The Intersectionality of Colonialism and Gǐkũyũ Land Tenure Systems: A Feminist Political Ecology Perspective

Abstract

The Agĩkũyũ in Kenya revered land as a spiritual gift from God in which communities and nature were inextricably linked to preserve sacred ecosystems and biodiversity. However, the intersectionality with colonialism and the expansion of capitalism propelled by the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885, changed the landscape tragically. In 1893, it was affirmed that the ownership of land was by occupational rights and unoccupied land belonged to the colonial state and white settlers. In 1895, Kenya became part of the British East Africa Protectorate and the Crown Land Ordinance of 1902 made Kenya a British Colony, in which by 1915, the Kenyan land became under the British Empire. Many locations especially in Gǐkũyũ areas experienced devastating displacement, landlessness and human adaptations in new ecological conditions, control and resources use in the agricultural pastoral communities. These problems led to political consciousness and in 1954 under the Swynnerton Plan, the Gǐkũyũ land tenure system became the basis for land reforms until 1970s. This paper extends the literature on colonialism and land ownership mainly centering on Africans reacting to the British imperialism and histories of underdevelopment by addressing the intersectionality of colonialism and the dynamic of gendered responses to colonialism at intra-household level, and as the base of history, political and economic systems influencing women, health, and ecology. The focus is on Gĩkũyũ families within the contexts of colonial and post- colonial policies of land consolidation, adjudication and land registration to private ownership of property. The land confiscated by the Europeans, deeply affected the Gǐkũyũ ethnic group, and it was their grievances over land that eventually became Kenya’s most controversial political project leading to the conflict between British, and the Mau Mau movement, and finally to independence in 1963. I use a feminist political ecology, which is inclusive to indigenous knowledge and spirituality in order to capture the understanding of and the experiences of communities responding to global processes of political, economic and ecological changes.