue suggest, however, that this may not be as limiting and non-
representative as one could assume. The classroom and competition setting may also elicit a
particular type of response by students. They may be influenced to construct their arguments less
on their genuine ideas and experiences than on what they feel the teachers or judges want to hear.
On the basis of the author’s long-term experience with this method in this setting, however, the
essays lacked typical constructions that students tend to use in essays when trying to conform to
specific scholastic expectations. For example, when the essay method was first developed in
Elangata Wuas, students often filled their essays with irrelevant and randomly inserted proverbs.
While at first this was very puzzling, it later was made clear that in the KCPE exam, the student
essays are given extra marks for the incorporation of proverbs. The limitations of expression in an
English-language essay were, in part, addressed by conducting follow-up interviews with seven
of the students, specially selected as representing different positions and perspectives on
privatization, to have them elaborate on their points and their personal circumstances.

Generational Perspectives on Privatization: Changing Social Relations

According to a comparison between the school essays and the household survey, this young
population has, overall, a more favorable attitude toward privatization, especially among the

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female students. Eighty per cent of the female students and 73 per cent of the male students wrote
that they would vote yes to privatization. In contrast, in the household survey among husbands
and wives (of varying ages above 20 years), 43 per cent of females and 63 per cent of males stated
that privatization was a good thing.
In general, the students raised similar sets of issues as adults when identifying both the
advantages and disadvantages of privatization. Control, independence and ownership, the ability
to settle and invest in a home, and opportunities for diversification are all commonly invoked
advantages by both adults and young people according to the survey and the essays. Similarly,
young people and adults share concerns around selling, land scarcity and landlessness, as well as
social conflict. However, important differences lie in the priorities and emphasis of the young as
well as in the nature of some of these impacts. Furthermore, some issues present in adult
narratives do not feature at all in the student essays and vice versa.

Advantages of Privatization

Regardless of their overall position on privatization, more than half of the students (58 per cent)
emphasized in their essays a desire to own and control land in an independent manner. While this
is certainly not absent in the accounts of adults, it does seem to be of heightened importance
among these young people and probably reflects not only their relative junior position with regard
to decision-making power and control over resources in the socio-political hierarchy of the
Maasai, but also their exposure to modernizing national discourses that emphasize individual
rights and freedom to innovate and develop over any sense of collective or communal rights. An
excerpt from Moses’ essay (Class VII) highlights this view7:
Yes it is good because every person has their own land. So if we want to do everything with our land it is
ok. So nobody can tell us you do not do this on your land … You have a right to sell or to do for your land
what you want.
Many essays reflected a resistance to collective governance where permissions to innovate or
develop must be attained from others who have been granted authority to represent the group.
As young people who have yet to marry, build their house and start their families, they do not
yet have a home. Although Maasai families are far more sedentarized than they have been in
previous decades, they are still residentially quite mobile as they position themselves in strategic
ways to access grazing resources and a variety of social services (schools, transport, markets,
clinics and so on). Young people cannot easily predict where their parents will live or where they
will have an opportunity to settle once they are ready to start their own families. A certain sense of
anxiety associated with this uncertainty, also fueled by a strong sedentarizing discourse
permeating the primary school curriculum, is perceptible in their discussions about privatization
(Archambault, 2010). Almost a third of the students (32 per cent) wrote of the advantages of
privatization in knowing where they will live, settle, build their homes and belong, as Catherine
(Class VII) succinctly articulates: ‘[Subdivision of the group ranch] is very important because
everybody can get where he or she lives and many people will get their belonging’.
A third commonly invoked advantage of privatization raised by the students (mentioned in 30
per cent of the essays) was the potential IGAs and diversification possibilities afforded by having
private land. While such advantages are also commonly mentioned among adults, students were
especially creative and entrepreneurial in the opportunities made possible by privatization. This
undoubtedly reflects, in part, their greater exposure to diverse livelihood strategies and
occupations in the school syllabus. Opportunities included the renting out of resources on one’s
land (grazing, water, timber and so on), the leasing of land itself, the renting out of properties built

