"We Are Not Going to Vote Again!" Political Violence and Reform In

Sean Furmage

2017

“WE ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAIN!” POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND REFORM IN

NORTHERN KENYA

Sean Furmage

ABSTRACT

In the months following the 2013 Kenyan elections there were multiple episodes of violence in Samburu County, including burning homes, shootings, livestock raids, violence targeting livelihoods, and hate speech. My central research question explores how these forms of violence relate to and are shaped by ongoing political reforms, focusing on the decentralization of political authority and governance to new county governments. I argue that decentralization was not a neutral, apolitical, technical process that simply changed the balance of political authority between national and regional institutions. Instead, the election of a new county government with increased powers over budgets, state resources, development projects, and public services, produced struggles around competing visions of regional and national sovereignty and citizenship. Decentralization has been profoundly shaped by national politics and long-standing debates in Kenya around independence, regional politics, marginalization, and belonging. While decentralization may have the capacity for creating political stabilities and increasing political participation, processes of reform also contain the potential for reproducing and enhancing political violence.

This dissertation is based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Samburu

County, drawing on interviews with residents, NGO staff, local leaders, and government officials, social media analysis, tracking local events and violence, and examination of political discourse. Building on anthropological approaches to violence, the state, and democracy, I

critically examine democratic reform by highlighting resident’s lived experiences of violence and reform.

Decentralization continues to be one of the dominant models for democratic reform implemented not only in Kenya, but across the African continent and globally. Taking into account the potential of reforms to contribute to violence, I suggest the need to pay closer attention to violence between election seasons and to rethink how governments, international organizations, observers, and researchers assess the outcomes of decentralization and constitutional reform. Focusing on lived experiences of peace and long-term political violence suggests a need to expand concepts of political and electoral violence to include violence in the years between elections. Governments, international organizations, policymakers, and researchers must reckon more fully with the potential for processes of reform to produce political violence, as well as create more democratic political outcomes.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...... v

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: VIOLENCE, REFORM, AND THE STATE ...... 1

CHAPTER 2 “I AM A PROUD KENYAN!” ETHNICITY, POLITICS, AND THE STATE ...... 46

CHAPTER 3 POLITICS, VIOLENCE, AND REFORM IN KENYA ...... 73

CHAPTER 4 “WE ARE STARTING TO HATE THEM AGAIN”: VIOLENCE AND THE POLITICS OF DEVOLUTION ...... 99

CHAPTER 5 “WE ARE JUST WAITING FOR PEACE”: VIOLENCE BETWEEN ELECTIONS ...... 134

CHAPTER 6 “SECURITY IS IN THE ARMS OF THE GOVERNMENT”: INSECURITY, BELONGING, AND STATE VIOLENCE ...... 162

CHAPTER 7 “FINDING KIBARUA”: VIOLENCE TARGETING LIVELIHOODS AND ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP ...... 194

CHAPTER 8 “BE CAREFUL WITH UR WORDS”: ONLINE HARMFUL SPEECH AND NATIONAL POLITICS ...... 228

CHAPTER 9 ...... 263

CONCLUSION: DECENTRALIZING VIOLENCE? ...... 263

REFERENCES ...... 283

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration

Figure 1: A Turkana Resident's Home a Few Months After it was Set Alight in Late 2013...... 1

Figure 2: Map of Kenya Showing Samburu County ...... 34

Figure 3: Map of Samburu County (with Neighboring Counties) ...... 35

Figure 4: Samburu County Showing New Administrative Boundaries After Devolution ...... 36

Figure 5: View of Maralal Town...... 38

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: VIOLENCE, REFORM, AND THE STATE

Figure 1: A Turkana Resident's Home a Few Months After it was Set Alight in Late 2013. Photo by Sean Furmage.

Burning Houses

I receive a call from a friend telling me that things are bad in town. I should stay at home.

A police officer shot and killed a young student leader at a protest outside the local police station. Stores and businesses in the center of town board up. Parents and guardians rush to pick children up from school. Later, petrol poured onto mattresses lights up the evening.

Sarah calls me: "They are burning houses!" The police are not coming. Sarah, her son, grandmother, and a few neighbors all crowd into one small room, hoping the gathering crowd will not set fire to a house with people inside. I call everyone I know who might have the necessary clout to move the police to intervene. Nothing but quiet, apologetic murmurs. I break my failure to Sarah. We keep checking in. Each time she sounds more and more frantic, crying on the phone. Other friends tell me not to go up there. Not knowing what to do, I stay at home.

Our last phone call that night, Sarah tells me she just hopes they will survive the night and we can talk in the morning.

A few weeks later Sarah leaves to look for work in a nearby county. Her grandmother said she is too old to be sleeping under beds and thinking of death every day. They have heard gunshots around where they stay now. But her son is not afraid. After reassurances from neighbors that everything is okay he thinks that bullets here must not kill people like they do at home.

In the two months since houses were burned there have been a number of shooting attacks. People speak to me of young men on motorcycles roaming neighborhoods at night, stopping briefly to pump bullets through windows. Multiple people have been killed or injured in their homes at night. In response, many residents sleep under beds, or leave their places in the evening to sleep in the center of town, or in church buildings, where they feel safer. Many of those able to have left for nearby counties in search of security and work.

Understanding Violence and Devolution in Samburu County

During 2013 and 2014 there were multiple episodes of violence in Samburu County, including burning homes and destroying possessions, shootings and killings, livestock raids, violence targeting livelihoods, threats, and hate speech. My central research question explores

how these forms of violence relate to and are shaped by ongoing political reforms, paying particular attention to how political violence unfolds in the years between elections. I also ask how residents of Samburu County understand, interpret, and experience reforms and their consequences in their everyday lives. Further, I consider how violence, and responses to violence, connect to residents’ hopes for devolution and new county governments and their visions of belonging in the county and nation. I focus on attacks against Turkana residents living in Samburu’s county capital, Maralal, which peaked between October 2013 and February 2014.

However, I place this violence—as many residents do—within a larger context of political violence in Kenya.

Devolution—the transfer of political authority and governance to new county governments—both contributes to violence and its meaning and practice continues to be shaped by histories of political violence and regional governance in Kenya. The uneven implementation of devolution and political rights under the 2010 constitution has renewed long-standing struggles around regional sovereignty, political belonging, and rights to the political and economic benefits that county governments can provide. Violence connected to devolution is not exceptional and instead can only be understood within the larger context of political violence in

Kenya, in particular during multiparty democratic reforms since the 1990s. Further, violence and struggles over political rights and representation at the county level reflect, draw upon, and sometimes challenge national politics. Revealing the connections between reform and political violence highlights how violence related to elections and leaders continues at significant levels between election seasons.

While its proponents put forward devolution as an essential part of reforms aimed at addressing the causes of the Kenyan post-2007 election violence, I argue that, by transforming

and shaping contexts for political violence, devolution can at times reproduce or enhance rather than address violence. Taking into account the potential of reforms to contribute to violence, I suggest the need to pay closer attention to violence between election seasons and to rethink how governments, international organizations, observers, and researchers assess the outcomes of decentralization and constitutional reform. Reconsidering reform and what should be included in understandings of political violence may help those studying and implementing reforms to better account for how processes of reform impact people’s daily lives and attempts to secure their basic needs from the state.

The violence I explore took place just months after national and local elections in March

2013. The 2013 elections were important for a number of reasons. They were the first elections since the post-2007 election violence, during which up to 1300 people were killed and more than

650 000 displaced (HRW 2013). Many feared a repeat of election violence because the underlying causes of the violence had not been properly addressed through mediation and reform efforts since 2008. The elections were also the first since Kenya implemented the 2010 constitution mandating the devolution of a highly centralized government to new county-level administrations. Along with the presidential elections, Kenyans also voted for multiple new elected positions in the new county governments. In addition to a more decentralized government, the 2010 constitution provides new social and economic rights for Kenyan citizens and provides increased funding for counties.

The government, NGOs, and the drafters of the constitution promoted devolution as a means to bring government closer to the people, protect the interests of minority groups, and facilitate equitable sharing of national and local resources (Cheeseman et al. 2014; Ghai 2008).

Devolution and the 2010 constitution were finally implemented after more than two-decades of

struggle for reform and almost forty years of a one-party authoritarian state prior to the reintroduction of multiparty elections in the 1990s. International observers, the Kenyan supreme court and global and national media hailed the 2013 elections as free, fair and peaceful, and efforts to prevent a repeat of the previous election’s violence successful (Long et al 2014). Yet, there have been episodes of violence across Kenya, before and after the elections (Carrier and

Kochore 2014; Human Rights Watch 2013, 2014; Scott-Villiers et al. 2014; UNOCHA 2014a,

2014b).

Violence in Samburu County has frequently been accompanied by Samburu-identified residents’ narratives asserting that the county now belongs to Samburu, the majority ethnic group. Samburu-identified candidates have occupied the vast majority of the new elected and unelected positions in the county government. Many Samburu residents explained violence as a response to the actions of Turkana, the largest minority ethnic group. These residents often framed Turkana residents as uncooperative visitors who had disturbed the peace and instigated livestock raids and other criminal violence. However, county residents identifying with a range of ethnicities, including Samburu, contested these claims. Instead, they argued that county government positions had been unfairly dominated by Samburu clans with close connections to newly-elected county leaders and that county leaders are inciting, condoning, and even organizing, politically-motivated violence against Turkana residents.

As I write, journalists and observers are concerned that struggles over the political control of counties and their resources, hate speech in political rhetoric and online, and police crackdowns on protesters supporting the political opposition, indicate the real potential for serious violence during the upcoming 2017 elections (Abdille 2016; Aljazeera 2016; Aling’o

2016; HRW 2016; Somerville 2016). Yet political science studies often ignore the global

relationship between violence and elections (Rapoport and Weinberg 2012). In his overview of democratic reform on the African continent, Nic Cheeseman points out that “Despite the fact that around ¾ of African elections witnessed unrest of some form, smaller incidents…often went unreported in the Western media because journalists and commentators became desensitized to election violence in Africa…while low-level violence was largely ignored, cases of violent democratic collapse made the headlines” (Cheeseman 2015, 145). Stephanie Burchard (2015) calls for political scientists to pay more attention to lower levels of election violence, pointing out that more than half of elections, in the majority of African countries (86 per cent) experienced some level of violence since multiparty electoral reforms in the 1990s. In Kenya, while more than 300 people were killed in violence connected to political conflict at the county- level surrounding the 2013 elections (HRW 2013; 2014), the Kenyan government, media, and international observers largely focused on national-level violence and declared the 2013 elections peaceful (Burchard 2015; Bekoe 2017).

Much of the violence that occurs in Samburu County, and across northern Kenya is overlooked, or represented as timeless tribal violence in the form of livestock raids (McCabe

2004; Straight 2009)—a widely-held stereotype that continues to show up in media reports, political rhetoric, development and conservation work, and everyday discourse. Yet many residents of northern Kenya provide their own explanations of violence in the region as connected to political control over counties, and refuse explanations that rely on the idea of tribal or ethnic divisions between Samburu and Turkana communities. Following the lead of these residents, I extend this concern with political violence to focus on everyday violence between elections and its connection to national politics, reforms, and electoral politics beyond campaign seasons.

In my exploration of the relation between reform and violence in Samburu County, and

Kenya more broadly, I focus on specific policies and changes that are underway. In a 2010 referendum a majority of Kenyan voters supported the adoption of a new constitution. The constitution includes provisions that place limits on the president’s authority and, most importantly, call for the implementation of devolution—the transfer of some powers from the centralized national government to regional governments at the county level. Following the 2013 elections, county governments offer a range of new elected and appointed positions and have gained more control over local government budgets and more responsibility for providing public services. In Samburu County, while the larger administrative boundary remained the same, a new electoral constituency, with its own representative—Member of Parliament (MP)—was created within the county (Samburu North). Previously Samburu was split into two electoral constituencies, each with their own MP, so the county has gained more local representation in the national parliament. These changes have catalyzed local claims to—and reconceptualizations of—the county, and struggles for sovereignty, political rights, and benefits from new sources of government and development funding and political patronage.

Rethinking Reform

The adoption of a new constitution and the devolution (more commonly referred to as decentralization outside of Kenya and the UK) of government in Kenya conforms to a broader pattern of reform at the national and global level. Globally, international governments, organizations, and financial institutions have promoted political and economic reforms under the umbrella of “democracy” or “democratization.” Across the African continent, these reforms have concentrated on multiparty elections, re-writing constitutions, and decentralization.

Democratization has been phrased as a means of encouraging “good governance”—creating

accountable and transparent government—and the promotion of social and economic development.

While I use reform to describe ongoing political changes, I do so critically, taking my cue from Burawoy and Verdery (1999) and constantly questioning what shape reform—as an uneven and often contradictory process and as a global rhetoric promising social, political, and economic improvements—takes as it unfolds in specific national and regional contexts in Kenya. Rather than taking reform for granted as the change or improvement of institutions of governance, I follow Little (2014) in asking what it means to be “reformed.” In addition to exploring the broader ideas, practices, and power relations that shape global reforms, throughout this study I focus on how residents of Samburu County experience political change and reform in their everyday lives. A focus on everyday experiences of reform challenges dominant assumptions about what reform does, what the outcomes of reform are, and the trajectories that reform takes.

Often scholars and proponents of reform focus on transitioning from one kind of a political and economic system of governance and institutions to another, often blaming slow, failed, or incomplete transition on stubborn, resistant, or failing governments, institutions, and authoritarian political legacies (Bratton et al. 2005; Diamond 2008 ). Burawoy and Verdery

(1999) provide an alternative perspective that understands uneven outcomes of “transition” as produced through the combination of policies and practices of reform with existing social conditions. Moreover, Burawoy and Verdery call attention to how practices that could be viewed as entrenched political formations are often “direct responses” to new political and economic projects “produced by them, rather than remnants of an older mentality” (Burawoy and Verdery

1999, 2, original emphasis). What “successful” reform looks like is also contingent upon shifting global norms of reform (Haugerud 1995, 2). During one-party authoritarian rule in the late

1980s, international governments and agencies held Kenya up as a model success story for political stability and economic growth. In the early 1990s, the same actors quickly moved to cast Kenya as a country racked by violence, corruption and repression that was resistant to democratic reforms (Haugerud 1995). Rather than a major shift in the policies of the Kenyan government, it was global ideologies of reform, democracy, and economic growth that had shifted. The international image of Kenya once again returned to one of political stability and economic growth after President Moi left office and Mwai Kibaki won the 2002 elections.

However, after the post-2007 election violence Kenya, intentional observers and reporters have consistently portrayed Kenya as on the precipice of a repeat of the 2007-8 violence.

Beyond the formal institutions of reform, anthropologists have explored how ordinary people make sense of and grapple with the contradictions, uncertainties, and disappointments of political change (Besteman 2008; Greenberg 2014; Little 2014; Moodie 2010). While reforms across the globe, and in the global south in particular, have promised much in terms of economic growth and democratic governance, in many places reform has also seen a rise in poverty, inequality, crime, violence, and violations of citizens’ rights (Arias and Goldstein 2010;

Besteman 2008; Caldeira and Holston 1999; Comaroff and Comaroff 2006; Geschiere 2013;

Little 2014; Moodie 2010).

The global rhetoric and practice of democratic reform requires critical analysis. Western governments, financial institutions—namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World

Bank—and international NGOs, have required that aid loans to receiving governments in the global south are conditional upon the undertaking of political and economic reforms. These global institutions have largely emphasized neoliberal economic reform focused on reducing government spending, privatization, and encouraging foreign investment as means of increasing

national economic growth (Ferguson 2006; Paley 2008). Although economic development and good governance are intertwined in international agencies’ blueprints for reform, often economic agendas have trumped democratic political outcomes (Berman 2009; Ferguson 2006; Harrison

2004; Little 2014). Democratic reforms and good governance agendas tend to uncritically promote neoliberal political and economic policies as dominant norms that shape and constrain reform and help produce unstable, easily subverted political institutions (Ayers and Saad-Filho

2014; Glenn 2014). Through the privileging of particular economic policy and theory,

“Democracy is now so deeply embedded in a prolonged moment of economic and philosophical liberalism that democracy (as ideology, as experience, as expectation, as policy) is co-produced with market economics” (Paley 2008: 13).

Economies based on export commodities, loans from financial institutions aimed at spurring, sustaining, or recovering economic growth, and funds from international donors for development and relief are all notable examples where economic policy has frequently been the main driver of so-called democratic reform (Cheeseman 2015; Ferguson 2006; Paley 2008; Little

2014). The results have often meant damaging consequences for democratic participation.

International donors have at times contributed to sustaining authoritarian governments (Brown and Raddatz 2014; Cheeseman 2015; Paley 2008). Financial institutions like the IMF and World

Bank have forced through economic reform, in particular Structural Adjustment Programs, which heavily promoted economic policies of “austerity,” undermining democratic participation in decisions around what kinds of economic policy are in a country’s best interests (Ferguson

2006). Despite rhetoric promoting market-led development and multiparty democracy, global and continental reforms have often enabled increased state intervention and control of resources, antidemocratic government practices, and have often pushed more people in African countries

into poverty and the informal sector (Little 2014). The embedding of neoliberal political and economic projects within democratic reform demands a critical inquiry into what kinds of outcomes democratic reforms promote and produce.

Scholars of democratic reform often describe many African countries’ progress towards democracy as lacking, stalled, regressive, or incomplete. In their extensive survey of public opinion on democracy and economic reform across the African continent, Bratton and colleagues suggest that “As latecomers, Africans scramble to catch up with trends—of emancipation or backlash—that emanate from other parts of the world” (Bratton et al. 2005, 14). Further, as

“hybrid regimes” they propose that “African political and economic regimes may remain unstable for extended periods or harden prematurely in embryonic or low-quality forms”

(Bratton et al. 2005, 14-15). Dominant democratization scholars continue to place “established democracies” in Western Europe and North America as models for reform that other countries should aspire to reach (Diamond 2008). The implication in this body of work is that the failure of countries in the global south to achieve democracies that resemble those of the global north lies not in the assumptions and practices of neoliberal economic reforms or problematic universal models of democratic reform, but in individual governments, weak states and institutions, and social contexts that are not favorable for reform (Arias and Goldstein 2010). While some African scholars work within this framework, highlighting broad gradual improvements in the quality of reforms, governance, and institutions (Gyimah-Boadi 2004; Ndulo 2006; Kaiser and Okumu

2004), other African scholars work within a decolonization framework that challenges the assumptions of Western political theory (Lumumba-Kasongo 2005; Mbembe 2001; Monga 1992;

Nasong’o 2008).

Many African scholars have voiced critiques of often imposed democratic reforms for some time. At best, democratic reforms put forward universal notions of democracy and governance that ignore the particularities of political, economic, and social contexts in African countries (Ake 2000; Lumumba-Kasongo 2005). Celestin Monga argues that “African peoples have been trying for decades to challenge authoritarianism, but their patterns of behavior could not be captured by the classical tools used by social scientists” (Monga 1996: 2). Using universal models of democratic reform, governance and participation to measure democracy and the success of reforms fails to take stock of the histories of governance and political struggle in

African countries beyond the realm of formal institutions. In addition, African scholars have questioned what “democratization” really entails, arguing that rather than furthering democratic participation, multiparty elections have largely enabled “liberalisation”—more competition for, and potential transition between, control of the state (compared to one-party rule), but without a significant transformation of the prevailing political structure (Nasong’o 2008; Murunga 2007;

Oyugi 2004).

At worst, reforms that purport to have the goal of helping African countries “transition” to democracy instead impose new modes of antidemocratic governance that privilege global capitalist economic growth (Mbembe 2001; Nasong’o 2008). Murunga (2007) argues that democratic reform often ends up as a “transaction between technocrats and donors” that depoliticizes the reform process, using the rationale and rhetoric of development, democracy and governance to exclude public debate. Mbembe argues that the ways in which “Markets are dictating in unprecedented ways what presumably sovereign and democratic states may still do or not for their citizens” indicates the “pre-emption—or even suspension—of democracy by market forces” (Mbembe 2012, original emphasis).

