Competent, But Ignored: Bringing Maasai Youth into Land Tenure Decision Making

Abstract

In an effort to safeguard rangelands from encroachment by neighboring ethnic groups, national elites, and the state, Maasai from southern Kenya have been privatising collective holdings. This has led to widespread land sales, exclusion to critical grazing resources and a disrupting of pastoral production systems. While reports from different communities focus on outside acquisitions by land speculators, national elites, and even foreign entities, privatisation has also given rise to a much more intimate form of exclusion: young Maasai, who are officially excluded from tenure decision making, grapple with enclosure in the wake of this dramatic tenure change. Young people’s perspective on and experience with tenure reform has been neglected in local, academic, and policy debates. Historical and cultural assumptions of the child as incompetent and that young people lack interest in rural matters has contributed to a view that their participation in land planning is unnecessary. A study by Caroline Archambault shows however, that many young Maasai in the community of Elangata Wuas are not only interested in rangeland tenure issues but appear to be heavily vested in maintaining rangeland-based livelihoods. A series of essays on privatisation from pupils in Standard 7 and 8 revealed that while many view privatisation quite favourably and see it as an important means to facilitate a new, modern form of pastoralism, like most adults, they fear land sales, dispossession, and con#ict.