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on the land, the pursuit of small businesses on the land, cultivation and the selling of produce, as
well as the sale of land. Leonard (Class VII) illustrates this young entrepreneurial spirit:
Yes it is good because it enables every person to do actions in their own vision like farm, or pastoralism
and mining in their land and they have advantages because if a person wants to fence the ranch it is
possible because they are the owner. And they can build a house for people [who] will pay money so that
they can be able to live there. And when a person sees that there are some minerals in their ranch, they can
sell these minerals through a middleman to another country.
Diversification is an important strategy for the young generation who realize that they will not be
able to rely on pastoralism as a primary mode of subsistence. It was striking, however, to note how
few students mentioned the negative implications of privatization on pastoralism more generally,
and livestock mobility more specifically, given that this is a very common concern among the adult
population. According to the survey, 66 per cent of adult respondents in Elangata Wuas reported
that land privatization made pastoralism harder to pursue, with many specifying the disruptions to
livestock mobility. This disadvantage featured in only four of the student essays. Conversely, almost
a third of the essays (32 per cent) identified privatization as an advantage for pastoralism. Much in
line with the narratives of communal mismanagement presented earlier, they argued that private
land would save pasture for animals, especially during drought periods, would protect livestock
from disease by keeping them more enclosed, and would inhibit further soil erosion by reducing the
necessary mobility. David’s essay (Class VIII) presents this argument clearly:
Individuals must have their own land … for conservation against soil erosion by controlling the number
of cattle they have and reducing them. The farmer must divide the land as paddocking, strip grazing, and
stallfeed to control animal parasites …

The influence of governmentality through the primary school curricular representations of

pastoralism is evident from the precision of vocabulary in David’s narrative (with terms such as
strip grazing, paddocking and stall feeding). Not a single essay made mention of the soil erosion
and grass depletion caused by the creation of well-trodden corridors passing alongside private
parcels to water sources. Without mentioning the cause of the erosion, the solution was seen in
private titling that would accommodate tree planting. Nor did students mention the inability to
keep livestock enclosed in an environment with such variable and minimal rainfall.

Disadvantages of Privatization

The most common disadvantage presented by young people (and by adults) is the concern with
land sales, mentioned in over half of the essays (52 per cent). When adults elaborate on their fears
of land selling, it is clear, for adult men especially, that they fear a loss of grazing and livestock
mobility that is associated with land selling, especially to those outside of the community. There
is also a strong fear among adults of cultural loss when non-Maasai buy properties in Elangata
Wuas and move into the community, as was evident in the survey responses. For young people
these dynamics around land sales are rarely mentioned. Their concern is primarily that parents
sell off children’s inheritance and the young people are left with nowhere to live, as Catherine
(Class VII) so clearly explains:
… [S]elling the land is buying poverty and that is very bad because when their children grow up they will
not get where they live in their own lives … Many people in our community were doing that. If my father
has 270 hectares and sold it, where would I come to live? Nowhere.
These concerns around land sales are justified as there have been growing incidences of land
sales in Elangata Wuas over the past few years. Conservative and preliminary estimates suggest
that more than 15 per cent of the private allocations have already been sold (in full or in part).