African critics point out that current democratic reform efforts and dominant philosophies of democracy and democratic transition have failed to imagine (never mind produce) what an authentic democracy might look like for the citizens of African countries, or provide a blueprint for how to achieve genuine democratic reform. Beyond economic growth, development, and formal democratic institutions, many African scholars place reform and transition within the historical context of decolonization. More than five decades after the majority of African countries achieved political independence from colonial regimes, some African scholars have questioned how far African countries have moved towards substantive decolonization that would require deep structural political transformation (Mbembe 2010; Nasong’o 2008; Ndlovu-

Gatsheni 2012).

Anthropological approaches to democracy further complicate ideas of democratic reform.

Focusing attention on multiple experiences of democracy and democratic reform, ethnographies of democracy show how democratic norms, practices, and institutions are shaped by specific historical, political, and social contexts (Paley 2008; Michelutti 2008; Haugerud 1995).

Furthermore, this requires understanding the historical specificity of the dominant form of

“normative” (Nugent 2008) democracy as having emerged from Euro-American liberal political theory and practice. Varied global experiences of democracy, particularly in postcolonial contexts where democratic projects appear to challenge normative models, suggest a need to question the assumptions underlying Euro-American political theory (Chatterjee 2011; Arias and

Goldstein 2010). In addition, understanding different democratic political outcomes requires moving beyond a narrow focus on institutions, elections, and elites (Paley 2008; Michelutti

2008; Moodie 2010).

Anthropologists have also grappled with the problem of various forms of violence that have emerged in tandem with democratic reform. Many processes of democratization have resulted in violent struggles over belonging, often phrased in terms of ethnic identity (Geschiere

2013), criminal violence (Comaroff and Comaroff 2006; Moodie 2010), state violence against citizens (Scheper-Hughes 2004), and forms of structural violence and inequality (Arias and

Goldstein 2010; Caldeira 2006; Comaroff and Comaroff 2006; Geschiere 2009; Holston 2008).

The experience of democratic politics raises the question of whether violence and democracy can be considered separate (Moran 2006).

Rather than a failure of democratic reform, or an obstacle to democratic politics, violence can also be considered as an outcome shaped by the specific forms that democracy has come to take, both globally and in specific localities (Arias and Goldstein 2010; Comaroff and Comaroff

2006; Mbembe 2001; Hansen 2001; Michelutti 2008). Although there has been a rise in the formal institutions of “political democracy” (Caldeira and Holston 1999: 691), democratic politics has largely failed to protect the rights and citizenship of citizens who experience everyday violence and injustice (Caldeira and Holston 1999; Caldeira 2006; Holston 2008;

Scheper-Hughes 2004). Caldeira and Holston argue that this “disjunction” is common to democracy in general (Caldeira and Holston 1999; Caldeira 2006; Holston 2008), while Arias and Goldstein (2010) understand violence as a result of the dominant form of neoliberal democracy.

Attention to how people experience and engage with democratic politics in their everyday lives demands a consideration of democracy beyond the forms that democracy takes at global and national scales. Outside the limits of formal political rights and institutions, many democratic struggles focus on the practical struggles of everyday survival and meeting basic

needs, and may have (at least initially) different expectations for the outcomes of democratic politics and reform (Moran 2006; Das and Randeria 2015). A focus on the affective and embodied experiences (Copeland 2014) of democratic politics centers attention on how

“disappointment” (Greenberg 2014) and “disenchantment” (Moodie 2010) shape everyday understandings of, and responses to, reform. Beyond the shapes that democracy and reform take in multiple contexts, then, it is essential to analyze democratic reform at “multiple scales of action and meaning” (Greenberg 2014, 186).

Violence and the State

Reform, and decentralization in particular, rely on specific models of the state, and sovereignty, that anthropology has challenged. Decentralization, suggests a linear process of reform where larger, centralized state institutions, and sovereignty, can be transferred down a chain of hierarchy to smaller, regional institutions. The process of creating and transferring powers to regional governance institutions aims to render political authority more accountable and responsive to regional constituents.

Gupta and Ferguson suggest that dominant understandings of the state rely on metaphors of scale that “produce a taken-for-granted spatial and scalar image of a state that both sits above and contains its localities, regions, and communities” (Gupta and Ferguson 2002: 982). Rather than understanding the state as an already existing institution, an ethnographic perspective encourages thinking of nation-states as “produced through everyday practices and encounters and through public cultural representations and performances” (Sharma and Gupta 2006: 27).

This theoretical perspective raises questions about the assumptions of scale and sovereignty that underpin ideas and practices of reform and the state. Additionally, ethnographies of violence and

states provoke a rethinking of what counts as political violence and how violence might connect to uneven processes of reform.

Anthropologists and other scholars have theorized the links between the formation and maintenance of states and sovereign power and violence (Hansen and Stepputat 2005; Arias and

Goldstein 2010; Das 2006; Coronil and Skurksi 2006; Donham 2006; Nordstrom 2004; Mbembe

2001). This body of work challenges “accounts of history that present the rise of modern nations as entailing the gradual elimination or containment of violence through the state’s monopolization of the regulation and organization of civil society” and instead explores “the role of violence in the formation and transformation of modern nations” (Coronil and Skurksi 2006).

Recent work on the anthropology of the state contests the concept of sovereignty as embedded in a centralized system of governance and its institutions (Donham 2006; Comaroff and Comaroff 2006; Hansen and Stepputat 2005; Copeland 2014; Jaffe 2015). Postcolonial states in particular, shaped by colonial rule, “tend not to be organized under a single, vertically integrated sovereignty sustained by a highly centralized state. Rather, they consist in a horizontally woven tapestry of partial sovereignties: sovereignties over terrains and their inhabitants, over aggregates of people conjoined in faith or culture, over transactional spheres, over networks of relations, regimes of property, domains of practice” (Donham 2006, 35, my emphasis; Hansen and Stepputat 2005). Beyond the central state, Hansen uses the concept of

“informal sovereigns” to describe how multiple groups and actors, operating within and outside state institutions, produce, contest, and appropriate the sovereignty of the state through “local and informal structures of authority and violence” (Hansen 2005, 182). Arias and Goldstein use the concept of “violent pluralism” to describe how “dispersed, often amorphous, and seemingly apolitical violence is deployed and managed by various actors” (Arias and Goldstein 2010, 21)

as a means of establish or contesting “regimes of citizenship, justice, rights, and a democratic social order” (Arias and Goldstein 2010, 4).

Drawing on ideas of dispersed sovereignty, ethnographers have explored, for example, how criminal leaders share sovereignty with politicians, police and bureaucrats (Jaffe 2013), how organized indigenous people compete with and contest state sovereignty and practices of justice

(Sieder 2011), how rural farmers imagine and navigate multiple sovereignties (Copeland 2014), and how gang leaders embody sovereign power through masculine performances (Kivland

2014).

I combine ideas of multiple, dispersed, and interacting sovereignties with anthropological views on violence, politics, and the state—and how violence, political legitimacy, state authority, and ideas on acceptable force are intertwined (Moran 2006; Das 2006; Donham 2006)—to expand definitions of political violence. Darby (2012) defines political violence as organized, having the goal of changing a political system, and as “expressed within an existing political entity.” Rapoport and Weinberg expand on this, including in their definition of political violence,

“illegal physical attacks, or threats, on persons, property, institutes and symbols in order to destroy, alter and sustain systems of policies. The attacks may only be alleged (alleged attacks can serve some political purpose) and the persons responsible may be outside or inside governments” (Rapoport and Weinburg 2012, 5).

Anthropological views of violence move beyond understandings of political violence as largely physical, organized, and having clear political objectives or targets. Instead violence is viewed as more dynamic, dispersed, and lacking a clear center. Rather than only wielded, violence is “constructed, negotiated, reshaped, and resolved as perpetrators and victims try to define and control the world they find themselves in” (Robben and Nordstrom 1995, 8).

Further, ethnographies of violence focus on how violence is experienced in the everyday and reject clear distinctions between organized violence with clear political objectives and everyday forms of violence (Das 2006; Donham 2006; Nordstrom 2004; Scheper-Hughes and

Bourgois 2004). In this view, individuals can act as agents of violence and produce political legitimacy outside of the state or clear political entities (Nordstrom 2004). Writing about communal violence in India—and drawing on Das (2006)—Spencer argues that “collective violence should not be treated as a departure from the flow of the political, but rather should be analysed as a heightened and intensified continuation of normal politics” (Spencer 2007: 120).

The violence of the state seeps into everyday lives in ways that cannot be easily captured by definitions of political violence as organized and clearly directed toward states or political entities (Das 2006; Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004). However, this does not mean that violence that may appear to be apolitical, intergroup, can (or should be) be considered as separate from or unrelated to dominant national politics and events. Political violence is not just expressed as the state enforcing its authority or as challenges to state authority and institutions.

Instead state authority, laws, and institutions are also appropriated, mimicked, mocked, and repurposed in ways that defy rational understandings of states, politics, and violence and the connections between them (Das 2006; Comaroff and Comaroff 2006; Mbembe 2001).

What one recognizes, or not, as political violence shapes where researchers choose to study violence (Nordstrom 2004). Initially, I did not set out to study violence, so I began with what residents told me, and what I saw, of their daily experiences of violence. Slowly, led by residents of Samburu County, I began to bring in regional, national, and global contexts of politics and violence to frame what county residents were experiencing. I came to understand violence in Samburu County—whether in the form of attacks, livestock raids, violence against

and prohibitions on livelihood activities, rumor, rhetoric, hate speech, or daily forms of ethnic discrimination—as bound up with residents’ experiences of reform, the state, and politics.

Moreover, violence clearly connected to residents’ hopes and struggles for what Samburu

County and the Kenyan nation should look like and their roles, rights, and responsibilities as residents and citizens.

Tracking Violence

For twelve months between June 2013 and June 2014, I lived in Maralal, the county capital of Samburu. In my original research proposal, I planned to study community conservation projects and how these shaped, and were shaped by, human-wildlife interactions. As I began to look further into conservation projects, residents of Samburu County directed me toward issues of land, conflict, and ethnic divisions. I discovered that the establishment of community conservancies had in some cases catalyzed conflicts over access to and control over land

(Greiner 2012) and became more interested in how community conservancies could contribute to conflict.

Driving north to meet the management committee of a community conservancy,

William—a Samburu employee of an NGO that worked on land issues with community conservancies—pointed to the dirt road. He told me that you could see a clear difference between the sides of the road: On the west side, where mostly Turkana communities lived, you could see more degradation of the land and there was less wildlife. William explained that Turkana were terrible for the environment because they indiscriminately kill and eat all of the wildlife.

Samburu, however, William claimed, have strong taboos against eating the majority of wildlife, and have a profound respect for the environment. I heard these ethnically charged stereotypes again and again from those working in conservation.

Francis—who worked for the same NGO and identified as Kenyan, refusing “tribal” identities—had a very different view. Francis believed that negative stereotypes of Turkana served to exclude them from participation in conservation projects. After thinking and discussing more about how Turkana might be excluded from conservation projects, I moved to the only conservancy in the county managed by a Turkana community to understand their experiences of conservation. The more I spoke to people there, the more conflict emerged as the most salient concern for residents of the area, above issues of conservation. This area was very close to the reported site of, what Kenyan media outlets and many residents refer to as, the “Baragoi massacre.” In November 2012, 42 security personnel were shot and killed while reportedly attempting to recover stolen livestock. While the incident remains contentious and rumors abound as to who was really behind both the livestock raid and the police response, the event is a key, highly charged background to violence in the county (Greiner 2013).

While staying at the community conservancy, I heard nearby gunshots in the night. My neighbors and the conservancy management told me this was normal. Some explained it as the locally stationed security forces scaring off potential intruders, while others dismissed it as the police scaring off a leopard. A group of young boys who lived next to me, seemed keen to show how unconcerned they were by the gunshots. They told me they could tell the difference between different rifles from the sound of the gunshot and that these ones were not to be worried about— it was not an AK47 or another high-powered assault rifle. During the daytime, I saw a group of heavily armed youth passing by the village. One of the residents who was showing me around, told me that the guns the youth carried were the weapons taken from the police officers killed in the Baragoi massacre.

While my research began well at the Turkana community conservancy, a misunderstanding emerged between myself and the conservancy management. The manager had understood my role as a donor, as well as a researcher, and believed that I had promised more money to the conservancy than I, as a lone graduate student, could realistically afford. I returned to Maralal after a short stay, wondering what to do.

Back in Maralal, there were more nighttime shooting attacks. I began to speak to more and more people about the ongoing violence. It quickly became clear that I was already collecting data on the violence happening around me. Instead of trying to force a project on conservation, I decided to follow the moment and focus on what was most important to the people living in the region and experiencing violence. As I refocused my research I began to slowly catch up on understanding the history of political violence in Kenya and ongoing political change in the county. County residents’ discussions and understandings of violence as political led me to study the relationship between violence and reform.

By being there at a particular moment of political change and violence, I was already implicated in what was happening around me. After Sarah’s phone call, I could not extricate myself from the violence as a passive or neutral observer. I endeavored to talk to more residents who had been targeted in the violence and try to build a more complete picture of what was happening, beyond tales of livestock raiding and conflict based on ethnic difference—two persistent narratives that work to depoliticize and minimize the impact and causes of violence in the region (Straight 2009).

I began by “tracking” and documenting violence. After each episode of violence that I became aware of, I collected multiple reports from residents living in town. I then tried to speak with those targeted by the violence and to visit where the event had happened. I would follow up

with staff at an NGO and an FBO with offices in town, one that responded to and documented incidents, and one that carried out projects across the county focused on peace-building.

Additionally, I spoke with county government officials and workers at different levels. I also reached out to self-described community leaders, or those in some kind of leadership position— informally appointed spokespersons or the chief of a sub-location, for example. As many residents from different backgrounds urged, I would also try to make sure that I had accounts of violence from multiple perspectives—from both Samburu-identified and Turkana-identified residents.

Many residents, particularly Turkana-identified, were afraid to talk about the violence and feared retaliation, especially if they implicated Samburu government officials. Many residents agreed that county politicians and other county elites were directly involved in the violence. Walking back from an interview in a Turkana part of town, two men stopped me on the street. They asked me who I was and what I was doing here. Most people were curious about a mzungu [Swahili: white person] like me wandering about town so I thought little of it. But then they began to repeatedly ask me, “What have these Turkana been telling you!?” I asked the two men who they were. The man who did most of the talking claimed to be a police officer. His companion raised his voice, exclaiming “these people [Turkana] are criminals from the north!

They are the ones disturbing the peace here!” The first man took him by the shoulders and they left quickly. I was a little shaken by the incident, but I wasn’t concerned about my own safety. I asked my research assistant Jane—a Turkana-identified woman married to a Samburu man—if she was worried about talking to and working with me. Jane told me that there was a saying in

Turkana that she translated as “we have already sold our hearts.” She explained that many

Turkana residents felt resigned to the situation and that there was little point in giving in to fear

when it becomes an everyday part of life. But more than this, Jane pointed to the idea that for many county residents violence can simply become a fact of life, a “crisis” lived in “ordinary time” (Berlant 2011: 101).

In tracking violence, I also turned to the places where many residents told me that they accessed information about violence. How was violence being reported, if at all? What were the official accounts? What were government officials saying publicly about it? Residents and NGO staff pointed me to media interviews with regional leaders broadcast on locally available television channels. These interviews were useful not just for what was being said, but how residents interpreted the leaders’ words and actions and what they thought leaders were really saying. Multiple people also urged me to follow what was being said on social media because they viewed it as an important source of open incitement to violence. I began tracking comments on one Facebook group in particular (see chapter seven on online harmful speech), where it became clear that commentary on social media was not just a space for the discussion of violence and spread of rumor, but an important form of, and response to, violence.

Finally, I began a digital storytelling workshop focused on experiences of violence with a group of youth living in town who identified as Turkana, Samburu and multi-ethnic. Digital stories are short (around 3 minute) videos matching a recorded narrative with images, in which storytellers choose the story they want to tell and largely write, record and edit the video. About twelve youth participated, most of them completing a written story, and four finished a complete video. While we attempted to anonymize the videos and worked with an NGO to screen videos, the project put participants at too great risk of violence and had to be ended. One of the participants, a Turkana-identified youth, showed his video to a friend, proud to show his achievement to someone he thought would respond positively. His was the only video to directly

address the most recent, and ongoing violence, calling for peace and for Samburu and Turkana to work together. Unfortunately, not only did his (Samburu-identified) friend react negatively to the video, but the storyteller had also revealed his identity. The friend denounced the video, claiming that it blamed Samburu for the violence and incited “tribalism”—ethnic discrimination and nepotism with political ends. The storyteller, shocked by their friend’s reaction, became concerned that they may face retaliation if others saw the video.

While I had to end the digital story project and destroy all identifiable material to protect research participants from harm (in agreement with my institution’s ethics review board), the stories helped shape and nuance my understanding of the violence that was happening. I had left the prompt for participants’ stories reasonably open, asking them simply to tell any story they liked about an experience of violence. Most of them chose not to talk about the most recent violence, or even violence involving Samburu and Turkana. Many of the participants told stories about violence that was outside of the county and some chose to tell stories about general discrimination and inequality.

Participants showed that they understood the current violence in relation to political violence across the nation (one story was about a participant’s experience being caught up in the post-2007 election violence), and in relation to past incidents of violence in the region. All of the stories showed “tribalism” in a negative light, whether it manifested as general discrimination or in violence and killings. The stories were about how tribalism, division and politics turned into unnecessary violence that impacted everybody negatively, and that anyone, regardless of their ethnic identity, could be targeted by violence and discrimination.

The stories the young people told dealt with multiple kinds of violence from multiple perspectives. They shared stories about livestock raids, land conflicts, daily injustices, structural

inequality, ethnic discrimination, unfair treatment of people with a mixed ethnic identity, national political violence, attacks often carried out by neighbors, friends, or classmates, and the deaths of family, friends, and people they knew. While participants spoke openly about a wide range of forms of violence in a broad range of contexts, they always spoke from the perspective of a victim, blurring distinctions between winners and losers or victims and perpetrators

(Nordstrom 2004; Robben and Nordstrom 1995), and emphasizing that all residents of Samburu

County had been negatively impacted in some way by violence. The sharing of stories was a powerful experience, with participants reacting strongly and with compassion to each other’s stories. At times participants were shocked to find out about the difficult experiences that their friends, neighbors, and classmates had perhaps never shared.

Through their stories, participants taught me that violence was contingent on political context and was more about the use of tribalism to serve political ends rather than a struggle between differently identified groups. Further, rather than an exceptional blip, their stories connected violence to a larger history of political violence and discrimination across Kenya.

While young people were generally keen to share their different experiences of violence, gaining a variety of perspectives, particularly from government representatives, was not always easy. Some government officials, for example, claimed to have no knowledge of the violence

(despite local and national media reports) or dismissed it as “normal,” cultural, ethnic-based violence in the form of livestock raids between ethnic communities that had always taken place.

Many people told me that the violence in Maralal was simply spillover from the really serious violence further north in the county, in the Baragoi region. William (the NGO worker who insisted that Turkana degraded the environment), told me: “This thing here is over. It is peaceful now. You should go to South Sudan if you want to study a real conflict.”

Finding documentation of violence in Samburu County was also difficult. In search of records of the 2013/4 violence in Maralal, I met with Michael in his small, empty office filled with the noise of heavy rain that was quickly turning the dirt roads into mud. Battling with a lack of resources, Michael attempted to coordinate reports of conflict in the region. Michael tried his best to be helpful and took me through the documents his office used to record incidents of violence. However, I was frustrated that Michael largely focused our conversation on “cultural practices that are negative.” He emphasized warriorhood, rising bride price, and lack of development and education as key to violence and highlighted their relation to livestock raids that stemmed from conflicts over scarce pasture and water.

