Publications

This contribution examines the ways in which frontier dynamics – the development of an agricultural frontier and a political history of violence and eviction – play out in present inter- and intracommunal relations on the outskirts of Naivasha, an economic nerve centre in Kenya’s former so-called “White Highlands”. The hilly Naivasha hinterland at the border between Nakuru and Narok counties is a frontier space, where the agricultural frontier of potato and cabbage plantations meets with the conservation frontier of the Mau Forest complex. It gained a sad prominence through the politically instigated violence that took place in Enoosupukia in 1993, where thousands of mainly Kikuyu settlers were driven out by an organized group of Maasai warriors, on the grounds of conserving the Mau Water Towers. Since then, no large-scale violence has reoccurred in the area, but the past evictions are still present through the persisting collective spatial segregation between Kikuyu and Maasai/Dorobo groups and continuous attempts by Kikuyu evictees to gain back the portions of land they had acquired prior to the evictions. Evictions are also a persistent threat for the Maasai/Dorobo population still residing in Enoosupukia. The spatial segregation of different ethnic groups brings internal divisions and class-based struggles about land access into sharper focus. The article traces the historical evolution of local intercommunal relations in concurrence with the opening and development of an agricultural, and later, a conservation frontier, and discusses how these socio-political dynamics on the frontier are linked to the development of the economic nerve centre, Naivasha.