Left in the Dust: Infrastructural Violence of a Railway Project Through Pastoral Rangelands in Kenya

Kennedy Mkutu, Evelyne Atieno Owino, Conrad Schetter and Tessa Mkutu

Journal of Development Studies, 2025, vol. 61, issue 6, 914-930

Abstract: The southern rangelands of Kenya are home to pastoralist Maasai but are have increasingly become the site of development projects, the latest being the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the associated Inland Container Depot. The projects have had a variety of effects through land claims, compensation, environmental and property damages, employment in construction and a local investment boom. Through the lens of ‘infrastructural violence’, which is interested in how infrastructure both manifests and perpetuates structural violence, we explore the intersection of pastoral people’s marginalisation and the realities of the SGR, finding that privatisation of land has a mixed effect, while lack of inclusion in project planning, elite capture and incompleteness are key mechanisms of infrastructural violence resulting in ‘almost missed’ opportunities for connectivity and supporting diversified livelihoods.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2024.2441725

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