I asked him if data on the conflict was publicly available and Michael explained that his office was tasked to work with stakeholders and share information. However, when I asked for data on the recent violence, Michael quickly shifted to a discussion of the challenges the office faced—a lack of funding and “proper coordination.” He insisted that the data from that period was “not credible or timely,” and so not worth sharing, and appeared not to know what recent events I was referring to (even though they had been reported on in some national and local media and it was his specific job to know about such events). Michael, like many government officials and NGO staff, was more comfortable talking in generalities than specifics, focusing on broad patterns of violence. Like many in the region, Michael may simply have been afraid to talk about the violence, or under political pressure to refrain from openly talking about recent events.

Gathering accurate data on violence, particularly “low-level” violence, can be difficult.

Even when available, records of violence in northern Kenya can vary greatly. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported 310 deaths, 214 injuries, and

220, 177 people displaced as a result of “inter-communal violence” in 2014 across Kenya

(UNOCHA 2014b—based on reports from humanitarian partners). For the same year, the Kenya

Police Service only reported 80 deaths and 78 injuries due to a combination of

“Intertribal/communal conflicts” and “cattle rustling” (Kenya Police Service 2014). In the three months between August 4 and November 24, 2013, the Kenya Red Cross Society reported 55 deaths and 64 injuries related to conflict (that the Red Cross responded to) in Samburu County.

Yet UNOCHA reported that only 17 deaths in Samburu County, out of 488 deaths recorded between January and December 2013 (OCHA 2014a). This suggests some fairly large discrepancies in what data different agencies are collecting on violence and how they classify violence.

The violence that residents experienced and that so many residents were talking about was barely being recorded, except as a humanitarian plea for help that lumped violence into patterns of “intercommunal” violence. Official records, aside from being inaccurate, were already predisposed to only capture certain forms of violence, highlighting cultural violence and ignoring other kinds of political violence. Official records (or their lack) can often work to minimize, normalize, or even create indifference towards ongoing violence, particularly in already marginalized populations (Scheper-Hughes 2004). Part of this was due to the difficulties and risks of talking about violence. At best, talking about violence could result in accusations of favoring one ethnic group over another (“tribalism”). But many residents also feared retaliatory violence for openly talking about violence, especially if they implicated county leaders or other government officials. During one conversation, a group of Turkana women warned me, only half-jokingly, “don’t put us on T.V., or they will come and shoot us at night.”

Witnessing Violence, Privilege, and Doing Ethnography

As a white British citizen based at a university in the U.S., and doing fieldwork in an area where most expats were working for development or faith-based organizations, many residents assumed I was a “donor” of some sort, or a missionary, or a doctor. On meeting people I was often asked if I was “Japan” – a reference to Japanese donors who had previously managed a development project, while others greeted me with a friendly “buongiorno!” assuming that I was perhaps one of the numerous Italian missionaries in the area. That I was living with my partner, who was working as a humanitarian aid worker and is from the U.S., only added to this perception of me as an NGO worker of some sort.

As a man, it was sometimes difficult for women residents to openly talk to me, particularly about violence. I wanted to make sure that women could feel more comfortable talking to me, and also make sure that I was hearing from at least as many women residents about their experiences as I was from men. I worked with a female research assistant, Jane, who juggled translating Samburu, Turkana and Swahili languages, all the while carrying her young daughter from neighborhood to neighborhood. In addition, I met with small groups of women, which also allowed them to have slightly more relaxed conversations, largely talking with each other. However, this strategy backfired spectacularly on one occasion.

After the first successful small group interview with some Turkana women who had been attacked in their homes, I tried to arrange another small group interview with Turkana women living in another part of town whose homes were burned and much of their property destroyed.

When I showed up for the interview, about 30 people from the neighborhood had gathered in a manner similar to a baraza, or public meeting, an event that government officials, regional leaders, and NGOs commonly used to communicate with the populations they work with. I was rather shocked that so many people had gathered, but it soon became clear that they had 28

understood my role as a “donor,” someone who could help them, or at least give them something.

While sharing stories of the attacks on their homes, and the discrimination and threats of violence that prevented them from finding work, they asked how I could help—some suggesting that I could donate money, or items that people needed to repair their homes and replace their belongings that had been destroyed. Many of the residents complained that the Red Cross were the only organization that had responded after the attack—and even then they only brought basic necessities like blankets and pots and pans. Many complained about the lack of government and police response. One young man asked if I could bring them a gun—after all they were only a few hundred dollars. He insisted that if the young men of the neighborhood had even a single gun, they could have defended themselves from the attack. An older woman came to my defense, reminding others that I had explained that I was a student just doing research.

What did just doing “research” mean in this context? (Who was helping whom?) How else did residents perceive me and how did this shape my interactions with them, what I learned about violence, and this study, which I produced with their help?

It was common for children to follow me down the street shouting mzungu [Swahili: white person] and sometimes asking for money,—always a useful reminder of my position and privilege. Paul Stoller (1989) has urged white anthropologists to reflect on their whiteness and how they are perceived by people in the places they work. As a mzungu my social position in

Kenya was embedded in historical, asymmetrical power relations and the impacts of colonialism, missionary movements, and the massive growth of NGOs. Being mistaken as a donor, aid worker, missionary, doctor, or tourist indicated my privileged social position, and being called mzungu and asked for money highlighted my white privilege. As a mzungu my white privilege

shaped not only how I was perceived by the Kenyans I worked with, but also my interactions with people and the understandings I took away. The white privilege of researchers impacts what we notice in the field (and what we overlook), our interactions with our research participants, what they might share with us, and the research that we produce (Duneier 2000; Stoller 1989;

Warren 2000).

Fieldwork is always shaped by our positionality as researchers and the goal of ethnography is often to become as involved as we possibly can be in lives of the people we work with despite these limitations. But working in contexts of violence challenges the ability of researchers to conduct classic ethnographic fieldwork. At times “participant observation,” the hallmark of ethnography, becomes limited, if not impossible during violence (Pedelty 2004;

Swedenberg 1995). Indeed, Pedelty has called participant observation “the great lie of anthropology” (Pedelty 2004: 402) and Swedenberg has referred to it as a “paradoxical anthropological conceit” (Swedenberg 1995). Despite residents worrying about me—Francis regularly made sure that I did not walk home at night in the dark and instead took a motorcycle taxi—I did not face the same risks or discrimination that they did. And even if there were moments where I did risk facing violence (for example, risks of banditry on certain roads), it was not even close to residents’ experiences of violence. Anthropologists can always, and do, leave their fieldwork sites. But my social privilege also protected me from most of the experiences of the people I worked with. In this context, I was much more of a “witness” of violence (Scheper-

Hughes and Bourgois 2004), using my privilege to talk about and record violence in ways that were risky for residents, than a participant or observer. However, as the failure of the digital story project made abundantly clear, my privilege did not protect the people who spoke to me about violence from the risks that they faced.

As witnesses to violence, researchers still face the question of what kinds of violence we recognize, or are able to recognize, during fieldwork and how to recognize and reveal forms of violence and power that are often obscured (Bourgois 2004; Nordstrom 2004). In many ways it would be easier to understand violence in Samburu County as cultural livestock raiding, or even intergroup violence, endemic to the region, without zooming out to understand the larger structural forces that shape violence in the region. At the same time, populations involved in and impacted by violence engage ethnographers with persuasive explanations of violence that attempt to demonstrate that their account is the true version of events (Robben 1995). I was certainly subject to accounts of violence that criminalized Turkana and blamed violence on them, even justifying violence against them. But the people I spoke with were just as, if not more, aware of the power of “seduction” (Robben 1995) and the impossibility of impartiality, as researchers should be. Residents identifying as Samburu, Turkana, and mixed ethnic identities, often reminded me to speak to others, to get their side of the story, freely admitting that they were incapable of giving an unbiased account of violence.

This study is based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, the bulk of which I carried out in Maralal town. However, I also spent short periods in the north of the county in the

Baragoi region and to the west of Maralal, close to the border with Baringo County. Much of my research findings come from interviews, more informal conversations, and other interactions with Maralal residents. To ensure that I included the experiences of Turkana women impacted by violence and to help the women feel more comfortable talking to me, I spoke with fifteen

Turkana women during three group interviews. In addition, I spoke with another twenty Turkana residents who had experienced violence including the burning of their homes, destruction of their belongings, injuries and killings of loved ones in shooting attacks, and violence targeting their

livelihoods. I also interviewed eight county leaders and former leaders, from Members of

Parliament to sub-location chiefs, and staff at four NGOs working on peace-building and conflict resolution in the county.

Of the residents I spoke to, I had multiple, regular interactions with approximately 35-40 people. When residents impacted by violence were comfortable, I would visit them in their homes, frequently the place where they experienced violence. However, many residents felt it was safer and more private to visit me at my house. Frequently I met with residents for both formal interviews and informal conversations in cafes and bars. I would also visit neighborhoods where violence had occurred, sometimes led by a resident around their neighborhood, or meet with residents in parts of town that they frequented, including their offices and business. I also had regular meetings with a group of about twelve youth as part of the digital story project.

During the digital story project youth shared their experiences of violence with each other, although we also participated in workshops on writing, recording, and editing their stories. Many of the digital story participants would also meet with me more informally throughout my stay in

Samburu. I was often accompanied by my research assistant, Jane, who helped translate when residents spoke in Swahili, Turkana, or Samburu (or sometimes a mixture).

Following residents’ who encouraged me to be wary of bias, I spoke to and interacted with roughly equal numbers of residents who identified as Samburu, Turkana, or multiethnic, and as men and women. I hope I have been successful in representing the complexities of violence in the county and residents’ different experiences and views of violence in ways that move beyond narratives of the violence as between two ethnic groups. While I focus on violence targeting Turkana residents, Samburu residents were of course also profoundly impacted by political violence, both historically and during the period I conducted fieldwork. In total, eighty

residents were kind enough to spend time answering my questions and sharing their experiences with me.

In addition to in-person fieldwork I also collected online data from a Facebook group where residents discussed development and related issues in the county (see chapter eight). I continued to collect data after I left Kenya, into 2017, although most of my data came from

2014-2015. I also analyzed television and newspaper interviews with county leaders, paying particular attention to how they talked about violence and security in the region. Again, I continued to have access to online television interviews after I left Samburu.

Throughout my fieldwork, I strived to allow residents to lead me to the places, stories, and narratives which they understood to be most important to understanding violence and the unfolding of devolution in the region. For example, much of the television appearances of county leaders and online commentary I explore are those that residents pointed me to as particularly relevant.

Setting

Figure 2: Map of Kenya Showing Samburu County

Figure 3: Map of Samburu County (with Neighboring Counties)

Samburu County roughly resembles a triangle, the most northern point reaching the southern edge of Lake Turkana. To the west, Samburu has a long border with Turkana County and a much shorter border with Baringo County. These two borders are the ones that Samburu- identified residents often viewed as the main sources of conflict and insecurity with Turkana and

Pokot pastoralist groups crossing over into Samburu County. It is also near these borders where the Lerroki plateau drops sharply down to part of the Great Rift Valley. Baragoi, the main trading town in the north of the county, bordering Turkana, is considered by many residents to be the region where most violence involving Turkana and Samburu residents takes place. To the

east, Samburu shares another long border with Marsabit County and also part of the border with

Isiolo County. Much of the south-eastern region of the county is demarcated as protected areas for wildlife conservation and hosts the Samburu National Reserve. To the south, Samburu borders Isiolo and Laikipia Counties—two other counties that have experienced political violence surrounding the 2013 and 2017 elections, in addition to Marsabit County.

Figure 4: Samburu County Showing New Administrative Boundaries After Devolution (from IEBC 2010)

According to the 2009 census (KNBS 2009) and the Independent Electoral and

Boundaries Commission 2013 election records, the population of Samburu County is a little over

220 000. While the majority of the population identify as Samburu, Turkana have a steady minority presence, and Somali and Kikuyu traders are recognizably present in the main trading centers. However, ethnic identities from across the nation, although particularly from neighboring counties, are represented in the county, especially in the more cosmopolitan county capital. In addition, intermarriage complicates ideas of ethnic identity and many residents prefer to identify as Kenyan, rather than as an ethnic of tribal identity.

After the implementation of the 2010 constitution, Samburu County was split into three sub-counties, each represented by a Member of Parliament: Samburu West, Samburu North, and

Samburu East. Each sub-county is divided into wards. There are a total of 15 wards in the county, each with their own Member of the County Assembly (MCA) representing them at the county level. Each ward is further sub-divided into sub-locations represented by government appointed chiefs. While Samburu County is considered majority Samburu, many wards and sub- locations are considered to have a majority population based on clan or regional identity, with

“their own” representative.

Figure 5: View of Maralal Town. Photo by Sean Furmage

Maralal is the county capital (situated in Samburu West sub-county) and is by far the largest urban center in the county with an estimated population of around 34, 000 (IEBC 2013).

Most residents told me that the name Maralal referred to the glimmering corrugated tin roofs reflecting sunlight when the town is viewed from a distance. Maralal is a little over 200 miles north of the capital Nairobi, or around a seven-hour drive when the weather permits. Often during the rainy season the dirt road between Maralal and the start of the tarmac road in

Rumuruti—in neighboring Laikipia County—turns to mud and vehicles frequently get stuck. As

I write, work has at long last begun on the construction of a tarmac road to replace this stretch of

road. A few months after I left, the Samburu County government tarmacked some of the main streets in Maralal and installed street lights. Aside from a small stretch of road that connects

Archer’s Post in the east of Samburu to neighboring Isiolo County this is the only tarmac in the entire county. Despite being only 60 miles from Maralal, it can take almost as long as the drive to Nairobi to reach Baragoi, the main trading center in Samburu North. This stretch of road is also frequented by armed bandits who target passing vehicles, often shooting at them as a warning to stop. Getting around town in the rainy season often becomes difficult as streams overflow and the streets that do not turn into mud often flood.

Most residents refer to the small central square in Maralal as “town.” The four roads that make the square are lined with various small stores and businesses, simple restaurants and cafes, small hotels, and offices. At one corner there are two gas stations and a “stand” that serves buses, trucks, and motorcycle taxis. At the other corner there is a mosque. Close to the center of town there are also the main county government offices, a satellite university campus, two banks, the county’s main hospital, and a stadium where government officials give speeches and hold events.

On just about every street there are myriad churches of various denominations that compete for congregations. A prominent landmark in town is the livestock market where herders from across the region bring their livestock.

Residents often refer to the rest of Maralal as “villages.” While the small, simple houses often made of wooden posts on the hilly sides of town in many cases resemble more rural areas and lack running water or electricity (municipal services cater to the more central parts of town),

I tended to think of them as something more akin to neighborhoods. While the neighborhoods are largely mixed in terms of ethnic groups, there are several where mostly Turkana-identified

residents live. In some of these neighborhoods, residents have constructed fences of thorns and cactus—a commons means of protecting homesteads from livestock raids in more rural regions.

Like much of northern Kenya, Samburu County has a semi-arid environment, seasonal rains, and often experiences drought. Pastoralism, or the practice of herding livestock, is a key livelihood. As well as being a source of food and wealth, livestock have significant social value and are an important part of social relationships and rituals. Since the colonial period, government and development policy in Kenya has often portrayed pastoralism as inefficient, unsustainable, and damaging to the environment (Eriksen and Lind 2009; Fratkin and Roth

2005). Policies and development projects have often focused on settling pastoralists, and encouraging alternative livelihoods, in ways that have frequently produced negative consequences to livelihood strategies that are responsive to ecological risk and change

(Lesorogol 2008; Fratkin and Roth 2005). While much development policy has shifted in recent years to recognize the value of pastoralist livelihood strategies, I frequently encountered government officials, NGO workers, and conservationists who continued to talk about pastoralists as backwards, uneducated, damaging to the environment, and engaged in timeless tribal warfare. Samburu residents, and pastoralists across northern Kenya, have become more settled, especially in the highlands close to peri-urban centers. Many residents have reduced more migratory lifestyles, moving with cattle as the seasons change, and settled in areas that provide better security, access to relief food, less exposure to drought, more access to schools and health facilities, and more opportunities for work outside herding (Fratkin and Roth 2005;

Lesorogol 2008).

Samburu is one of the poorest counties in Kenya and many residents have experienced a sense of increasing poverty in recent years (Lesorogol et al 2011). Infrastructure is limited and

many residents have little access to health, education, markets, or basic human services

(Lesorogol 2008; McPeak et al. 2011). Colonial and post-independence administrations have politically marginalized northern Kenya (Straight et al 2016). Considered a hardship area, government workers are paid an extra allowance for working in Samburu County, and many government workers posted to Samburu believe that they have been sent there as disciplinary punishment (Lesorogol 2008). Samburu residents often joke that they are “going to Kenya” when they travel south to Nairobi. Many Samburu residents’ feelings of being lesser citizens are based on experiences of marginalization, state violence and human rights violations. Many residents struggle to obtain national identity cards, and when they do find that they are of little use except to prove that they are registered voters, giving them little sense of substantive citizenship (KHRC

2008). In addition to the national government’s failure to effectively intervene in violence in northern Kenya (KHRC 2008), Kenyan security forces have persecuted Samburu residents and committed human rights violations across northern Kenya (Cultural Survival 2009; TJRC 2013).

Colonial and post-independence government enforcement of administrative boundaries, the increasing demarcation of protected conservation areas, and an increasing population have led to less available land (Lesorogol 2008). Worsened by drought and compounded by livestock raids, this has led to a decline in the number of livestock per capita (Lesorogol 2008; Holtzman

2009; 2017; McCabe 2004; Straight 2007). The commoditization of the livestock trade has also largely meant that wealthier residents with the ability to keep large herds are most able to benefit from pastoralism (Fratkin and Roth 2005). At the same time, many Samburu pastoralists have no, or an unsustainably small amount, of livestock (Holtzman 2009). Increasing numbers of pastoralist populations are engaging in alternative livelihoods, petty trade, and casual wage labor

(Fratkin 2013; Fratkin and Roth 2005; Little 2014; McPeak et al. 2011; Nunow 2013; Straight

2007).

Outline of Chapters

In chapter two (“‘I am a Proud Kenyan!’ Ethnicity, Politics, and the State” I provide more historical context on Samburu and Turkana groups and how different ethnic groups have come to be associated with different regions and political territories in Kenya. I also provide context on how Kenyans use “tribe” and “tribalism” in everyday and political discourse as these are key terms that many Kenyans use to explain violence and debate what it means to be a

Kenyan citizen.

In chapter three (“Politics, Reform, and Violence in Kenya”), I trace the historical context of political struggle, reform, and violence, which has shaped the adoption of the 2010 constitution and devolution. This political trajectory is key to understanding how current reforms are taking shape and how Kenyan citizens understand and interpret reforms. I explore how experiences and narratives connected to colonialism, independence, regional politics, ethnic identity, political violence, and the distribution of state resources have been central to political power and political struggles.

In chapter four (“‘We Are Starting to Hate Them Again’: Violence and the Politics of

Devolution”) I focus on the most recent reforms and how the divisive politics of regionalism continues to shape how residents of Samburu County understand reforms. I argue that devolution was not a neutral, apolitical, technical process that simply changed the balance of political authority between national and regional institutions. Instead, the election of a new county government with increased powers over county budgets, state resources, development projects, and public services, produced struggles around competing visions of regional and national

sovereignty and citizenship. Devolution has been profoundly shaped by national politics and long-standing political debates in Kenya around independence, regional politics, marginalization, and citizenship. While devolution may have the capacity for creating political stabilities and increasing opportunities for political participation, processes of reform also contain the potential for reproducing and enhancing political violence.

Chapter five (“‘We Are Just Waiting for Peace’: Violence Between Elections”), centers on residents’ lived experiences of peace and violence in the months following the 2013 elections.

Moving away from more dramatic events like elections, residents’ everyday experiences and understandings of violence as connected to leaders and elections provides insight into how long- term political violence complicates proclamations of the 2013 Kenyan elections as peaceful. This chapter, in particular, provides a focus on everyday violence often not connected to elections in media reports and documentation of violence produced by government, observers, NGOs, and researchers. I suggest a need to expand concepts of political and electoral violence to include violence in the years between elections. I also pay attention to how residents drew upon different narratives of peace and held varied and often opposing views on what forms peace and legitimate violence should take in the county. At the heart of conflicting narratives and understandings of peace—and how such a state could be best achieved—was the question of whether political leaders elected in the 2013 elections could guarantee peace, and for which residents.

