Displaced futures or futures in displacement? Anticipations around the proposed High Grand Falls Dam in Kenya

Abstract

At COP27, the Kenyan and UK governments signed a climate finance agreement to accelerate the implementation of the High Grand Falls mega-dam on Tana River. Communities living near the dam site have been anticipating the dam construction since the post-independence era. The plans have been revived in the context of Kenya’s Vision 2030. In this article, we contribute to the literature on imagined futures and economies of anticipation by examining how potentially affected households navigate the state of uncertainty that is formed by threating images of displacement. The analysis highlights concerns about (non-)compensation and the vulnerability of households with insecure tenure arrangements in the context of infrastructure developments. We outline how the capacity to anticipate is a decisive factor in preparing for a future in displacement and how economies of anticipation emerge most notably around the land market. The article contributes to the concept of future-making in infrastructure studies. By presenting displacement as a multi-temporal process, we show how anticipated infrastructures have shaped and continue to shape the socio-economic developments of affected regions.