Description
Book SynopsisFinalist for the African Studies Association's 2021 Best Book Prize. Explores the limits of law in changing unequal land relations in Kenya. Why, despite the introduction of new land laws beginning in 2012, has there been an increase in land grabbing in Kenya? Why has legislation failed to address long standing grievances about grossly unequal land distribution? This important book suggests that questions of justice should be central to discussions of African land reform. Constitutional reformers in Kenya promised transformative changes in land relations. However, the reality has disappointed. Land law reforms since 2010 have been more concerned with the administration of land and with bureaucratic power than with the real consequences of unequal access to land for ordinary Kenyans. Manji documents this thwarted struggle and surveys the prospects for genuine change. Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa. Ambreena Manji is Professor of Land Law and Development at the School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University. Between 2010 and 2014, she was Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. Her books include The Politics of Land Reform in Africa (2006). Vita Books: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and South Africa.
Trade ReviewThe book makes several important contributions to scholarship on land politics in Kenya. -- Canadian Journal of African Studies
Building on her own previous work, as well as the work of notable scholars such as Ghai, McAuslan and Harbeson, Manji provides a detailed overview of the history of the land struggle beginning in the colonial era, through the various commissions of inquiry, the formulation of the NLP, and the incorporation of land issues into the Constitution and drafting of the 2012 land laws. -- Journal of Modern African Studies
Table of ContentsForeword by Dr Willy Mutunga Introduction: What We Talk About When We Talk About Land Land Reform in Kenya: The History of an Idea Making Mischief: Land in Modern Kenya Land and Constitutional Change The New Institutional Framework for Land Governance Land Governance Before the Supreme Court Rethinking Historical Land Injustices Taking Justice Seriously