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Another prominent disadvantage raised by young and adult alike relates to the role of land
privatization in creating social conflicts and tensions (raised in 40 per cent of the essays).
According to the 2008/2009 survey, 90 per cent of adult respondents felt that sub-division was
increasing disputes in the community. Adult concerns with conflict center on the misallocation of
land parcels. The process of privatization and the distribution of land parcels among members
have been rife with conflict. Numerous cases have been brought to court over unjust land
allocations. There is also a great deal of adult concern over trespassing and expressions of
nostalgia for a time when there was a strong sense of community, an ethic of sharing and
cooperation under threat with individuation of land holdings. Young people, on the other hand,
have a very different orientation toward the issue of conflict. They tend to associate communal
land ownership with community conflict and often see privatization as a means of community
conflict resolution, as expressed by Sandra (Class VII) in her essay:
I think it is good to have privatization of our land. Everybody has its own land and they are not all coming
to stay in one place. Nowadays we cannot allow people who don’t have title deed to come and stay in our
land because many people in one place can fight … Years and years ago people didn’t have title deeds and
they were just fighting saying that ‘this is my land’ … The privatization of land has brought many
changes and that way we are staying in peace … Some of the advantages of privatization is you see that
there is no fighting. Everybody is staying on his own land looking after his own cattle. No fighting on
each other. You are on your own place just staying with your families.
Yet young people do associate privatization with greater conflict, just of a different nature and
a type of conflict rarely ever broached by their parents. Many of the students expressed concern
that land privatization leads to tension and fighting within the family, among siblings, co-wives
and spouses, and between parents and children. A customary patrilineal system of inheritance
among the Maasai specifies that land (and other assets) be passed from father to sons and
distributed equally among them. However, in practice this can be a source of significant tension
and negotiation, which these young students made clear in their essays. In her essay, Alice (Class
VIII) raised the fear that first-born (or elder) siblings or those with more influence (for example,
those who are highly educated and have big jobs) take disproportionate amounts of land or
maintain exclusive control over land resources. ‘If your brothers and sisters are bigger than you
they might sell all the land and take all the money’. Fredrick (Class VIII) fears the tension
between brothers and parents over their inheritance shares: ‘Privatization is not good for boys …
Their dad finishes the land … So the boys struggle for that small land. If we have 20 boys then
you remain with 3 or 4 acres. That family fights all day’. Another student raised the concern that
people can sell their land, misuse the money, and then expect to be assisted by their brothers and
accommodated on their land. Such situations can create considerable tensions among siblings and
other family members. In the neighboring community of Torosei large groups of young people
have mobilized against the group ranch membership, fighting to be included as members before
any vote on privatization. The tension is high and the threat of violence imminent. All of these
tensions and conflicts are intimate, often pitting young men and boys against their fathers and
brothers, and are profoundly reconfiguring social relations in the community and within families.

The Intersectionality of Young Perspectives

While many young people recognize new conflicts and tensions as a product of privatization, not
all young people are directly implicated in conflicts and family tensions. Their experiences with
privatization and their opinions about land tenure change are quite heterogeneous and are

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importantly shaped by other dimensions of identity beyond age, such as gender, ethnicity, socio-
economic status and family circumstances.
Family structure and composition, for example, plays an important role. While it is commonly
believed that family size is decreasing in Elangata Wuas (with a decrease in fertility and in rates of
polygyny), family sizes remain large. For example, 33 per cent of children (aged 17 years or below
at the time of the survey) were in polygamous families. These children had, on average, 10.7
siblings (including ‘half-siblings’ from co-wives). A total of 65.2 per cent of children were in
monogamous families and they had, on average, 3.7 siblings. Young people who are from large
polygamous families and have numerous siblings, including several older siblings with more
influence, tend to express a great deal of concern over equitable inheritance, much more so than
young people who are first-born children in a small family. For example, Sally (Class VII) comes
from a relatively large polygamous family. Her father married two women and has 12 children.
Sally’s mother is his first wife and Sally is the first-born, followed by four sisters and the last-born,
a brother of only a year. Sally’s father’s second wife has four boys and two girls. Sally’s family is
from a neighboring group ranch that has not yet privatized. During a follow-up interview, Sally
shares her prediction that when their land is privatized, it will cause considerable family tension:
We will hate each other. There will be tension between the two families and hatred between mom and
dad. When land will be subdivided, dad favors the other family most … Now my mom doesn’t have a big
boy and the second wife has a big boy so he [the big boy of the second wife] will be controlling my dad so
that for us children of the first wife, we’ll get small portions. For us girls we won’t get anything. Maybe
our brother but he is young. Maybe he can get a smaller portion because he is the only boy in our mom’s
house and he is young. This can create an argument. All of us will argue because we don’t want our
younger brother to be exploited.
According to Maasai models of growth and development, the age or maturity of a person
(whether someone is ‘big’ or ‘small’) is usually determined in relation to skills they have
developed as opposed to chronological age (Pratt, 2003). However, when it comes to issues of
land acquisition through inheritance chronological age takes on great significance. As Sally’s
anxieties express, birth order within the family is a major determinant in allocations of land.
However, as young people obtain higher and higher levels of education and secure employment
they can also levy considerable power over older siblings and uneducated parents and get
themselves disproportionate shares of land. That there is so much inequality in levels of education
and wealth within Maasai families, between siblings and parents, is an important characteristic of
inter-generational dynamics that shape intimate struggles over land access and control.
Returning to Sally above, while she fears that subdivision will create tensions at a very
intimate level, between her family members, she does also believe that there will be important
advantages. She envisages that privatization will bring about demographic changes in homesteads
and households, which she views as a positive development. ‘It will reduce the number of people in
a family. This is good because everyone will go to their home and to their parcels’. She believes that
separating from her co-mother’s family will not significantly change her family’s workload. In fact,
she thinks it could even slightly reduce her workload as, currently, there is no labor pooling between
the two wives’ families, with the exception that Sally and her mother do fetch water for the co-
mother, something she will then have to do on her own if they are separated. Other polygamous
families have excellent relationships and do considerable labor pooling. For those families, the
demographic consequences of privatization may be viewed unfavorably, leading not only to
increases in workload but also to feelings of social separation and isolation.
The impact of privatization on family composition when raised by young people tends to be more
of a concern among young females, illustrating one important aspect of gender differentiation in
tenure perspectives among young people. Other gendered perspectives include young females