In chapter six (“‘Security is in the Arms of the Government’: Violence, Belonging, and

Insecurity”), I extend some of the previous chapter’s concerns with peace by turning to the related concept of insecurity and how claims to government protection from insecurity are connected to citizenship, belonging, and regional sovereignty. I begin by examining how county leaders’ public rhetoric on insecurity frequently justified violence against Turkana residents. I

explore how county leaders’ and many residents’ portrayal of Turkana residents as “guests” and

Samburu residents as “hosts” frequently blamed violence and insecurity on Turkana residents while obscuring Samburu residents’ role in violence. The undermining of Turkana as legitimate residents and representation as a threat to security and peace in the county mirrored the national government’s rhetoric on, and targeting of Somali “refugees” as a security threat. I argue that these national and county level debates around who has a right to security as a deserving citizen, and who is a threat to security and should be excluded from territorial borders, appear to be shaped by global security rhetoric focused on borders and migrants. While responsibility for security was not devolved to county governments, this chapter shows how struggles over insecurity and belonging unfolded through violence at the county level, shaped by the national political context.

In chapter seven (“‘Finding Kibarua’: Violence Targeting Livelihoods and Economic

Citizenship”), I provide a more specific case exploring how particular aspects of reform have shaped violence connected to belonging and citizenship. I focus on violence that has targeted

Turkana livelihoods and how this violence has been shaped by new economic and employment rights for marginalized groups. I begin by exploring a court case where a group of Turkana (and

Samburu) professionals—drawing on new economic and employment rights set out in the 2010 constitution—accused the Samburu County government of discriminating against Turkana residents in public employment. I then explore how violence has also targeted forms of casual wage labor that are precarious, but necessary, forms of income and instability that many Turkana residents were prevented from engaging in. In response, Turkana and Samburu residents have broken prohibitions on Turkana engaging in particular economic activities by sharing access to resources and practicing neighborly cooperation that rejects ethnic division. I show how beyond

public employment and claims to formal constitutional rights, Turkana residents’ articulation of economic rights was shaped by daily efforts to secure their basic needs through precarious forms of labor.

Chapter eight (“‘Be careful with ur words’: Online Hate Speech and National Politics”), shifts focus to online forms of violence by exploring online hate speech on a forum for discussing development in Samburu County. I examine how members of the online group interpret and respond to what they perceive as harmful speech. I show how this is shaped by national laws—that emerged during reforms aimed at addressing the post-2007 election violence—and political rhetoric addressing hate speech. I argue that through their use and interpretation of, and responses to, harmful speech SEDF members situate themselves as particular kinds of citizens and residents in relation to the Kenyan nation and Samburu County.

Furthermore, I frame online hate speech as itself a form of violence, that is directly shaped by, and that contributes to, residents’ experiences of offline violence. Struggles around online hate speech again show the ways in which violence is deeply embedded in questions of national and regional politics and who can, or should, be counted as legitimate residents and citizens.

CHAPTER 2

“I AM A PROUD KENYAN!” ETHNICITY, POLITICS, AND THE STATE

When I called Sarah I would be met with a recorded woman’s voice proclaiming “I am a proud Kenyan and an enemy of tribalism!” Skiza, from the Swahili for listen, are short recordings offered by cell phone carriers that play for the caller while phones ring, and can be everything from someone’s favorite song to an excerpt of Barack Obama giving a famous speech. Sarah’s skiza asserted her primary identity in terms of her nationality as a Kenyan, rejecting division based on tribal identities. When thinking about violence, identity, and the state in Kenya, tribe and tribalism are terms that need to be grappled with in addition to academic approaches to ethnic identity. In everyday discourse, in the media, and in political rhetoric, tribe, tribalism and tribalist are part of a commentary and debate on what it means to be Kenyan.

In this chapter, I explore how Kenyan citizens, and Samburu County residents in particular, understand, use, and experience tribe and tribalism in relation to politics and the state.

Additionally, I place Turkana and Samburu groups in historical and political context. The goal of this chapter is to complicate ideas of ethnicity and politics in order to provide a context for how residents use tribe and tribalism in relation to violence in ways that are often ambivalent or ostensibly contradictory, and that at times refuse tribal identities.

Tribe and Tribalism

The idea of “tribe” in Kenya continues to be an often fuzzy concept and identity that

Kenyans frequently and often passionately debate. The Kenya Tourism Board continues to promote the idea that there are 42 tribes in Kenya and this tends to be quoted as the official number of recognized tribes. However, a brief look at recent media in Kenya reveals problems with this number. While some commentators use the number uncritically (Etale 2014), others 46

add a subtle "plus" to 42 (Wambugu 2014). In an op-ed piece in one of Kenya’s main newspapers, the Daily Nation, Lynch (2014) points out that the idea that Kenya has 42 tribes is based on the 1969 census. Other censuses report different numbers, with the 2009 census providing 111 options for recording ethnicity. At the 2003 National Constitutional Conference participants came up with a list of tribes that reached 94 before they stopped counting for fear of offending anyone by missing them out (Lynch 2014).

While the term tribe is largely avoided in anthropology and other social sciences today— owing to colonial and anthropological constructions of tribe as a relatively static identity, often associated with backwardness—Kenyans use the term tribe to discuss ethnic identity in their daily lives (Atieno-Odhiambo 2002; Ekeh 1990; Wamwere 2003). However, beyond ascribed identity, ideas of tribe, tribalism, and tribalist are part of everyday Kenyan political discourse on the nation, ethnicity, and politics.

Changing, and growing, numbers of officially recognized tribes, ethnic groups, and minority or marginalized groups are partly a result of groups placing pressure on the Kenyan government for their political recognition. With increased democratic reform, some smaller ethnic groups have successfully campaigned for political recognition, frequently arguing for the creation of political constituencies where a member of the same ethnic group can represent their community in the national parliament (Little 2014, 110-111). The Il Chamus, a small group associated with the larger Maasai pastoralist community, persuaded the Kenyan courts that they have a legitimate claim to the establishment of a new political constituency and representative in order to realize their political participation in Kenyan democratic politics. The establishment of this constituency has yet to be realized and the Il Chamus have faced violence that is likely political retaliation from members of the Pokot ethnic group, another pastoralist community

claiming access to land and state resources in the same region fearful of having their own political claims challenged (Little 2014). While changing political administrations associated with an ethnic group are frequently thought to boost minority groups’ political participation, politicians granting new constituencies is frequently part of patronage politics to reward political supporters (Little 2014).

In July of 2017, Kenyan Asians were formally recognized by the president as Kenya’s

“44th tribe” (Majanga 2017). The recognition applied to Kenyans of Indian descent, part of a diaspora community that migrated to Kenya during British colonial rule. Kenyan Indians have been recognized as Kenyan citizens for some time and arguably gained electoral representation under the British before Kenyan Africans when the British administration extended the right to elect representatives to the Legislative Council to Indian and Arab communities (Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1931; See next chapter). However, while they achieved formal recognition, many Kenyan Indians felt somewhat separated from national social and political life and were not always treated as full citizens, particularly following independence (de Freytas-Tamura

2017). Significantly, the successful petition for recognition, one of multiple attempts, was brought by the first Member of Parliament of Asian descent in Kenya. In an example of how

Kenyan Asian citizenship is frequently undermined in everyday experiences, a vendor at a market I visited with a Kenyan Asian friend joked that my friend was a mzungu [Swahili: white person] like me who had just been in the country longer and had sun-tanned skin.

In a statement following the formal declaration of Kenyan Asians, Kenya’s Acting

Interior Cabinet Secretary commented, “The government is committed to promoting national cohesion and integration and that is why it has taken the move to include the Asians as one of our tribes. Now we don’t have to treat you as foreigners. We embrace you as our brothers and

sisters. We will include you in all our country’s procession” (Majanga 2017). As I explore in later chapters, struggles around ethnic identity and political belonging repeatedly center on ideas of true citizens and “foreigners,” “hosts” and “guests.” The struggles of Kenyan Asians and smaller minority ethnic groups in Kenya to be formally recognized as tribes, continues to assert tribe as the key identity through which groups can achieve political recognition and national belonging. However, which groups can or should use tribal identity—and how—in order to gain political benefit is hotly contested.

Tribalism can mean simply acting in a way that benefits one’s own tribe, or that discriminates against another tribe. Connected to this use of tribalism, tribalist means someone who acts in a way that promotes tribalism. Kenyan writer and politician Koigi wa Wamwere explains it this way: “when a person from one ethnic community despises or attacks someone from another community, or denies someone a job based on the applicants ethnicity, ordinary

Africans in the street, villages, government offices, and at political rallies do not call this ethnicity. They call it tribalism” (Wamwere 2003). However, when connected to the political context in Kenya these terms become much less straight forward.

Tribalism, or political tribalism, is also used in both everyday discourse and scholarly writing to explore and critique the ways in which political leaders and elites have used their political power to reward their own tribes and supporters through patronage (Berman et al 2004).

Tribe as “ethnic ideology” (Vail 1997) and tribalism—as a practice of elites accruing power and wealth through their access to state resources—are relatively recent constructs that are shaped more by political change than social systems of lineage (Besteman 1996; Vail 1997). The language of tribalism can also function as a “counter-ideology” (Ekeh 1990) or a “political vocabulary” (Atieno-Odhiambo 2002) used to critique ethnic discrimination and politics.

In contrast, accusations of tribalism have been used to suppress government opposition, those who speak out against ethnic politics, and those who can be construed as a threat to the integrity of the nation (Ogot 1996; Ekeh 1990; Haugerud 1995). During the one-party era the ruling government accused the opposition (who supported multiparty electoral reform) of fomenting ethnic division in order to benefit their own tribal interests at the expense of national unity (Haugerud 1995). More recently, when Samburu county residents critiqued the new county government, supporters of the government portrayed this as tribalism. Indeed, sometimes just talking about tribe can lead to accusations of tribalism (or government opposition, or anti- nationalism), placing limits on how tribe, politics and tribalism can be discussed in public discourse (Mhlanga 2013).

It is always easy for critics of ethnic discrimination, politics, and patronage to be counter- accused of being themselves tribalists, because talking about tribe is always an inherently political act that functions as commentary on the state and political power at all levels of Kenyan society. Throughout the following study, I provide multiple examples where Turkana and

Samburu residents are accused of tribalism for commentary on the county government that some

Samburu-identified residents perceived as unnecessary critique that challenged the political authority of county leaders. Of course, ethnic ideologies and politics are not unique to Kenya, or the African continent, and should be considered as part of global ideologies of ethnicity, nationality, belonging, and the politics of exclusion (Geschiere 2013; Lonsdale 1992).

In the next section, I discuss how the British colonial administration’s policies and practices helped to shape ideas of tribe, connect tribal identities to specific administrative regions, and construct tribe as central to political struggles for recognition.

Colonial Boundary-Making and the Politics of Tribe

European governments asserted control over Africa at the Berlin conference of 1884-5.

They divided the continent into new bounded regions, “carving up the map like a slab of meat”

(Anderson 2005). By 1900 Britain had claimed Kenya, Egypt-Sudan, Uganda and British

Somaliland (Fratkin and Roth 2005). Kenya was the East Africa Protectorate until 1920 when it became the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (Ojwang 2000).

The British colonial administration created a variety of levels of administrative boundaries in an attempt to control the Kenyan population and serve colonial economic and political interests. Colonial administrative boundaries ignored the ways that social groups in

Kenya had grouped together and separated themselves before colonialism. Borders brought people together who may have previously been separated, forced others apart, and even encouraged the creation of new groupings (Ogot 2000). As international borders - more precisely

“inter-territorial” (Ogot 2000: 16) borders at the time - were policed and solidified, people grouped under a common identity found themselves in different colonial territories. The Maasai were split between British East Africa and German East Africa across what is now the Kenya-

Tanzania border. In the north, pastoralist groups were divided by the Kenya-Ethiopia border.

Government policies on either side both encouraged and inhibited back and forth migration and demarcated which groups of people belonged to which side (Galaty 2005c: 57). The concerns of the British to police the border and control the movements of populations resulted in the creation of an “ethnic reality” (Galaty 2005c: 58) where new ethnic groups emerged associated with the countries on either side of the inter-colonial border.

Prior to colonial rule, what colonial administrators represented as “tribal groups” did not have a single “history” (Ogot 1967), but consisted of “hybrid communities” (Were 1967).

Migration, assimilation, clan and other lineages, political alliances, accommodation, and 51

“contamination” (Ogot 1996) were just as important to the formation of social groups as an emphasis on similarities. The establishment of central authority and the "regrouping of the various clans and sub-clans into bigger administrative units" (Were 1967: 156) was one of the most radical changes brought about by colonial rule.

The British administration brought different groups together in line with the district boundaries they created. These new tribes "represented the largest political units whose judicial and political deliberations affected all its members regardless of clan membership or ancestry"

(Kipkorrir 2008: 58). Perhaps most importantly, the colonial administration began to institutionalize the overarching framework of the state, and state authority, superseding the political authority of smaller populations (Haugerud 1995: 40). Colonial rule turned tribe into one of the most salient political affiliations in what was emerging as Kenya.

White settler agricultural production dominated the economic interests of the British colonial regime in Kenya. Along with Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Kenya was one of the few white settler colonies in British-occupied Africa and the colonial administration regarded white settlers as the economic base of the colony (Elkins 2005). The colonial administration created and assigned tribal reserves for Kenyan populations, preventing Kenyans from gaining ownership of land outside of their assigned reserves (Anderson 2005: 21). The administration used reserves to take possession of the most profitable and fertile land, granting ownership to white settlers

(Hodgson 2011).

The British colonial regime used coercive labor policies and practices in its attempts to force Kenyans to provide work that served the economic interests of the colony. The administration introduced native labor laws and the kipande pass and identity card system, preventing Kenyans from leaving their assigned districts and avoiding taxation and forced labor

recruitment (Anderson 2005). Land alienation and taxation pushed Kenyans into working in poor conditions for low pay in order to satisfy settler needs for cheap labor (Chweya and Nasong’o

2008). The colonial regime used chiefs, to recruit laborers and collect taxes (Elkins 2005;

Haugerud 1995). The British were not alone in using passes and identity cards to control and discipline the labor and movement of subjugated populations. For example, the Portuguese colonial administration in Mozambique also introduced a system of passes and identity cards for similar purposes (Obarrio 2014). One of the most important impacts of labor policy in the colonies was that it created and reinforced, through often violent forms of coercion, a legally established distinction between native colonial subjects and colonial citizens (Mamdani 1996;

Mbembe 2001; Obarrio 2014).

British economic interests also drove the introduction of new land policies that changed land ownership and access. The colonial administration often assumed that land was held communally by tribal communities. This conveniently enabled the justification of forced eviction as a disturbance rather than dispossession as communal land could be provided and claimed in other locations. In fact land was often held privately by families or controlled by sub-clan groups

(Berman and Lonsdale 2007: 187). Kenyans maintained and expressed a number of different claims to and ideas of land ownership. Pre-colonial ideas of land ownership included a range of land rights that cannot be accurately described using either private individual or communal models of ownership (Oucho 2002; Leo 1984). Kenyans would often dispute official boundaries imposed by the colonial administration, demand reparations for land injustices and had strong opinions on who had a right to access and remain on land in particular regions. Many of these land-based controversies were particularly heated along border areas where colonial policies had encouraged migration and settlement of other communities (Anderson 2005).

Huge campaigns and evidence collection initiatives by the Kenya Land Commission in the 1930s and the Kenya Boundaries Commission in the 1960s failed to take into account

Kenyan claims and grievances. Instead they functioned to demarcate official boundaries that continued to serve the interests of white settlers (Anderson 2005; Broch-Due 1999; Elkins 2005;

Lonsdale 2008). Across British-occupied Africa colonial regimes regulated ownership and access to land along tribal lines with the result that “land became both the asset of a tribe and the exclusive marker of the tribe’s political identity” (Mamdani 2009: 168).

Colonial economic, labor and land policy and practice produced inequalities that shaped which regions and communities had the most access to land, labor opportunities, and economic development. Communities that resided closest to the railways were provided with more development structures than places where the railway did not reach. Infrastructure and economic development barely reached places beyond the central belt, such as much of northern Kenya

(Mwaruvie 2009). Through particular relations to labor, land and regions, certain ethnic groups became associated with particular economic markets. For example, in central Kenya, the political struggles of the Luo and Kikuyu populations—two of the largest ethnic groups in Kenya—were shaped by colonial development of infrastructure in different regions. Luo dependence on labor associated with the railways and Kikuyu relations to land and agricultural production cultivated different forms of ethnicized political struggle (Lonsdale 2012: 48).

Colonial restriction of movement shaped ideas about who belonged in which region. The acceptance or rejection of migrants from particular ethnic groups between districts was controlled by District Commissioners eager to protect the interests of economically competitive administrative districts (Broch-Due 1999). Uneven capitalist development remained a source of political splits across ethnic and class lines during the transition to independence (Ogot 1995).

Ultimately this helped create powerful competition between ethnically-defined administrative districts (now counties) that continues to be a source of political struggle.

Colonial representations of Kenyan communities as bounded tribes operated in multiple ways. The colonial administration often represented communities as primitive and static tribes whose needs and backwardness justified colonial intervention (Ogot 2000:19). At the same time discourses of communities as rootless or impermanent were used to justify the displacement and forced eviction of communities (Amutabi 2009). Kenyans could be simultaneously in need of containment and displacement depending on the needs and objectives of the colonial government.

The colonial administration recreated borders both physically and conceptually as boundary lines demarcated on maps (Ogot 2000: 21). This cartographic notion of geographic boundaries didn’t always mesh well with pre-existing notions of boundaries, landscape and social identities (Broch-Due 1999: 62).The British administration had aimed to create borders that reflected the populations living there, but effectively defined groups according to new boundaries (Galaty 2005c: 57). They created a “political geography” (Ilife 1967) that tied together political power and struggles with geographically and cartographically defined regions and peoples.

The colonial administration shaped ethnic identity as salient for political struggles. Tribe was the only identity officially recognized by the state and the only way for Kenyans to make political demands for representation. Across British-occupied Africa colonial administrations helped shape tribe by treating communities as if they were bounded administrative populations with local leaders recognizable to the British. This gave tribe, or ethnicity, both a cultural and administrative meaning (Mamdani 2010). Using tribe as a "political model" (Lentz 2000: 108)

had implications not only for how colonial administrations functioned, but also for how Kenyans responded to this form of political rule. Institutionalized colonial administrative boundaries

“came to define arenas of competition for state resources” (Haugerud 1995: 40). Colonial law and bureaucracy and how Kenyans made claims on the state within these frameworks gave shape to particular political meanings and uses of tribe. Colonial violence underlay these changes; the

“transformation of Kenya from a polyglot of strangers into a coherent state was the work of force” (Atieno-Odhiambo 1995).

Kenyans influenced the construction of ethnic and political identity to further their own political goals, sometimes supporting and sometimes resisting colonial officials' ideas and practices. Chiefs served as local state-appointed leaders and were an important part of the political structure of colonial indirect rule in Africa. The colonial state established the role of chief through force, however, local communities did not always accept the authority of chiefs. In

Kenya, chiefs often resisted the enforcement of colonial rule, often subtly undermining colonial government officials through public speeches that contained double meanings (Haugerud 1995).

Often the colonial administration used corporal punishment on chiefs who did not discharge their duties in accordance with their demands (Ocobock 2012).

