How Officialising Private Land Ownership Contributed to Land-grabbing in Kenya

The vernacular meaning of land-grabbing in Kenya stresses the role played by the State in land thefts, reminding us that, historically, state power was built up through control over land. Accusations of land grabbing also convey territorial representations of ethnic and national belonging, anchoring the legitimacy of land ownership. We focus on the actors and scales involved in officialising private land ownership to highlight institutionally-rooted strategies to control land and contrasting formalisations. We relate these to “national” and “ethnic” sovereignty. Case studies help us to understand the local transformation of territorial control over land and power ramifications whether with regard to large-scale international land acquisitions or domestic land grabbing.