Publications

Rails through rangelands: redefining infrastructure frontiers and patronage in Kenya’s Maasai land

Release Date

2025-01

Language

  • English

Topics

  • Violent Environments and Infrastructures

Focusing on Suswa, this study analyses the impact of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project on labour dynamics in local communities in Kenya’s southern rangelands. Using the patron–client framework, we explore the complex relationship between the SGR, labour practices and contestations during its construction. Following a qualitative approach, data collection between 2021 and 2023 reveals how the elites promised jobs and claimed to follow labour regulations but covertly promoted patron–clients’ interests, resulting in social disparities through inequitable labour distribution, power dynamics and violent protests by the local workers, predominantly from the Maasai ethnic and the broader labourers in Suswa.

PDF-Download

(905.85 KB)
download icon

Cite as

https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2024.2437000
@article{OwinoSchetter2025, author = "Evelyne Atieno Owino and Conrad Schetter", title = "Rails through rangelands: redefining infrastructure frontiers and patronage in Kenya’s Maasai land", latexTitle = "Rails through rangelands: redefining infrastructure frontiers and patronage in Kenya’s Maasai land", publisher = "Taylor & Francis", booktitle = " Territory, Politics, Governance", institution = "Taylor & Francis", type = "Journal article", pages = "1 -19", year = "2025", address = "London", }

Document-Type

Journal article

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2024.2437000

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Place

London

Is part of / In:

Title:
Territory, Politics, Governance