At the same time, many chiefs actively collaborated with the colonial regime. Some

Kenyans took advantage of the opportunity to build and consolidate power over local regions by professing to be locally acknowledged leaders (Ogot 2000). The idea of "detribalization" was not just used to justify the colonial administration's policy and practice. Kenyan local leaders, both chiefs and ethnic welfare associations, used ideas about the corrupting influence that leaving rural communities, tribes and traditions could have, particularly on youth and women, to assert their political authority (Carotuneto 2012; Ranger 1983; Vail 1997). Eager to hold on to their

political authority, local leaders across the African continent often altered the history of existing power structures, group alliances and traditions to match British ideas of tribe and region (Lentz

2000). Collaborating chiefs helped bring into being a "decentralized despotism"(Mamdani 1996:

37) where colonial control and authority was asserted through local ethnically defined power structures (Berman et al 2004).

The knowledge that colonial officials relied on to categorize populations into ethnic groups associated with particular regions did not just come from official government sources.

Much of the knowledge that was used to "institutionalize ethnic content" (Lynch 2010: 179) was provided by Kenyan collaborators. In addition, many Kenyans were not able to achieve their political goals within the confines of their assigned tribal status. Many communities adapted tribe to their own political purposes as they too wanted effective political action (Ogot 2000; Ranger

1983). Sometimes different communities would come together under a larger ethnic identity so that they were politically unified. For example, the relatively recently formed Kalenjin ethnic group organized around a shared political consciousness as much as cultural and linguistic similarities (Kipkorrir 2008; Lynch 2010). Local government also became shaped by ethnicity as communities began to demand their own local councils to represent them and their tribe. Some

Kenyans adopted the idea of tribal government that was taking shape in colonial Kenya (Ogot

2000).

Local educated political elites adopted ideas of tribe found in official school textbooks and the work of Christian missionaries translating the Bible into local languages and customs

(Berman et al 2004; Lentz 2000). Elites could use these ideas to cement their economic and political status. The colonial regime fostered a particular elite by bringing some communities, but not others, into British "traditions of governance" (Ranger 1983: 220). Subjugated

populations also aligned with ethnic and political communities for economic reasons; the protection of communities from economic instability and uncertainty that the state failed to protect them from (Vail 1997). Not only did colonial rule shape the formation of an educated political class and an administrative class of chiefs, the tribal political model also changed the role of elders. Elders became local leaders with more authority shaped by colonial tribal and regional ways of thinking (Ranger 1983). The colonial administration helped create a new class of local elites as wells as an educated political class.

The British administration and white settlers used violence to enforce the social, political, and economic order including state violence, policing, corporal punishment and interpersonal violence (Carotenuto and Shadle 2012). This was part of routinized violence that the colonial state conducted against the Kenyan population on a daily basis as part of normal governance

(Berman 1990; Hynd 2012). The colonial administration and white settlers used everyday forms of violence, threat and control and state institutions—such as courts and prisons—to enforce hierarchical racial difference (Hynd 2012; Shadle 2012). Much of the violence used by colonial administrations would not have been legal in Europe. Colonial administrations portrayed violence as necessary to establish order in the colonies and government policies limited the application of international law (Bennet 2013). Colonial notions of good governance and justice both conflicted with and were enforced through law (Hynd 2012). Africans were not always the ones subject to violence. Tribes such as the Maasai were used by the British administration to conduct raids and police other Kenyans (Atieno-Odhiambo 2000; Haugerud 1995; Mwaruvie

1996). As well as maintain distinctions between Kenyans and Europeans, colonial rule and the violence used to govern, reproduced divisions between Kenyan communities.

Colonial models of governance and responses to them contributed to ethnicity and politics shaping each other to produce "politicized ethnicity"(Lentz 2000: 121; Ajulu 2002). The colonial administration discouraged collective political identities based on class or other common interests, in order to maintain and enforce a cheap pool of labor and claim ownership of land (Haugerud 1995; Otenyo 2016; Rutten and Owuor 2009). Governance became the "struggle between representatives of ethnic consciousness” (Ogot 2000:29). Colonial governance encouraged competition between different communities defined by ethnicity and region.

Different regions and communities were exposed to varying levels of uneven development and exposure to economic uncertainty. Local leaders and elites could use colonial ideas of tribe and political models to challenge colonial rule and consolidate it. Kenyans' main option for responding to colonial capitalist governance was to ally with different local leaders and communities with shared political goals.

In the next chapter, I continue to explore ethnicity and politics in the context of political change and electoral politics in both colonial and post-independence Kenya. In the next section, I concentrate on the creation of Samburu and Turkana ethnic identities and territorial divisions.

Samburu and Turkana Identities and Boundaries

Samburu and Turkana ethnic groups have to be understood in terms of the political and economic context of northern Kenya and how this context has shaped how people understand ethnic identity and how tribe has become tethered to political belonging in particular regions.

The political differentiation of Samburu and Turkana groups was part of the general process of demarcating colonial boundaries described in the previous section.

Both Samburu and Turkana groups are primarily pastoralist, meaning that keeping livestock as a main livelihood is often an ideal, if not a practice. Samburu language is similar to

Maa and Samburu consider themselves to be part of the larger Maasai linguistic and ethnic community (Holtzman 2009). Turkana belongs to a different language family, sometimes referred to as Ateker (McCabe 2004). However, many Turkana and Samburu residents of the county understand at least some of each other’s language and many residents speak at least some

Swahili, the national language of Kenya. While both groups share similar patterns of lineage and kinship, the age-set system is less formalized in Turkana communities (McCabe 2004). While many Samburu practice both male and female circumcision, historically Turkana do not.

However, many Samburu-identified residents, especially Christians, health workers, and those who see themselves as more educated, actively campaign against Female Genital Cutting.

Any divisions between Samburu and Turkana are shaped by the history of colonialism in

Kenya. It was during the British colonial administration that the boundaries between Turkana and Samburu districts were created—and the idea that each group occupied and had rights over a specific territory was formalized. Prior to colonialism there was a “more flexible understanding of collective identities” (Straight et al. 2016: 173) that relied more on lineages and clans rather than ethnicity. Generally, ethnic identities in northern Kenya are shifting and contextual

(Lesorogol 2008). Ethnicity in Kenya has become a highly politicized identity that shifts with political change and is used by national and local leaders and elites for political gain (Ajulu

2002).

Samburu groups resident in Samburu County are likely part of a larger Maasai migration from Sudan sometime prior to 1600 AD with Samburu remaining in the northern Rift Valley

(Fratkin and Roth 2005). During the mid-nineteenth century pastoralist groups in northern Kenya were frequently in competition spurred by drought, famine, and epidemics that heavily impacted pastoralist groups (Fratkin and Roth 2005). In 1919 the British colonial administration created

“Tribal Grazing Areas” which separated and restricted the movements of Samburu, Turkana and other pastoralist groups in the region into their own areas that were eventually formalized as

Turkana and Samburu Districts (Fratkin and Roth 2005). The current border between Samburu and Turkana County (known as districts until new counties were formalized) was largely established in the early nineteenth century as part of British efforts to suppress Turkana resistance to colonial rule (Holtzman 2004).

Following British raids in the early twentieth century against Turkana as part of

“pacification” efforts many Turkana emigrated from Turkana District (Lokuruka and Lokuruka

2006). While Turkana were not always welcomed in Samburu, the district served as an important refuge for Turkana fleeing British brutality in response to their armed resistance (Lokuruka and

Lokuruka 2006; Lamphear 1992). The British colonial administration often viewed Turkana as difficult to manage, and as the instigators of violence, whereas the colonial regime frequently saw Samburu as allies and used Samburu as mercenaries, some Samburu helping to put down the so-called “Mau Mau” uprising – or Land Freedom Army—led by some Kikuyu (Holtzman

2017).

Whether or not Turkana have been considered legitimate residents who belong in

Samburu County has shifted alongside political context. Colonial policies in the 1950s frequently called for the removal of Turkana populations from Samburu County and neighboring Isiolo

County (Broch-Due 1999; Boye and Kaarhus 2011). Many poor Turkana populations in some towns in Samburu County moved in search of labor opportunities and claim their families have been residents in Samburu for at least two generations, since the 1960s (McPeak et al 2011).

According to 1979 Kenyan Census, Samburu County housed the largest Turkana population outside of Turkana District (Lokuruka and Lokuruka 2006).

Within Samburu District, different groups often came to be associated with particular areas as their “home” region. Particular clans or regional groups of Samburu were often understood to belong to different regions of Samburu District, and Samburu groups frequently distinguished between lowland and highland Samburu populations (Holtzman 2004). This distinction was partly shaped by the British administration who encouraged Samburu to provide accounts which bolstered claims to the Leroghi plateau as part of their adjudication of land claims during the 1930 Kenya Land Commission process (Holtzman 2004). Sometimes lowland

Samburu who moved to the highlands seeking security after livestock raids were referred to by

Samburu living in the highlands as “refugees” (Holtzman 2004).

Alongside processes of division, distinction and boundary-making, Turkana and Samburu groups have also frequently emphasized their similarity and coexistence as neighbors. Turkana and Samburu ethnic groups both claim a long history of intermarriage and living and herding together, particularly within Samburu County. Samburu and Turkana identified residents often live together, marry, have friendships, and work together. Many residents identify as both

Samburu and Turkana, or as other multiethnic identities. For many Samburu and Turkana residents violence created, rather than reflected, any ethnic division and disrupted the ways that neighbors lived and worked together. The creation of distinct political boundaries between ethnic groups in northern Kenya has frequently shifted and disrupted social relations and alliances between groups (Galaty 2016).

Tribe, Political Belonging, and the State

As I show throughout the following chapters, ideas of tribe, identity, and political belonging are frequently debated and challenged by Samburu and Turkana residents. How

Samburu County residents understand and experience ethnic identity is tied to their hopes for the

county and nation. Some residents’ attempts to emphasize difference and to exclude others is clearly shaped by new political contexts and struggles over county-level state resources.

However, often how residents experience ethnicity and belonging challenges clear divisions between Samburu and Turkana.

In addition to ethnic identity, clan identity and lineage play an important role in social relationships in Samburu County and are increasingly part of political division and violence.

Lmasula are the largest Samburu clan and as the first to initiate and hold large age-set ceremonies often claim ritual seniority (Lesorogol 2008). While the Lmasula clan “have not historically possessed formal power over the other sections…some Lmasula have attempted to parlay their ritual seniority into political capital in recent years by claiming a certain right to lead based on it. In this sense, some individuals are reinterpreting sectional identities in order to use them to form bases for political support, and institutions that had relatively little significance are becoming more salient” (Lesorogol 2008: 19). The governor of Samburu elected in the 2013 elections identifies as Lmasula and clan elders reportedly blessed him as their candidate. Many

Samburu County residents claim that the governor and other politicians have prioritized their own clan for positions at all levels of the county government. Prior to devolution, the creation of the Constituency Development Fund granted MPs more control over government funding and how to use it in their constituencies. While the reported intention was to spur regional development, in many cases MPs have used their access to government funds to reward their own clans and supporters and discriminate against other clans and those who did not support them (Schlee 2013).

Many Samburu-identified residents claim discrimination based on clan or regional affiliation. In later chapters I detail how Turkana residents who have moved to Maralal are

frequently portrayed by other residents as “visitors,” “guests,” or even “refugees.” In some cases,

Samburu residents accuse Turkana residents who have moved from northern regions of the county of being criminals who instigate violence and livestock raids. However, sometimes

Samburu residents who have moved from northern regions also face forms of group-based discrimination and frequently cite the same reasons as Turkana residents—searching for security after experiencing livestock raiding and fears of violence—for moving. In chapter eight, I describe how Samburu-identified residents in the north also feel, like Turkana, that they are not given opportunities for public employment in the county government. These Samburu residents in fact supported Turkana-led efforts to seek relief for public employment discrimination in the courts. As I show throughout this study, and in particular in chapter seven, Samburu and Turkana residents frequently cooperate and coexist in ways that reject patronage and political, clan, and ethnic based divisions.

What residents and leaders understand, experience, and portray as “tribalism” varies widely based on context. NGOs and Faith Based Organizations working in the county faced opposition to their projects and intervention in violence and were often accused by county leaders and Samburu-identified residents of taking sides. Accusations of tribalism applied not only to inequalities and favoritism in terms of government resources and funding, but also in terms of development funding provided by other organizations.

Robert, who worked on peace-building projects with a regional Faith-Based

Organization, explained that his organization had been accused by county leaders of favoring

Turkana communities for their projects. Robert was frustrated by these accusations and by the lack of official response to violence and prohibitions on Turkana livelihoods: “When you see the sense of helplessness and hopelessness of the people….and the authorities don’t do anything.

And this is still not finished. Turkana here still can’t do business. This is a violation of the rights of these people. When we raise our voice about what is happening we are accused of working for the Turkana. But [we are] the voice of the voiceless, so we must speak out! Even if people don’t like it!” While Robert insisted that he had to speak out for the rights of Kenyan citizens, he also shared that he took precautions when he traveled, being careful about who he told his travel plans to, because he feared being targeted in banditry attacks when traveling. Many residents believed banditry attacks—where vehicles were stopped, robbed, and frequently shot at—to be politically motivated at least some of the time.

George, who worked for an international NGO in the region also encountered political resistance to their work responding to violence. Like Robert, George explained the difficulties of representing organizations as neutral: “As a humanitarian organization our mandate is to respond to crises and whenever there are these skirmishes, these killings, we are the first people even before the police get to the scene…However, there were a lot of challenges during those responses…since the time of the police massacre [the November 2012 killing of 42 police officers] to date. Because you find, if it's the Turkana that have been attacked the Samburus feel

[we] should not assist the Turkanas.” Despite these frustrations, George recognized the need to continue trying to work with county leaders: “However, we've been resisting their influence… we can't discriminate, we are impartial, and we are neutral so, even the leadership, even the politicians, they have now come to appreciate our role in the county.”

Actions that might be thought of as tribalism are further complicated by examples where residents participate in actions and behavior that clearly discriminate against another ethnic group—while promoting the dominance of their ethnic group—even after they have shown strong opposition to forms of tribalism in other contexts.

In March 2014, three Samburu students from the local university campus—Alice, Grace, and Phillip— invited me to go with them to visit a market near the border of East Pokot County and Samburu County. All three students had participated in the digital storytelling project and had spoken out against tribalism that they saw as contributing to violence against Turkana residents, violence within the county in general, and as central to the post-2007 election violence.

From 2006 to 2009 conflict over land around the border between (what is now) East

Pokot and Samburu Counties resulted in violence with injuries and deaths of both Samburu and

Pokot. Alice, Grace and Phillip insisted that after reconciliation in 2009, Pokot and Samburu peacefully traded at the weekly market. The market was one of several promoted by regional

NGOs involved in establishing the markets as a success story of peace-building responses to violence between Samburu and Pokot. We traveled from Maralal to the market on an overloaded truck filled with mostly second hand clothes. Several traders, and Phillip, rode in the back and we stopped several times to pick up goods including chickens and eggs.

Our first stop was a small rented shop from which Grace sold chai, soured milk and snacks. Next we visited Grace’s mother’s house, a simple mud and thatch building, next to a field that Grace had plowed with tractors rented from the county government. Grace’s mother had been charged with protecting the recently plowed field from zebra while they waited for the rains so they could sow maize. Many of the lots around the area had also been plowed. Walking over to the market, grace pointed into the valley and told us that a family of seven had been killed by Pokot “down there.” Grace exclaimed that at one point so many people were killed that there was a “bad smell” hanging over the area.

Traders at the market sold metal pots and pans, a variety of plastic utensils and containers, plastic chairs, sugar, tea, fat, flour, eggs, livestock medicines, second hand clothing

and shoes, sandals made from old tires, fresh vegetables, flashlights, knives, batteries, and even offered a mobile barbershop. I took a photo of the market—a view from the edge of some stalls selling kitchen wares. A women selling plastic cups and utensils started shouting at me. Before I could apologize, show the woman the photo and offer to delete it1, Alice, Grace and Phillip began to yell back at the woman.

We moved away and Alice, Grace and Phillip expressed that they found the woman to be really rude and reasoned that she should not have shouted. They had tried to explain to the woman that I was taking a picture of the market and not her in particular. The woman continued to ask why I was taking a photo of her, and what right I had to take a photo. Alice, Grace and

Phillip told me that the woman was Kikuyu. They yelled back at her, asserting that this was

“their place” and that they had let the woman come here, so she could “just leave their market if she didn’t show respect.” They told her to “take all her things somewhere else.” Alice explained that the woman “kept quiet after that,” boasting that “when Samburu talk, others know that they are serious!”

I wanted to know more about this response that Alice, Grace and Phillip had, to what seemed to me to be a reasonable question asked of an intrusive ethnographer. All three had previously told me that they were against tribalism and had shared stories of how they had been impacted by ethnic division and violence in their own lives. So it surprised me that they would turn so quickly to what appeared to me to be an act of discrimination. Alice commented that they wanted to “show her where she belongs” and explained that Samburu could simply come along, take all of the woman’s things, and “send her away with nothing”—something that they told me had happened before to another trader.

1 Obviously I should have asked the woman for permission prior to taking the photo. At the time, I had assumed that the woman was far enough away and not identifiable, an error on my part. 67

Many of the Pokot and Samburu buyers at the market did not interact much. Before we arrived at the market, Alice and Phillip had encouraged me to speak to some Pokot who had crossed the county border to come to the market to get their point of view. They seemed excited at the prospect and told me that they had never spoken to a Pokot person before. Grace said she would call some friends. Once we got to the market their enthusiasm waned. Grace told us that all the women she knew had gone home. When I suggested to Alice and Phillip that we approach some of the small groups of Pokot men gathered around the market, they claimed that they would not be able to speak Kiswahili (a claim that seemed strange to me given that they had never spoken to a Pokot before and that the Pokot there must have known at least enough

Kiswahili to trade with mostly Kikuyu traders).

The incident with my improper photo taking appeared to be a reminder of how fragile the peace and economic cooperation was at the market. Although the trade at the market was important for the Samburu communities living in rural areas—far from any other markets that were easily accessible—it was clear that Samburu residents would not hesitate to remove any non-Samburu who they felt were abusing their welcome in their county.

Later, as we waited for the market to close and the truck to return to Maralal, a brand new wildlife conservancy vehicle drove up beside us. The Toyota Landcruisers—expensive four- wheel drive trucks often used in game drives—had been provided by the new county government. They were emblazoned with official logos and the county government’s new slogan

“Peace and Prosperity.” The Samburu County government had provided new vehicles and funding to existing conservancies in the county. Alice hoped that they would bring security to the area.

The Ltungai wildlife conservancy area, bordering East Pokot County, was registered in

2006 with the help of a local non-profit that manage conservancies all over the county and region. Pokot were excluded from the process and, after the land was registered as a conservancy, Samburu asked Pokot to vacate the land. Both Samburu and Pokot communities claimed ownership of the area. Despite a prior peace agreement that had been renewed a few years earlier, and the peaceful sharing of water and grazing for livestock, the Samburu claim to land and exclusion of Pokot catalyzed violence that included raiding, killing of men, women and children and the mutilation of bodies (Greiner 2012). Samburu were displaced from the area and only began to return in 2009 after a ceasefire agreement.

Samburu residents clearly still carried strong memories and experiences of violence in the area, and this shaped not just how they interacted with Pokot, but also any other “visitor” to the county from any other ethnic identity. At the same time, through the formalization of the wildlife conservancy and new county government funding, Samburu residents continued to strengthen their claims to land in the area. Many of the tensions that led to previous violence continued to be present in the region. Peace, cooperation, and coexistence were frequently fragile arrangements and it is within these contexts that residents grapple with ethnicity, political claims, and “tribalism.”

Questioning Tribe, Claiming the State

Frequently residents downplay, or even reject, ethnic or tribal difference and instead look to an inclusive nationalism. At a gathering at my house in Maralal, I asked Francis—a professional working for an NGO based in town who identified as coming from the region—if the Kenyan government has ever really changed. Francis replied that I “should not get him started” on that or I would make him “burn a Kikuyu house down” (referring to the ethnic

identity of the first president of Kenya—Kikuyu have frequently dominated the national government). He stated very clearly that he hated ethnicity and could not support any project that had the aim of supporting one tribe or ethnicity. Andrew, a European missionary working on a project to translate the Bible into Samburu, was also a guest. On learning of Andrew’s work,

Francis told him that he did not believe that people having a bible in their own language could bring any good because people would most likely use it to further the interests of their own tribe, making claims like “God is on our side.” Andrew was rather taken aback as he had never considered that his work could lead to such negative consequences. For Francis, tribalism could seep into just about anything and must be avoided. Whenever anyone asked Francis about his ethnic background he would avoid the question, often visibly frustrated. Similarly, James— another professional working in town who identified as being born and brought up in Samburu

County—would simply answer that he was Kenyan, refusing to self-identify with a tribe.