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placing more weight on the advantages of privatization for settling and building permanent
homes. This is consistent with customary gendered divisions of labor, where building and
managing the household is primarily the work of women. Young females also tend to stress the
IGAs of cultivation, which is again an area of female control. Given customary patrilocal
inheritance patterns, issues of inheritance tend to be less of a concern among young females.
Socio-economic class distinctions, however, can importantly intersect with gender and make
inheritance a central issue for some young girls. For example, Claudia (Class VII), whose parents
are both well educated and whose father has a professional occupation as an engineer, expects to
receive her own share, along with her sisters, of the family inheritance. During a follow-up
interview, she admits that her brothers will likely receive a larger share since they will depend on
this land to settle with their families.
Socio-economic status also plays a significant role in shaping land-based aspirations and thus
impacts perspectives and positions on privatization. Joshua (Class VIII), for example, comes
from a relatively wealthy family. His father owns 300 acres of land (which includes his father’s
own allocation as a registered member of Elangata Wuas and a share he inherited from his father).
While he claims, in a follow-up interview, that his family recently lost hundreds of cattle and
goats due to drought, they still have 24 cows and 60 goats, which is still well above the average
livestock holdings in the community. His father has 4 wives, also an indication of considerable
wealth, and 26 children, of whom only 8 are male. His father has not sold any land. Joshua is
confident that he will inherit enough land to sustain a herd. He is interested in cultivating too and
for that plans on purchasing additional land. He describes how privatization facilitates and
improves pastoralism as animals can be kept in their ranches, fed ‘good grasses’ and protected
from diseases. The only disadvantage mentioned is the expenses associated with modernizing
inputs such as electrical fencing.
In contrast to this narrative is that of Stephen (Class VIII), whose father passed away and
whose mother is heavily reliant on pastoralism but supplements livestock husbandry with
charcoal burning and selling tea and bread on market days. Stephen comes from a polygamous
family. His father had 2 wives and 14 children, 8 of whom are boys. His father was allocated 270
acres, where his mother now lives. They moved onto this land from their previous location where
they had carried out some small cultivation and had an iron-roofed house. On this land they grow
nothing and live in a traditional Maasai house. Stephen’s mother is the first wife and they have
only 1 cow and 20 goats. The second wife, who has 2 cows and 20 goats, moved to another place
with her own animals. According to a follow-up interview, Stephen strongly disapproves of
privatization, arguing that it leads to poverty and displacement. He is concerned that in his
situation he will not inherit sufficient land to make a home or to maintain a pastoral livelihood.
Stephen and Joshua represent a rather large group of young people who aspire toward
pastoralism, something noticeably common in the essays on privatization and in other essay
exercises completed by students in Elangata Wuas. Yet, from their different family, class and
socio-economic positions they have perspectives diametrically opposed on the role of privatiza-
tion in realizing such aspirations. More consistent with the literature on youth and rural
transformation, which has identified a strong lack of interest among the young generation in
rural farming and rural futures, there are also young people in Elangata Wuas who do not aspire to
pastoralism (Porter et al, 2010; White, 2012). Claudia (Class VII) shares her non-pastoral, non-
rural aspirations during a follow-up interview:
No [I don’t want to keep livestock]. I want to start a business. I have never admired keeping livestock … I
want to live in the US because it’s a good place you can see so many things. I want to be a citizen of US. I
would not want to live in Elangata Wuas … I want to do business but I will get employed first to get the
capital. I want to be the tower controller at the airport. I want to start a supermarket then employ other people.