Lonsdale suggests that “tribes, like nations…are changing moral arenas of political debate” and that “to rethink tribes may also be to rethink states” (Lonsdale 1992: 267-8). Sarah’s claim to be an enemy of tribalism, Francis’s rejection of tribalism and tribal identity, and James’s appeal to an inclusive nationalism, in addition to being rejections of ethnic discrimination and critiques of violence, reject the regional and national political status quo. In this study, I hope to continue to problematize not only the ways that tribalism shapes violence, but also how responses to tribalism challenge the very notion of violence as “tribal” by calling attention to the political violence of the state in Kenyans’ everyday lives. To challenge ethnic politics and critically analyze how tribal discourse plays out in relation to violence is to question the nature of the Kenyan state and its role in regional violence.

Throughout this dissertation, I use the term “Samburu County residents” or “county residents” to refer to both Samburu-identified and Turkana-identified (and multiethnic) residents as an alternative to referring to Samburu and Turkana as separate, self-evident groups. This remains a difficult task since much scholarly writing and regional narratives use Turkana and

Samburu as reasonably straight-forward “tribes.” Ethnic identities are as much about residents of a historically marginalized area making political claims that often result in exclusion in an attempt to protect political and economic resources—both actual and potential (Anderson and

Bollig 2016). Narratives of ethnic division, then, are a starting point for an investigation into why many county residents cast Samburu and Turkana groups as in conflict.

While my focus is on violence involving Samburu and Turkana groups (and in the case of attacks in town largely Samburu-identified residents targeting Turkana-identified residents), this reflects the specific period that I carried out fieldwork. Had I been in Samburu a few years earlier from 2006-2009, I would have been largely describing conflict involving Samburu- and Pokot- identified communities. At the same time, while I focus on Samburu County, violence really has to be understood in terms of the larger context of state violence and the marginalization of northern Kenya as a whole under both the British colonial administration and post-independence

Kenyan governments up to the present.

It is my hope that I can disrupt easy explanations of violence as ethnic or tribal and as

“between” two distinct groups—Samburu and Turkana—and instead do justice to the complexities of violence in this context. While some Samburu-identified and Turkana-identified residents emphasize difference and actively participate in violence, many other residents challenge violence, corrupt politics, and hatred that they view as spurring violence. Instead, they emphasize sameness and everyday ways in which Samburu and Turkana residents live together

peacefully and cooperate as neighbors, friends, family, and Kenyans. While many residents choose to emphasize ethnic identity as an important aspect of who they are and the community they are from, others downplay ethnic identity, while some even refuse ethnic or tribal identities.

In the next chapter, I explore the historical and political context for reform and ideas of regional governance. Ideas of tribe, territory, and tribalism, have shaped political claims and perspectives on regional governance during both colonial rule and post-independence in Kenya.

As I show in chapter four, this history is necessary to understand how residents have interpreted devolution, and what they hope for as residents of the county and citizens of the nation. While many commentators view ethnicity and tribalism as an obstacle to democracy, I hope to show throughout the rest of this study that debates around ethnic identity and tribalism are in fact integral to questions of what form democracy in Kenya should take, and are frequently put into question and made salient by processes of democratic reform.

CHAPTER 3

POLITICS, VIOLENCE, AND REFORM IN KENYA

In this chapter, I trace the historical context of political struggle, reform, and violence, which has shaped the adoption of the 2010 constitution and devolution. This political trajectory is key to understanding how current reforms are taking shape and how Kenyan citizens understand and interpret reforms. I explore how experiences and narratives connected to colonialism, independence, regional politics, ethnic identity, political violence, and the distribution of state resources have been central to political power and political struggles.

In the previous chapter, I described how colonial rule shaped tribal identity as connected to land and regional belonging, making tribal identity an important focus of political struggle.

Through violence, labor and land policies, and the creation and enforcement of administrative boundaries, the British colonial regime produced and maintained a racial, social, and economic order and a stark division between populations recognized as citizens and treated as non-citizens.

Staying in the colonial period, I detail how prior to independence the colonial administration used electoral representation and constitutional reform to produce and maintain racial hierarchy, a division between citizen and non-citizen, and the political domination of the colonial government and white settlers.

In this chapter, I move to explore how post-independence governments used constitutional reform to turn Kenya into an authoritarian state, consolidating the rule of a centralized political class. During the 1960s to the 1980s the Kenyan government used ethnic politics, patronage, and violence to maintain state power and repress political opposition. Rather than substantially transforming a political structure shaped by colonial rule, African nationalist movements fractured along ethnic, regional and class divisions. The legacy of independence, and

which Kenyan regions really achieved access to and control over the state and its resources, continues to be a key focus in politics and violence across Kenya.

Finally, I explore electoral violence during the period of multiparty politics in the 1990s and 2000s, during which most African countries undertook democratic reforms in response to domestic and international pressure. This was a period of renewed political struggle for constitutional reform, and also a period of continued political violence. The post-2007 election violence marked a key turning point for reform, but the factors contributing to the violence also highlight how ethnic politics, regionalism, inequality in the distribution of state resources, and struggles over land, continue to shape political struggles.

A central theme around which ideas of devolution and violence have centered is a form of political devolution characterized as majimboism, or regionalism (majimbo, is Swahili for

'regions'). The idea of regionalism first became prominent during negotiations between the

British colonial government and the Kenyan nationalist political elite over the independence constitution, culminating in the constitution with which Kenya entered independence in 1963.

Negative associations linking regional governance with ethnic violence have underpinned debates around political decentralization in Kenya since the negotiation of the independence constitution. This contentious history of regional politics, and how they have often come to be negatively associated with violence and ethnic division, has shaped understandings of devolution, been used in political campaigns and informed hopes and fears surrounding devolution and the new 2010 constitution.

Political Representation, Constitutional Reform, and Struggles for Citizenship

Building on studies of the creation of a division between citizen and non-citizen through coercive labor law and practice, and through violence (Mamdani 2012; Mbembe 2001; Obarrio

2014), I turn to explore how colonial uses of electoral representation helped to enforce this division. I begin by discussing the limitation of Kenyan political participation to local councils that had little influence on national policy. As domestic and international pressure began to open political spaces for Kenyan political participation, Kenyans began to push for more political participation in the colony and demand recognition as citizens.

In 1906 the British established Legislative and Executive Councils. From the outset, these councils functioned as a space of political domination by the administration and white settlers.

At this juncture, authority was transferred from the British Foreign Office to the Colonial office and control of the colony was placed in the hands of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief

(Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1931). In 1919 the administration introduced the principle of elective representation (Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1931). This was driven by two competing interests. First and foremost, the demands of white settlers, the promotion of settler interests and the bolstering of the colonial regime in the face of settler-driven political and economic challenges to its authority. Secondly, critiques of the colonial administration for supporting settler interests at the expense of Kenyan rights.

The first elections for seats on the Legislative Council took place in 1920. Voting was reserved for Europeans. The colonial administration had introduced a European poll tax in 1913 and in response white settlers were keen to have more influence over colonial policy (Chweya and Nasong’o 2008). Furthermore, many white settlers, influenced by white self-government and white supremacist ideologies in South Africa and Zimbabwe, took up their new rights as voters as a means of vying for control of the government (Maxon 2011). At the same time, Kenyan 75

political organizations and missionaries raised their voices in opposition to colonial forced labor policies that clearly put settler interests above Kenyan rights (Thomas 2003: 24).

As part of the 1923 Devonshire Declaration, the colonial administration extended the right to elect representatives to the Legislative Council to Indian and Arab communities (Kenya

Colony and Protectorate 1931). The colonial government used the extension of elective representation to address several pressing issues the British faced both in Kenya and in other colonies after the First World War. The reliance of the colonial state on white settler production left the administration vulnerable to challenges from white settlers and Europeans moved to consolidate their economic and political position (Maxon 1993: 13). The administration also came under pressure from growing African nationalist movements and internationalist discourses of humanitarianism that were critical of colonial labor policy. (Gorman 2012: 134). Indian nationalists drew on these global politics to make claims for fuller citizenship rights as overseas inhabitants of the colony (Gorman 2012: 135).

The Devonshire Declaration set a precedent for prioritizing the protection of Kenyan interests. This was largely an empty promise that was instead used to quell challenges to the colonial regime and maintain a white majority while giving minor concessions to others

(Gorman 2012; Maxon 1993). The extension of elective representation clearly showed that the colonial government would not heed its own words. Eleven seats on the Legislative Council were reserved for European members, five for Asian members and one for Arab members.

“Africans”2 were represented by a single European missionary and were not given voting rights

(Maxon 2011). Changes in elective representation served to shore up the authority of the

2 The British colonial administration differentiated populations according to a racial hierarchy with whites at the top, followed by Indians and Arabs, with “Africans” at the bottom. While scholars often refer to Africans, I instead place “African” in inverted commas to indicate that this reflects colonial constructions of race, or instead use the term Kenyan to refer to populations other than the administration, white settlers, or populations with a national origin other than Kenya. 76

struggling colonial administration. Gestures toward expanded political representation and participation were a means of retaining racial order and exclusionary governance that legitimated the colonial state.

“African” political participation was restricted to Local Native Councils. Created under the Native Authority Ordinance of 1924, Local Native Councils were, on the surface, set up to

“embrace the welfare and good government of the native inhabitants of the areas where they have been established in respect of matters affecting purely local native administration” (Kenya

Colony and Protectorate 1931: 7). Kenyans played their role in the establishment of Local Native

Councils by pressing the colonial government for fuller participation (Haugerud 1995: 73). Yet,

District Commissioners (British colonial officials) were appointed as presidents of the councils to represent “native interests” (Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1931: 6). The colonial administration justified this by appealing to widely-held stereotypes of “Africans” as unfit to take on the responsibilities of governance (Maxon 2011). Anthropologists certainly didn’t help in this regard. In the classic anthology African Political Systems they wrote that Africans could only “think” and feel” political systems through myth and ritual and had “no objective knowledge of the forces determining their social organization” (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard

1940: 17).

British colonial intent behind Local Native Councils was never about allowing Africans access to political participation. While the Governor had the right to veto any initiative passed by the Legislative Council (Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1931: 5), District Commissioners3 possessed the power to veto any initiatives put forward by the Local Native Councils and to select acceptable council members (Thomas 2003). Local Native councils shored up the

3 Governor and District Commissioner were British colonial officials. 77

authority and legitimacy of the colonial government and continued to exclude the majority of

Kenyans through a veneer of representation and inclusion.

Local Native Councils functioned largely to legitimate the authority of chiefs, and it was chiefs rather than the councils themselves that the colonial administration trusted to represent the opinions of “Africans” (Anderson 2005: 17). In this way the councils worked to establish new local systems of government while bypassing existing forms of local political organization

(Thomas 2003: 24). Having highly limited authority and powers, Local Native Councils “only ever offered the appearance of local self-government” (Thomas 2003: 37). Instead, councils worked to suppress challenges to colonial authority and create and control a base of publicly acknowledged local representatives to contain political dissent (Haugerud 1995: 73; Thomas

2003: 37). Chiefs, elders and others who worked with the colonial administration were incorporated into the government as representatives who could hinder the genuine participation of the majority of Kenyans in critical political decision-making (Berman 1990).

Kenyans were certainly aware that the colonial administration served as a mechanism of their control and domination. Many Kenyans were unhappy that the majority of those representing “African” concerns on councils were elders and chiefs (Haugerud 1995). The colonial government sought to regulate Kenyan life in accordance with imposed laws and could not be relied on to protect the rights and interests of the majority of Kenyans (Chweya and

Nasong’o 2008: 72). Rather than relying on official channels of political representation, Kenyans often used more subtle techniques to express criticism of the government and attempt to attain at least a partial voice in political matters (Haugerud 1995).

Europeans and Indians living in the colony were a minority in a region where five million

“African” Kenyans lived. Despite this - and colonial lip-service to protecting “African” interests

- by the 1940s Kenyans had not managed to obtain substantive political representation (Anderson

2005: 9). In contrast to the Local Native Councils, European District Councils in the white highlands enjoyed wider powers and a larger degree of autonomy. Along with majority representation in the Legislative Council this again meant that white settler interests would trump

Kenyan ones. However, participation in Local Native Councils, even as it negated substantive political presence, helped to create a wealthy political class that would retain much of its power post-independence (Thomas 2003).

Colonial elective representation served to maintain racial distinctions between settler and native and exclude “Africans” from political participation. As Mbembe notes: “the colonized, being excluded from the vote, is not simply consigned to the fringes of the nation, but is virtually a stranger in his/her home” since “he/she cannot be a subject of politics, a citizen” (Mbembe

2001: 35). In this model African rights and protections are not guaranteed by the state, but are instead a sign of state benevolence towards its subjects (Mbemebe 2001: 35). In Kenya, as elsewhere, colonial states were active sites for negotiations regarding who would be excluded and who would be included as citizens and participants (Stoler and Cooper 1997: 3). Citizenship was largely confined to the settler in colonies where governments worked to institutionalize difference (Mamdani 2012: 2). Multiracial politics and elective representation in Kenya prior to the 1950s, then, was a site for colonial restriction of citizenship and the denial of meaningful political participation and representation for the majority of Kenyans. If Kenyans wanted to be recognized as equal citizens with the ability to represent and govern themselves they could not wait for the colonial administration to legitimate them as political subjects. For the colonial regime to do so would be to undermine the very foundations of colonial rule.

From the 1950s onwards, as African nationalists pushed for increased political self- representation, the colonial government gradual included more elected “African” representatives in the Legislative Council. By 1951, the constitution continued to represent only the interests of settlers. Eleven seats reserved for white settlers were now matched by eleven seats for Indians,

Arabs and “Africans.” However, only four positions were reserved for “Africans.” The colonial administration selected unelected “African” representatives from a pool of approved candidates

(Anderson 2005: 9).

The 1954 Lyttleton Constitution was the first public expression of the multiracial participation in government (Ojwang 2000) and introduced further Asian and “African” representation (Maxon 2011). This was largely a response to the growing Mau Mau movement and increases in African nationalist politics (Ogot 1995). However, African nationalist politicians rejected the Lyttleton Constitution and continued to push for majority “African” representation (Ogot 1995).

In addition to African nationalists pushing for increased political participation, the Land and Freedom Army movement—an armed uprising lasting from 1952-1960, often referred to by the British as Mau Mau—was the key catalyst for independence (Anderson and Rolandsen

2014). The Mau Mau movement and African nationalist politics forced the British to grant independence faster than the colonial government had anticipated (Ogot 1995). The colonial regime was resistant to giving up power and planned a much slower transition, arguing that

Kenyans were not ready to rule themselves (Ochieng and Atieno-Odhiambo 1995). The struggle for independence exposed the violence that the colonial state had used to enforce a political, economic, racial, and class order. The routine violence of the colonial state escalated into a brutal campaign of violence to suppress anticolonial political opposition.

In response to the Mau Mau anticolonial uprising, the British colonial government declared a state of emergency and used systematic violence to crush government opposition.

Between 1952 and 1960 British forces executed over 1000 Kenyans and killed between 25 thousand and 300 thousand people they identified as insurgents (Anderson 2005; Elkins 2005).

In addition to these killings, British military used forced labor in concentration camps, detention without trial, detention of whole villages kept under surveillance, aerial bombardments, forced mass evictions, interrogation, torture and abuse as part of brutal counterinsurgency tactics

(Anderson 2005; Bennett 2013a; Elkins 2005). The British government systematically covered up these atrocities that were later revealed during investigations as part of the court case and have since been widely publicized in the press (Anderson 2011; Bennett 2013b; Elkins 2013).

At the same time as Kenyan representation appeared to be growing, the colonial regime banned “African” political parties as part of Mau Mau Emergency laws in 1953 (Anderson

2005). In 1957, the first direct “African” elections for the Legislative Council were held (Aseke

2000; Ojwang 2000). African nationalist candidates refused to accept posts until they had been granted enough seats on the council to have a majority over European and Asian elected members (Ogot 1995). At this point, the colonial administration allowed political parties, but placed heavy restrictions on “African” parties, with colonial administrators presiding over which parties were accepted. “African” parties had to be allies of the government, were restricted to district organizations, and were only allowed in the central regions of Kenya. While parties were supposed to show that they represented multiple ethnic groups, they were also limited to regional representation (Anderson 2005; Ogot 1995). Despite these difficulties, African nationalists managed to persuade the colonial government to end the state of emergency in 1960 (Ogot

1995).

Leading up to negotiations over the independence constitution, Kenyan nationalists gained more representation and had more opportunities to push back against colonial limits to political representation (Chweya and Nasong'o 2008). But nationalist politics had to deal with the legacies of colonial rule and divisive regional and ethnic politics. Shaped by regional and ethnic competition encouraged by the colonial administration, Kenyan nationalist movements and demands for African political rule fractured into ethnic political alliances shaped by class and regional interests.

Independence and the One Party State

Kenya achieved official independence from Britain on December 12th, 1963. During the movement for independence Kenyans faced the challenge of building a unified nationalist movement while dealing with different Kenyan experiences of colonial rule. British and

European interests shaped independence negotiations and the political system that Kenya would build after independence. Kenyan political elites negotiated the independence constitution with the colonial administration and British government at three meetings, known as the Lancaster

House Conferences, from 1960-1963. Britain’s priorities were to preserve as much political and economic control as possible by creating some continuity in the political system Kenya was to adopt, fostering a compliant political class of African leaders, and delegitimizing the anticolonial

Mau Mau—or Land and Freedom Army—movement (Ogot 1995).

During negotiations, African nationalist leaders split into two main political parties, the

Kenya African National Union (KANU), and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU).

KANU and KADU positions and strategies during the independence constitution negotiations reflected different struggles over land rights associated with different ethnic, class and regional groups and their different experiences of colonial rule. Ethnic and regional divisions played an

important role in this split. Both colonial political goals and the political objectives of KANU and KADU were shaped by their position on the Mau Mau movement (Anderson 2010).

Led by Jomo Kenyatta, the future first president, KANU represented a political alliance of Kikuyu and Lou, two of the largest ethnic groups from the central regions of Kenya. KADU represented a political alliance of a number of smaller ethnic groups, including many pastoralist groups in the Rift Valley and northern Kenya. KANU favored a centralized government and wanted rights for Kenyan citizens to be able to live, work and own land anywhere in the nation.

KADU favored a decentralized, regional government, with local authorities with independent powers. The impetus for regionalism lay in claims that decentralized regional governance, embedded in the constitution, could better protect the interests of smaller ethnic communities from the political dominance of larger ethnic groups (Anderson 2010; Balaton-Chrimes 2015;

Lynch 2011; Ogot 1995). This struggle over fears of inclusion and exclusion in the new nation fractured the African nationalist movement.

KANU won the 1963 independence elections and Jomo Kenyatta became the first leader of an independent Kenya. A national centralized government would be adopted over a decentralized regional government (Anderson 2010; Galaty 2005a; Chweya and Nasong'o 2008;

Ogot 1995). Under this highly centralized system of government, Kenya’s different regions were given very little power (Ogot 1995). KANU denounced majimboism arguing that regionalism undermined the larger goal of nationalism, promoted ethnic divisions, was pushed by European influences, and was too complex, expensive, and unnecessary for successfully building a strong nation (Anderson 2010; Lynch 2011). As KANU built a one-party state and moved to solidify their power in a highly centralized state they effectively abolished regionalism (Ghai 2014; Ogot

1995). KANU denounced political opposition by accusing them of being “tribalist,” subversive,

divisive, and unpatriotic, in contrast to KANU’s (highly exclusionary) version of nationalism

(Haugerud 1995; Zelezea 2014).