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Given Claudia’s aspirations, it comes as no surprise that she supports privatization of land and
emphasizes that it would allow her to generate income through cultivation and other activities.
She comes from inter-ethnic parentage, her father a Maasai born in Elangata Wuas and her
mother a Kikuyu from Central Province. This might account, to some degree, for her lack of
interest in pastoralism either as a livelihood strategy or as a marker of ethnic identity. Kikuyu’s
are not customarily pastoralists but rather agriculturalists. Her parents also have above-average
education, with her father completing secondary studies and working as an engineer and her
mother a primary school graduate and owner of a local pub. It is clear that Claudia, in aspiring to
be a businesswoman, has been influenced by the diversified livelihood strategies of her parents.
The fact that she has a close relative living in the United States has also helped inform her own
desires to reside there one day.
It is evident, as these short vignettes demonstrate, that young people in Elangata Wuas
experience the impact of privatization differently. They respond to powerful narratives of
modernization from multiple positions, which lead them to form identities and aspirations that
vary with regard to their dependence on land access. It is from such a position that they reflect on
and try to make sense of the complex ways in which privatization may facilitate or challenge their
concepts of development.

Conclusion

This article has offered a window into the complex realities of young people in Elangata Wuas as
they attempt to make sense of dramatic tenure changes and the implications this may have on
them. A relational approach, in which young people’s perspectives are compared and contrasted
with those of adults, highlights important differences in emphasis, priorities and experiences that
are being left out of discussions and debates. It is important to recognize that while much
literature has focused on the young generation’s lack of interest in rural, agrarian livelihoods,
many young Maasai in Elangata Wuas appear to be heavily vested in maintaining some form of
pastoralism. However, the essays have made evident that the pervasive modernization narratives
present in the school setting, which represent transhumant pastoralism (under collective manage-
ment) as an archaic and environmentally destructive livelihood, have had considerable influence
in shaping young people’s ideas about how best to pursue livestock husbandry. Emphasis on the
benefits accrued by privatization with regard to ownership, control, freedom and sedentarization
by the young students clearly resists the traditional form of pastoralism based on communal
property, collective governance structures and transhumant mobility. Young people seem to
either aspire to having a few animals to meet basic needs or an extensive herd accommodated on a
very large ranch. Young people also clearly aspire to diversify their livelihood pursuits,
supplementing livestock keeping, and look favorably to privatization in facilitating new types of
IGAs and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Both adults and young people express a great deal of concern over land sales and
dispossessions, as well as social conflict brought about by privatization. However, due to their
structural positions in society, young people harbor particular insecurities in relation to securing a
place to live and having a (land) base from which to raise and support their families when it
comes time to do so. Consequently, their concerns over land sales and land loss center on fears
that their parents (fathers mainly) will sell off their inheritance, while for adults concerns center
on exclusion from land-based resources and the influence of outsiders buying up lands. Social
conflict linked to privatization is experienced in very different ways among young people
compared with adults. Adults focus their worries on the (mis)allocations of land and on concerns

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around trespassing, social conflicts that create tensions among neighbors and other community
members, whereas young people are very concerned about the process of inheritance, which
threatens to create significant tensions within families, among parents and siblings. Such intimate
levels of exclusion and social conflict go unrecognized in debates over privatization. At a time
when inter-generational relations are changing with inequalities in educational opportunities and
livelihood pursuits, the concept of ‘intimate exclusions’ needs to be applied and pursued at the
most intimate levels, understanding how land tenure transformations are impacting relations
between parents and children, siblings and spouses.
Such an inter-generational relationality should be accompanied by its intra-generational
equivalent. There are important differences between young people in the spaces and structural
positions they occupy in society based on a number of intersecting forms of identity. The student
essays and follow-up interviews have highlighted how ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status
and different family characteristics (family size, birth order and parents’ background) are all
important dimensions shaping young people’s experience with and ideas about privatization.
Non-Maasai children and youth, depending on their intention of residence, may look at
privatization as an opportunity to secure land, whereas Maasai youth may fear that privatization
provides opportunities for further land alienation by other ethnic groups. For youth not aspiring
toward a pastoral-based livelihood, the impact of privatization is much less relevant than to a
young person who is fully invested and rooted in animal husbandry not only as a livelihood but as
a marker of identity. Young people from wealthy backgrounds express far less concern about
possible landlessness or land scarcity than those from more modest or poorer positions. Similarly,
those with smaller families appear to be far less concerned with inheritance practices and
potential sibling conflicts than those from big families with many older, and more educated,
brothers. Narratives from young males tend to focus on aspects of privatization that relate to their
gendered roles and responsibilities, which include the technicalities of herding and the
technological innovations in animal husbandry. They are also very focused on issues of
inheritance as the recipients of land under the customary patrilineal system. Young females
focus more than their male counterparts on the possibilities of permanent houses and settlement,
new opportunities for cultivation and the selling of produce, and the implications for their
workloads, such as firewood collection.
Including young perspectives is critical to understanding the full process of social transforma-
tion brought about by any process of tenure change, be it land privatization of African rangelands
or large-scale land acquisitions in Latin America. As this article has illustrated, young people
raise different issues and concerns than adults and they identify new forms of exclusions. They
highlight the need for attention to be paid to the ‘intimate exclusions’ that take place within
families, between parents and children, siblings and spouses. How these concerns, opportunities
and exclusions intersect with other aspects of social difference (gender, ethnicity, family structure
and socio-economic status) illuminates the new configurations of power in society and gives a
more precise understanding of who is gaining and who is losing from tenure change.

Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a VENI research grant from the Dutch Academy of Sciences (NWO) and a
Standard Research Grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council obtained by John G.
Galaty of McGill University. I would like to express my appreciation to my field research coordinator
Elizabeth Kyengo, my team of local research assistants, Ezekiel Roimen, Gladys Naisula Masaa and Eddah
Senetoi, and the many residents of Elangata Wuas who participated and supported this work. I am also
grateful to my data analyst Arvind Eyunni.

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Notes
1. Population estimates are extrapolated from a household survey conducted in 2005 (Archambault, 2007).
2. This effectively means that men in Elangata Wuas who are roughly 35 years of age and younger today
are not members as they were too young to be circumcised at the time of group ranch formation.
3. Twelve essays were ineligible or incomplete and thus the textual analysis that follows is based on 60
essays, 29 of which are from Class VII and 31 from Class VIII; 34 are written by male students and 26
by female students.
4. The author first began these essay exercises during her doctoral field research to elicit the perspective of
schoolchildren on a wide variety of topics. The essay assignment mimics a part of the Kenya Certificate
of Primary Education leaving examination, in which students are required to write an English essay on a
given topic. It proved to be a very valuable activity for the students in the area. Starting in 2008, Africa
SOMA, a Canadian–US international NGO, turned the essay writing into a competition among various
schools in the region and held such competitions on an annual basis.
5. Since the essays were part of the English course curriculum, students were required to write in English.
Maasai students generally speak three languages: Maa, the local mother tongue; Kiswahili, the lingua
franca of Kenya; and English, the official language of Kenya and of formal education. Proficiency in
English varies among students and does provide a limitation for expressing views.
6. Special attention was paid to ensuring the originality of the texts. Students sat at separate desks and
wrote without the use of any textbooks or other aids. They were supervised by the two volunteers and
were given minimum instructions so as to prevent mimicry of examples.
7. Student essay text has been minimally altered, correcting spelling and grammar mistakes that obscured
the meanings for readers. All proper names of students are pseudonyms. The young generations of
Maasai typically have two first names, one Christian and the other Maasai. I have used common
Christian names for the pseudonyms so as to easily reflect the gender of the student.

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