The departing colonial regime had helped to select and shape the Kenyan nationalist political elite that came into power. It was these two groups who had largely had input into the independence negotiations. Lacking a referendum or open debate among elected representatives the constitution was in many ways imposed by Britain and a Kenyan elite. Very few Kenyans were able to participate meaningfully in decisions that would shape the future of their country

(Nasong’o 2010).

The British were keen to keep the political economy of Kenya as one that would continue to benefit them economically (Nasong’o 2010; Ogot 1995). International actors and governments and their economic and political goals guided debates over the political system that Kenya would adopt after independence (Kagwanja and Southall 2009). In many ways European interests encouraged the political objectives of KADU as many Europeans saw regionalism as also protecting some of their interests (Anderson 2010). KANU were forced to accept elements of regionalism in the new constitution as part of independence negotiations (Aseke 2000). The

World Bank funded and guided land resettlement and development programs that started prior to independence. These initiatives had a direct impact on conflict over access to and control over land shaped by ethnicity and region that have continued to be key issues in later political violence (Oucho 2002).

Shortly after they gained independence, many African countries became one-party states.

A large number of African leaders manipulated constitutions and the electoral process to increase presidential powers and extend their rule. Most of the new African constitutions maintained colonial systems of rule based on powerful governors and tools for domination of the country's

inhabitants (Amutabi and Nasong'o 2013). In addition to political domination, the constitutions and government structures of many post-independence constitutions continued to be based on economic extraction in favor of European countries.

African nationalists hoping to develop unified collective nationalist movements faced many frustrations. Often leaders used nationalist and democratic rhetoric to justify authoritarian regimes (Mwaruvie 1996). Many African governments essentially took over government and economy and did little to change colonial bureaucracy or the prioritizing of foreign economic trade (Aske 2000). Kenya adopted Britain’s ‘first past the post’ electoral process which facilitated a winner takes all political style that shaped political campaigns based on competing ethnic groups (Kagwanja and Southall 2009). The beginnings of electoral violence emerged with violence and threats against the political opposition and corruption across Kenya during the 1963 election campaigns (Ogot 1995). In many ways, independence brought about the end of “direct political domination” by the British colonial regime and the imposition of a new “African dominant class” (Aske 2000: 96).

The KANU party and its leader, Jomo Kenyatta, quickly turned the newly independent

Kenya into a one-party state. In 1964 KADU leaders decided they would merge their party into

KANU for the sake of national unity (Ogot 1995; Oyugi 2004). In the same year, Kenyatta modified the constitution to turn Kenya into a republic, abolish any decentralized regional government structures, and create an executive presidency with high levels of immunity. In effect Kenyatta "became the first executive president of the new republic via a constitutional amendment rather than through election" (Chweya and Nasong'o 2008: 81). Kenyatta appealed to

“African values” to justify changing the constitution and centralizing authority in the president

(Haugerud 1995). KANU split into two factions, reflecting the previous split between KANU

and KADU. In 1969 Kenyatta banned the opposing faction of KANU, turning Kenya into an unofficial one-party state.

Kenyatta died in 1978 and the Vice President, Daniel Arap Moi, succeeded him as the new leader of Kenya under the KANU party. Much of the political opposition were initially concerned about Moi taking power and, in the years leading up to Kenyatta’s death, led a campaign to change the constitutional amendment that called for the vice president to assume the presidency in the event of the president’s death or resignation (Karimi and Ochieng 1980). In

1982 Moi altered the constitution to make opposition parties illegal. Kenya was now officially a one-party state by law (Oyugi 2004). Both Kenyatta and Moi used the same tools of violence used by the colonial state to quash anti-government dissent and limit the actions of civil society

(Mueller 2011). Party splits shifted and in the 1980s an alliance based on ethnic groups allied with the previous KADU party formed - KAMATUSA (Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and

Samburu) - and became a dominant element within the KANU party (Anderson 2010). For the most part, the majority of Kenyans were prevented from participating meaningfully in governance and could only legitimate the KANU regime (Oyugi 2004).

During independence movements, African nationalists often successfully brought together diverse ethnic groups to challenge colonial powers. However, a centralized political elite were quick to consolidate power and suppress political challenge under one-party rule

(Zelezea 2014). Under authoritarian rule, class interests and trade unions continued to be suppressed and those in power distributed state resources through systems of patronage (Zelezea

2014), further shaping political struggle as based on ethnic rather than class group interests

(Otenyo 2016). After independence the Kenyatta and Moi governments distributed jobs and

resources through development projects, government contracts, and public employment along ethnic and class lines to reward their supporters and exclude their opponents (Ogot 2012).

A new Kenyan political elite captured state power, but failed to substantially change the political structure of the state (Ocheing’ and Atieno-Odhiambo 1995; Cheeseman 2015). Rather than building a new, united nation as envisioned by many of the Kenyans who drove and supported the African nationalist movement, the postindependence Kenyatta and Moi regimes reconfigured colonial political and economic institutions and practices, as well as colonial forms of state violence, to maintain control of the state (Ochieng’ and Atieno-Odhiambo 1995;

Anderson and Rolandsen 2014). What many Kenyans and scholars refer to as the “first liberation” failed to achieve substantial decolonization of the Kenyan nation (Ochieng’ and

Atieno-Odhiambo 1995; Chweya and Nasong’o 2008; Maloba 1995). Reforms geared toward multiparty elections in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and continuing through to the 2000s, marked the beginning of what many Kenyans hoped would be a “second liberation” that would bring about a new political era (Chweya and Nasong’o 2008; Haugerud 1995).

Multi-Party Democracy, Election Violence, and the 2010 Constitution

Following economic and political pressure from international actors and national political movements, many African countries adopted democratic reforms and multi-party elections in the early 1990s (Cheeseman 2015; Oucho 2002; Mustapha and Whitefield 2009). In Kenya, the political opposition, faith-based organizations, intellectuals and students at universities, lawyers campaigning for constitutional reform, and protestors struggled against Moi's dictatorship, facing arrest, detention and torture (Atieno-Odhiambo 2002). Anti-government opposition organized increasing protest movements in the 1980s, in particular against what many viewed as highly manipulated 1988 elections (Oyugi 2004; Kagwanja and Southall 2009).

Domestic struggles were both bolstered and hampered by the influence of international development and finance organizations. In 1991 a group of development organizations decided to discontinue aid to Kenya and the International Monetary Fund ceased lending to the Kenyan government (Anderson 2010). Moi was forced to repeal section 2(a) of the constitution banning political parties and hold multi-party elections (Nasong'o 2010; Oyugi 2004). KANU resisted reform, warning that multi-party democracy would exacerbate ethnic tensions leading to violence, was anti-government, and was against the interests of KAMATUSA. They argued instead that one-party democracy was a more suitable form of democratic government that emphasized “African values,” consensus, and economic development over contest, dissent, and political opportunism (Anderson 2010; Haugerud 1995; Ogot 1996).

The pro-multiparty democracy opposition in Kenya focused on ousting Moi and opening up political participation to include alternative ideas and organizations. As such their primary focus was not countered on how democratic reform would happen or issues of citizenship, rights and equality. Rather than democratization, Kenyan scholars have argued that the beginnings of multi-party elections in Kenya represented political liberalization (Oyugi 2004; Nasong'o 2010).

Moi survived reforms and managed to keep his constitutional presidential control, while at the same time legitimizing the authoritarian KANU regime through democratic elections (Murunga and Nasong'o 2007). International donors at times strengthened pro-democracy struggles and at other times helped to keep Moi in power (Brown 2007). International organizations encouraged the opposition to accept the results of flawed elections (Brown 2007; Nasong'o 2010). Moi and

KANU won the first multi-party elections in 1992 and went on to win again in 1997.

Multiple countries experienced violence around multi-party elections during this 'wave of democratization' in the early 1990s including, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Ethiopia, Cameroon and

Gabon (Cheeseman 2015; Mwaruvie 1996).During the 1992 and 1997 elections in Kenya, Moi and KANU politicians used or manipulated violence, including torture and police violence, to weaken the political opposition and maintain support in key voting regions (Anderson and

Rolandsen 2014; Cheeseman 2015; Human Rights Watch 1993, 1997; Kagwanja and Southall

2009; Kamungi 2009; Oucho 2002). KANU politicians employed vigilante groups and gangs to carry out violence in areas where people were likely to vote for the opposition, often with the goal of displacing likely opposition voters (Anderson 2002; Cheeseman 2015; Kagwanja and

Southall 2009; Kamungi 2009). Between 1991 and 1993 approximately 1500 people were killed and 300 000 displaced (Lynch and Anderson 2014). What appeared to be organized violence in support of politicians in power hoping to preserve the one-party state, occurred largely against non-KAMATUSA groups, mostly in regions where there had been recent migration or land conflict (Oyugi 2004). KANU prevented opposition parties from traveling to areas where there were security risks, like Samburu and Turkana districts, helping KANU to win elections in these regions (Ogot 1995).

Majimboist discourse reemerged as a matter of debate during the return to multi-party elections in the 1990s (Anderson 2010). Both KANU and the opposition drew on ideas of regionalism and decentralization in their 1992 and 1997 election campaigns (Anderson 2010).

Politicians manipulated contentious issues like access to and control over land and water, employment opportunities and access to natural, government and economic resources, encouraging ethnicity-based political struggles (Kagwanja and Southall 2009). KANU portrayed decentralization under emerging democratic reforms as dangerous and president Moi predicted that multi-party elections and regionalism would trigger ethnic conflict. Moi's KANU government and supporters went on to incite and organize ethnic violence in order to suppress

political opposition and maintain power in the face of reform forced by domestic struggles and international influence (Galaty 2005a; Schlee and Shongolo 2012; Shilaho 2015). Violence surrounding the 1992, 1997 and 2007 elections was underpinned by discourses of regionalism that justified the forced removal of communities portrayed as immigrants and guests who did not

"belong" (Anderson and Lochery 2008; Jenkins 2012; Lynch 2011).

Prior to the 1997 elections, the KANU party avoided constitutional reform that would limit Moi’s presidential powers (Oyugi 2004; Nasong’o 2010). However, Civil Society

Organizations organized 'No Reforms, No Elections' campaigns in the run-up to the 1997 elections to pressure the KANU government to undertake constitutional reform (Nasong’o 2014).

This led to the creation of the 2000 Constitution of Kenya Review Act and the Constitution of

Kenya Review Commission. However, Civil Society Organizations who campaigned for reform distrusted the government-led commission and formed their own (Nasong’o 2014). At the same time, international actors were hesitant in calling for extensive reforms over concerns they could trigger violence again (Brown 2007; Nasong’o 2010).

2002 was a hopeful year of political change for many Kenyans. President Moi was on the way out after almost 40 years of an authoritarian one-party state under presidents Kenyatta and

Moi. Mwai Kibaki and his National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) party won the 2002 elections, campaigning on the promise of a new draft constitution (Muhula and Ndegwa 2014). For the first time in Kenyan political history a president had retired from office when KANU had been defeated after four decades in power. A united political opposition had come together under the

NARC coalition and signed an agreement detailing government reform.

Driven by political interest and opposition to Moi, the NARC alliance ignored calls from civil society to complete constitutional reform prior to the elections (Nasong'o 2010). Within two

years Kibaki had abandoned his promises of constitutional reform, power-sharing and limiting presidential powers (Murunga and Nasong'o 2007). Kibaki and NARC interfered in the drafting of the new constitution—removing provisions for devolution, limits on presidential power and protections for marginalized groups—provoking a boycott of the draft (Ghai 2008; Nasong’o

2014). In a 2005 referendum 58 percent of Kenyans who participated voted to reject the draft constitution, which many saw as the result of a non-participatory and sabotaged process

(Nasong’o 2014; Wamai 2014). The “transition” of power from Moi to Kibaki turned out to be a change in presidency without reform of political institutions (Murunga and Nasong’o 2007).

Economic interests continued to silence international critics. Keen to preserve the dominance of British business in the Kenyan economy, the British government refrained from openly criticizing the Kenyan government. However, after NARC did not renew Britain's contract for printing currency the British High Commissioner began to publicly castigate the

Kenyan government for corruption (Nasong'o 2010). Once again, Kenyan hopes for real change were frustrated. Although less than the 1992, 1997, or 2007 elections, politically motivated violence did occur before and after the elections (Kagwanja and Southall 2009).

Violence following the 2007 Kenyan elections marked both a potentially critical turning point for political reform and the result of decades of political violence. When Kibaki was declared the winner of the highly controversial December 27th, 2007 elections, the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, contested the election, triggering a massive outbreak of violence. Kibaki was hastily sworn in for his second term amid calls for a recount—many Kenyans, based on initial poll results, had expected the opposition leader to win. International observers announced that the elections had some serious flaws. The opposition refused to settle election disputes through the legal system as they viewed the courts as government controlled. Violence was

largely targeted against ethnic groups perceived as voting for the opposition (Kagwanja and

Southall 2009). The next two months saw over 1000 people killed and as many as 700, 000 displaced (Lynch and Anderson 2014). Media, and some academic reports, characterized the violence as ethnic or as stereotypical “African” violence (Carotuneto and Shadle 2012). As it had during election violence in the 1990s, Kenya again switched from a symbol of economic growth and stability to a state on the brink of collapse (Haugerud 1995; Kagwanja and Southall 2009).

The complex and varied contributing factors to the post-2007 election violence are part of a long history of political violence, social and economic inequality, unequal access to land, and the failure of reform to significantly address these. Throughout all of these issues, politicians and elites have politicized and mobilized ethnic identities in their political campaigns, and many

Kenyans have centered ethnic identities in their political struggles, often reconfiguring the histories and experiences of ethnic groups (Coffman et al. 2009; Kagwanja and Southall 2009;

Kanyinga 2009; Rutten and Owuor 2009).

The official government commission on the violence—the Commission of Inquiry into

Post-Election Violence, often referred to as the Waki Report—reported that the violence was in part a spontaneous reaction to what many Kenyans viewed as a rigged election, and in part organized by politicians, businessmen, and other elites who enlisted groups of young men to carry out violence against the political opposition. The report also notes that members of government security forces participated in the violence.

Cartuneto and Shadle (2012) argue that the post-2007 election violence needs to be placed in historical context to gain an understanding of the role of routinized violence. In particular, since the reintroduction of multi-party elections in the 1990s, every election in Kenya has been accompanied by violence (Coffman et al 2009). Multi-party elections have redirected

and intensified state and structural violence that has become a part of everyday life for many in

Kenya (Coffman et al. 2009; Lynch and Anderson 2014; Kagwanja and Southall 2009).

Politicians and elites have used violence to displace populations viewed as supporting the political opposition in order to maintain or gain political power over constituencies (Kamungi

2009). Politicians and elites mobilizing unemployed young men to conduct violence against political opposition was a key strategy under Moi’s rule (Anderson and Lochery 2008; Coffman et al. 2009).

The Waki report also suggested that the crisis was a result of the political elite failing to decentralize political control from the president (Kagwanja and Southall 2009). Nasong’o (2010) argues that the repeated impediment of constitutional review has resulted in little to no genuine structural or political change. It is the continued reproduction of political institutions that enable authoritarian forms of government. For Nasong’o, these colonial-shaped state structures must be dismantled and profound democratic reform will not be enabled by changes in individual presidents and politicians. Multi-party democracy, as a set of institutions and procedures, has failed to create this structural transformation. Kenyan politicians have consistently placed political and economic interests above undertaking substantial reforms (Kanyinga and Long

2012).

Regional inequalities and decentralization of government were once again the subject of intense debate during the 2007 elections. For many Kenyans, equitable access to resources can only be achieved through decentralization of government and constitutional reform (Coffman et al. 2009). Politicians used fears of evictions and local majorities gaining power over regions during campaigns both in favor of and in order to demonize regionalism (Anderson and Lochery

2008; Coffman et al. 2009). Regionalist politics both maintain and put to new use unresolved

debates since the nationalist independence struggle around whether regional government will lead to ethnic division or the more equitable distribution of state resources (Anderson 2010;

Oucho 2002).

Along with regionalism, historical inequities in access to land—and how these are perceived and put to use in new political struggles—were a key issue related to the post-2007 election violence (Coffman et al 2009; Kanyinga 2009; Rutten and Owuor 2009). So-called land reforms—involving resettlement of populations and titling of land—have intensified struggles over access to and claims to land (Kanyinga 2009). Rather than address land inequities, politicians have instead accumulated land through illicit grabs, used land to reward political supporters, and avoided addressing historical injustices (Kanyinga 2009; Coffman et al. 2009;

Southall 2005). The reconfiguration of historical land inequities in political campaigns and government land policy and practice, has produced new struggles and ensured that the politics of land has become deeply intertwined with ethnic politics, regionalism, and struggles over belonging (Anderson and Lochery 2008; Coffman et al. 2009; Rutten and Owuor 2009).

Economic inequalities and political patronage also shaped the post-2007 election violence, and much of the violence surrounding multiparty elections since the 1990s. The unequal distribution of resources, high rates of unemployment (particularly among youth), and state and everyday forms of ethnic discrimination in access to employment and economic opportunities have resulted in high levels of economic marginalization and inequality, often experienced along ethnic divisions (Coffman et al. 2009; Waki Report). Governments in Kenya have restricted particular groups’ access to state resources and employment as a political strategy to maintain power (Githinji 2015). Successive governments in Kenya have used patronage, often along ethnic lines, to reward supporters, including redistribution of land, states resources, and

control of private enterprises that were previously formally government controlled (Mueller

2008; Southall 2005).

The immediate violence following the 2007 elections ended after a UN-brokered peace agreement, resulting in the National Accord in February of 2008 (Coffman et al. 2009). A power- sharing agreement—where Mwai Kibaki remained president and opposition leader Raila Odinga took the newly created position of prime minister—was central to the mediation process. In addition to setting up the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, mediators also agreed to create the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission to collect and document

Kenyan citizen’s testimonies of violence.

The mediation process after the post-2007 election violence was a key turning point for constitutional reform (Kramon and Posner 2011; Wamai 2014). Many viewed a lack of constitutional reform as a significant source of the post-2007 election violence, and substantial reform as a critical move to address the violence (Murunga et al 2014; Kanyinga and Long

2014). A significant transformation of the constitution was perhaps the only way that the long- term causes of the violence—political manipulation of violence and ethnicity, poverty, unequal distribution of resources and land, and perceptions of historical injustices and exclusions—could be addressed (Kanyinga and Long 2014; Wamai 2014). Domestic and international calls for reform led to a new Constitution of Kenya Review Act in 2008.

With a more than 70 percent turnout, the 2010 constitutional referendum had the highest turnout of voters in Kenya’s election history (Kanyinga and Long 2012; Nasong’o 2014). In a survey of those who voted to adopt the constitution the top reasons for voting “yes” were: a desire for change; devolution; reducing corruption; tackling historical land injustices; ending tribalism, promoting human rights and ending political impunity (Kramon and Posner 2011).

Continuing Struggles

The approval and implementation of the new 2010 constitution after a successful referendum was the end result of a hard-fought political struggle over at least two decades, and arguably since negotiations over the independence constitution. At the same time the 2010 constitution also sets the stage for new political struggles and creates new uncertainties. The

2010 constitution provides offers hope for new laws, institutions and rights through which to address the complex factors that contributed to the post-2007 election violence. However, the constitution and devolution also raise the prospect of violence as part of renewed political struggle.

The Waki report on the post-2007 election violence—as well as the official government commission reports into violence related to the 1992 and 1997 elections—provide important recommendations to address political violence. They also identify politicians and elites accused of involvement in this political violence. However, the Kenyan government has not held anyone accountable for election-related violence and politicians have not only largely failed to act on commissions’ recommendations, but have actively delayed the release of reports (Coffman et al.

2009). In addition, the government has been slow to address the recommendations of the Truth,

Justice, and Reconciliation Commission and also delayed the publication of the TJRC’s report.

Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were both accused of involvement in the post-2007 election violence. The International Criminal Court (ICC) brought Kenyatta and Ruto to trial, however, the case collapsed and Uhuru and Ruto led a campaign against the ICC, urging Kenya and even the African Union to withdraw. Rather than being held accountable, Uhuru and Ruto successfully ran together for president and deputy president, won the 2013 elections by a narrow margin, and went on to form the Jubilee Alliance, consolidating the ruling parties’ power.

In addition to the failure to address factors contributing to outbreaks of elections violence, questions remain as to what kinds of transition Kenya has undergone, and what political change is possible in the future. The reintroduction of multi-party elections across the

African continent resulted in very few cases of substantial transfer of power. Between 1990 and

2000, opposition candidates won only 15% of elections (Cheeseman 2015: 150). In Kenya, multi-party elections have largely brought about shifts in “temporary majorities” (Muhula and

Ndegwa 2014: 88) rather than structural change in the political order.

Majimboism continues to play a central part in current debates and struggles around devolution and reform and maintains negative associations that many political leaders have used to campaign against decentralization and other reforms (Keller 2014). At the same time, the drafters of the new 2010 constitution have sought to distance decentralization and regional governance from the majimboist discourse (Ghai 2008). While this public debate has helped to legitimize devolution among many Kenyans (Anderson 2010) the initial results of devolution, particularly in counties like Samburu, have left many Kenyans disappointed with reforms.

Most Kenyans did not want, or participate in, the post-2007 election violence, and instead organized against violence and ethnic discrimination and politics, used social media to campaign for peace, and helped their neighbors and friends when they faced violence, rejecting ethnic division (Benesch 2014a; Coffman et al. 2009; Scott-Villiers et al. 2014). Throughout this study,

I hope to show how Samburu residents not only participate in violence, but actively attempt to counter violence in their everyday lives in ways that refuse ethnic, class, and political divisions.

Kenya’s national political context, which I give a broad overview of in this chapter, has shaped experiences and understandings of reform and violence in Samburu County. As decentralization is adopted as official government policy, how will Kenyans continue to grapple

with the negative associations of regional politics, and the new political struggles that devolution has produced? In the next chapter, I explore more fully how reforms as part of the implementation of devolution and the 2010 constitution have contributed to violence following the 2013 elections. In particular, I provide details of how ideas of independence, regional and ethnic politics, and political violence show up in, and provide context for, how Samburu residents understand and experience violence.

CHAPTER 4

“WE ARE STARTING TO HATE THEM AGAIN”: VIOLENCE AND THE POLITICS OF

DEVOLUTION

A few days after houses had been burned Sarah took me to her neighborhood, where mostly Turkana residents lived, to see the damage. Sarah explained that the attackers, reportedly young Samburu men, had started fires inside the houses using firewood and petrol. The attackers’ intent, Sarah and other residents believed, was to burn the inhabitant’s possessions— beds, blankets, clothes, cooking utensils, the things that people needed to live somewhere and meet their daily needs. One smaller house, belonging to an elderly woman, had been burned down completely. Four others had been badly burned on the inside, but young men from the neighborhood had managed to save them from burning down completely. These small, one or two room houses remained uninhabited, the dirt floors covered with ash, bits of broken and burned bed frames, and debris. The walls were blackened and cracked and the tin roofs were warped. Many other houses had their tin or plastic tarp roofs broken open. Sarah explained that the attackers had removed the contents and burned them. Some belongings had been discarded around the neighborhood—plastic packages filled with blankets, clothes. Sarah told me that the attackers ran out of petrol so they just dumped the belongings. Some of the small vegetable plots next to the houses had also been torched.

In this chapter, I explore the relationship between violence in Samburu County and the politics of devolution. I argue that devolution was not a neutral, apolitical, technical process that simply changed the balance of political authority between national and regional institutions.

Instead, the election of a new county government with increased powers over county budgets, state resources, development projects, and public services, produced struggles around competing

visions of regional and national sovereignty and citizenship. Decentralization in Kenya has worked to reallocate and reshape political territory and representation (Galaty 2016; Little 2014) within the context of a longer debate around regional governance that residents have drawn on to make political claims. Devolution has been profoundly shaped by national politics and long- standing political debates in Kenya around independence, regional politics, marginalization, and citizenship. While devolution may have the capacity for creating political stabilities through increasing political participation, processes of reform also contain the potential for reproducing and enhancing political violence.

Violence during 2013 and 2014 in Samburu County was largely consistent with forms of political violence connected to national elections. Violence, threats, and political incitement to violence aimed at displacing or intimidating ethnically-defined populations has been a key mode of political violence throughout Kenya’s independence. Displacement and intimidation has often had the goal of suppressing political opposition and securing votes for the ruling party. This form of violence was particularly prominent during the 1990s and 2000s when domestic and international pressure forced Moi’s authoritarian government to reintroduce multiparty elections

(Anderson and Lochery 2008; Kamungi 2009; Lynch 2012; see chapter two).

The burning of homes, shooting attacks on people in their homes, violent speech and threats, and political leaders mobilizing or inciting young men to carry out politically-motivated violence strongly compares with very similar acts of violence in the 1990s and 2000s (Anderson and Lochery 2008; Kamungi 2009; Lynch 2012). Much of the violence during the post-2007 election crisis involved the burning of houses and targeting of businesses deemed to belong to

“immigrants,” displacement, and reappropriation of land and resources (Jenkins 2012). When their houses were burned and their possessions destroyed, Turkana residents emphasized that it

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was their everyday belongings and basic necessities that were damaged, destroyed, or taken—the things they needed to cook, eat, and sleep, like beds, pots and pans, or clothes. Residents also drew attention to the theft and destruction of official documents that were difficult to obtain and replace, like school graduation certificates and national identity cards—documents needed to prove citizenship, get a job, or register to vote.

Both Samburu and Turkana residents reported that the violence was carried out by young

Samburu men who deliberately targeted Turkana individuals, households, and areas of town.

Many residents recounted that these young men attacked at night and used motorbikes to make a quick getaway. Residents frequently described these attacks as politically motivated, or as funded and organized by county leaders. The MP for Samburu West as repeatedly accused by

Turkana and Samburu residents, regional development and peace-building organizations,

Turkana-identified leaders in neighboring counties, and other Samburu leaders of using language that incited or justified violence and paying young men to carry out attacks.

Explanations of political violence as “ethnic clashes” or “tribal cattle-rustling” have also been integral to political violence in Kenya (Lynch 2012). Rumor, confusion, and a general sense of not-knowing why violence happened, or who was behind it, are key elements of violence, making it difficult for Kenyans to always explain violence and creating a political presence that is not always easy to point to (Galaty 2005a). While many Samburu County residents claimed to be able to pinpoint the objectives of violence and who was behind it, many other residents struggled to understand their experiences of violence. Regardless of residents’ confidence in explaining the full details of violence, the large majority of residents I spoke with consistently understood violence as connected to county leaders, elections, and votes.

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The Politics of Violence in Northern Kenya

Violence in Samburu County, and across northern Kenya, is often described by politicians and elites, the media, and sometimes residents, as cultural or tribal conflict between pastoralist ethnic groups over natural pasture and water for grazing animals and livestock (see also Straight 2009). However, a growing body of research on violence in the region highlights the centrality of regional and national politics in shaping violence.

Violence in the region takes a variety of forms beyond intergroup conflict over resources.

Pike et al. (2016) characterize violence among Samburu, Pokot, and Turkana populations in northern Kenya as “low-intensity” that “includes a suite of potential threats that include ambushes in public places, in homesteads at night with women and children included as targets for killings, sniper-style attacks for men who are guarding water sources, and other types of common crimes.” In addition to livestock raids (McCabe 2004; Holtzman 2017) and banditry, violence has also included burning houses and violence targeting livelihoods based on petty trade and causal labor (Scott-Villiers et al. 2014). Young unmarried men are often considered to be the main group involved in violence (Holtzman 2017; KHRC 2010). While violence has frequently been portrayed as between pastoralist groups, attacks by and against Kenyan security forces are an important dimension of violence in the region (Holtzman 2017; Cultural Survival 2009; TJRC

2013). Another critical element of violence goes beyond the physical to include rumor and threat connected to political shows of power (Galaty 2005a). In chapter eight, I add online harmful speech to these forms of violence.

Studies of natural resources and conflict in Kenya complicate and challenge explanations of violence as primarily fueled by conflict over scarce resources like water and pasture. Patterns of rainfall and violence show that livestock raiding increases during periods of substantial rainfall, suggesting that violence is unlikely to be primarily caused by drought and conflict over 102

scarce resources (Adano et al 2012). In a long-term study of violence and climate in Kenya,

Thiessen (2012) found that elections and political calculations are likely to be the strongest factors that shape violence, not scarce resources. While ecological uncertainty likely plays a role, regional political institutions and the social and political alliances that pastoralist populations use to respond to environmental and political uncertainties are the primary factors that shape violence (Adano et al. 2012; Eriken and Lind 2009). Violence involving livestock raiding across the Eastern Africa region is shaped by changes in property rights and adjudication (Butler and

Gates 2012) and conflict between groups is shaped by political contexts as much as ecological factors (McCabe 2004), making a focus on climate and ecological factors alone unreliable.

Finally, most assessments of the impact of climate change on conflict in pastoral regions only consider livestock raiding, both depoliticizing livestock raids and ignoring other forms of violence.

Livestock raids are a key part of violence, and also a common theme in how residents discuss violence and political belonging. Livestock raiding involves stealing cattle and quickly transporting them to markets, often using high-powered weapons, such as AK-47s, and can lead to large profits (McCabe 2004; Bollig 1990). Often people are injured or killed carrying out raids or defending their livestock. Many residents shared rumors and claims of leaders and businessmen inciting and benefiting from raids. Many residents, NGO staff, and former and current county leaders told me that leaders and politicians act as brokers to help move animals and finance and provide weapons. With the commoditization of raiding (stolen cattle sold for profit at markets rather than kept within homesteads), researchers have also suggested that politicians and businessmen who stand to benefit the most from raiding provide weapons and assistance (McCabe 2004). Researchers, government commissions, and human rights

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organizations all report that leaders are involved in raids, either for political or economic gain, and that raiding should be considered part of political violence connected to elections and building loyal ethnic constituencies (Greiner 2013; Greiner et al 2011; Human Rights Watch

2002; IRIN 2014; KHRC 2010; Mutinda 2012; Ndanyi 2016). In addition to political elites using violence that has the appearance of livestock raids to displace populations likely to vote for the opposition (Greiner 2013; Greiner et al. 2011), politicians and security forces are widely believed to use livestock raids for economic benefit or to redistribute land as a form of patronage

(Galaty 2005b). In the following chapters I show how livestock raiding—and how residents and leaders represent livestock raiding and who is behind it—is central to political struggles over security, economic rights, and citizenship in the county.

Ethnographic research highlights the role of competing political claims over contested administrative boundaries and land rights in shaping violence in northern Kenya and how the

2010 constitution and devolution have increased political uncertainties (Boye and Karrhus 2011;

Galaty 2016). Furthermore, ethnographic studies emphasize the role of political elites, the politics of patronage, and how national politics around marginalization, regionalism, and political claims to rights, land, and representation shape political struggles and violence (Galaty

2005a, 2005b; Schlee 2013; Schlee and Shongolo 2012; Straight 2009). In northern Kenya violence is often part of political struggles over access to and control over land and the displacement of populations to impact voting in elections (Greiner 2013; Greiner et al 2011).

Boundary disputes, land rights, and access to land demarcated as protected conservation areas all contribute to violence in the region (Boye and Kaarhus 2011; Galaty 2016; Greiner 2012).

While violence in the region is portrayed by media, government, and sometimes scholars as separate from national politics, many counties in northern Kenya, including Samburu were

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considered swing regions in the presidential elections (Carrier and Kochore 2014). National politics have consistently influenced violence in northern Kenya during multiparty elections, where violence has frequently increased during election years (Fratkin 1994; Galaty 2005b;

Schlee and Shongolo 2012; Thiessen 2012). Violence has also been shaped by conflict in neighboring countries and the availability of guns that often cross national borders including

Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan (McCabe 2004; Wepundi 2012). Northern Kenya reportedly has the highest prevalence of small arms in the country and has seen an increase in gun possession since 2003 despite government disarmament campaigns (Wepundi et al. 2012).

This body of research highlights that it is the Kenyan state that primarily shapes violence, more so than conflicts over natural resources or violence between ethnic groups. Following these studies on violence in Samburu and northern Kenya, I understand violence as shaped by, rather than separate from or exceptional to, national political struggles and modes of violence.

The Politics of Decentralization

Since their election in 2013, county governments gained increased control over and access to fiscal resources as well as greater responsibility for providing services including education, health, infrastructure, transport, and development (Carrier and Kochore 2014). As counties gained more political power, new elected and unelected positions have been created for each of the 47 counties, notably a governor and deputy governor. Each county has a county assembly made up of elected representatives for local constituencies (wards) known as Members of the County Assembly (MCA) and a county executive made up of members appointed by the county governor. Counties also have nominated senators in the national assembly, and nominated positions in the county assembly, including a women's representative. Each county also has a

Member of Parliament (MP) for sub-county regions. MPs have gained powers including more

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control over county fiscal resources through institutions like the Constituency Development

Fund, a source of financing for county development projects. In many counties, MPs have taken advantage of their control over the Constituency Development Fund to reward their political supporters (Schlee 2013).

After the passing of the 2010 constitution, Samburu was divided into three sub-counties:

Samburu West, Samburu East, and Samburu North (see figure 4 on page 37 for a map of sub- counties). Although MP is not a new position, sub-county boundaries have often changed under the new constitution, giving MPs new electoral bases. Samburu North is a new political constituency in the county. Previously there were only two sub-counties, East and West. North was created by splitting Samburu West and adding a new MP. This was of concern to many

Samburu residents as the largest population of Turkana reside within the boundaries of Samburu

North (that borders Turkana County). This meant that Turkana had increased chances of electing

Turkana, or at least sympathetic, leaders who could challenge the political dominance of the

Samburu political elite.

The politics of regional governance (often referred to as majimbo, see chapter three remained central to debates and struggles around devolution and the 2010 constitution. Political leaders and Kenyan citizens have often associated calls for regional governance with violence and tribalism as particular ethnic groups make exclusive political claims to state resources and cast other ethnic groups within regional political districts as outsiders (Anderson 2010; Jenkins

2012). After Moi and leaders connected to his KANU party instigated violence against ethnic groups associated with the political opposition to undermine the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s (Lynch 2012; Kamungi 2009), for many Kenyans regional governance became associated with the risk of violence and division. National political leaders have used

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negative representations of regionalism to campaign against decentralization. For other Kenyans, and in particular the political opposition, regional governance is necessary to reduce violence through redistributing state power and resources more equitably among ethnic groups and to protect the rights of marginalized groups. This is the vision of devolution and regional politics outlined in the 2010 constitution.

Key drafters of the 2010 constitution sought to distance devolution and regional governance from negative representations. Yash Pal Ghai—former chair of the Constitution of

Kenya Review Commission—was a key drafter of the 2010 constitution and, as founder of the

Katiba Institute, continues to promote the successful implementation of the 2010 constitution.

Ghai (2008; 2014), along with others, places the blame for the frustrations of devolution on leaders for inciting violence, lacking a real commitment to reform and continuing to sabotage devolution as they have done in the past. Ghai (2008) also warned that if the national government did not hold county governments accountable to protecting minority rights that devolution could lead to ethnic exclusion, political domination, and potential violence at the county level.

Ultimately, this attempt to rehabilitate regionalism and devolution as an apolitical or neutral process failed. Key elements of decentralization are holding local elections, creating new administrative boundaries, allocating fiscal resources to the local level, and transferring responsibility for public services to local government (Pierskalla and Sacks 2017). However, reforms, as uneven processes beyond institutional change, “combine with preexisting circumstances in different ways to produce different outcomes and reactions” (Burawoy and

Verdery 1999, 15). Models of devolution that the 2010 constitution draws on assume a straightforward model of local political representation and participation. In practice, “Because

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the practice of party politics is intertwined with relations of dominance and subordination in local sites, representation is not primarily about ‘representing’ constituents’ interests through legislation or policy formulation (which both assume institutions capable of effective implementation), but about determining the very contours of local and regional power” (Witsoe

2013, 14).

Decentralization and constitutional reform in Kenya are part of a larger global context of democratic reform. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, most states have implemented forms of decentralization and constitutional review (Berman 2009; Dickovick and Riedl 2014; Erk 2014;

Kuperman 2015; LeVan 2015). Drafters of the 2010 constitution framed devolution as a key way to encourage accountable government, spur economic development, establish rights and protections for marginalized groups, and address ethnic divisions and violence. This rhetoric dovetails with how international agencies, Western policymakers and governments, and many academic researchers have often promoted reforms aimed at “good governance,” tied to models of economic growth and development emphasizing austerity, deregulation, and privatization

(Little 2014; Harrison 2004, 2010). This global shift in international development policy— promoted by large institutions like the World Bank and other donors—marked a swift change from state-led development to a focus on decentralization and “by-passing the state” (Geschiere

2009).

Changes in policy and political institutions following models of decentralization, rather than producing more accountable, or more democratic, governance often further the very problems they were intended to address (Dickovick and Riedl 2014; Erk 2014; Geschiere 2009;

Suberi 2013). Decentralization often works to reproduce, rather than dismantle, the antidemocratic political structures of centralized states (Englebert and Mungongo 2016).

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Attempts to provide local citizens with increased political participation in regional government often ends up strengthening “local power brokers or state agents” (Boone 2003). Transferring power to regional administrations frequently leads to “renegotiations of power” (Klopp and

Zuern 2007) between political elites, rather than forcing local leaders to be more accountable or responsive to citizens. Pierskalla and Sacks (2017) found that transferring responsibility for the delivery of public services catalyzed “newly generated distributive conflicts among local ethnic groups around the control over and access to services.” A study of the impact of decentralization and constitutional review on conflict in the African continent warned against proscribing decentralization as a means to accommodate competing interests of ethnic or regional groups as it can worsen conflict (Kuperman 2015). While forms of decentralization may reduce conflict at the national level, the transfer of power to regional governments can work to relocate conflict to the local level (Cheeseman 2015, 213). As in the Nigerian context, decentralization can result in the transformation rather than reduction of political violence (Cheeseman 2015, 220).

In Samburu County, devolution enabled Samburu-identified residents connected to the new county leadership to assert political dominance in the county. Claims to regional sovereignty through narratives asserting control over “our county” are claims to access and control over state resources. Visions of Samburu dominance reinterpret histories of the politics of regionalism, marginalization and independence. Here, Samburu-identified residents allied with the county government claim a particular form of citizenship through reimagining their place as a marginalized group in the nation. For many Samburu residents, rather than a distortion of devolution, the domination of Samburu in the county government and Samburu prioritization for jobs and economic opportunities is the logical outcome of the creation of new regional governments. For other Samburu residents, the way devolution is unfolding in clear favor of

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Samburu with connections to county leaders is a disappointing continuation of corruption and ethnic- and clan-based political patronage. However, Samburu claims to rightful ownership of the county makes sense within a framework of political history in Kenya where Samburu domination constitutes the final realization of long-denied political participation.

In understanding competing claims to citizenship in Samburu County, I draw on anthropological perspectives that argue for a concept of citizenship as political belonging beyond formal membership of a national political community and legal rights and responsibilities

(Bernal 2014; Gordon and Stack 2007; Jaffe 2015; Lazar and Nuijten 2013; Ong 2006). Instead citizenship can be viewed as claims to belonging that are embedded in particular contexts, operate at multiple scales, and entail contradiction, risk, and limitations (Holston 2008; James

2013; Lazar and Nuijten 2013; Petryna and Follis 2015). In Kenya, as in many other contexts,

Kenyans may highlight their belonging to national, tribal, and global identities connected to citizenship at different moments (Atieno-Odhiambo 2002).

As marginalized groups—Samburu within the nation and Turkana at the county level as the largest minority ethnic group—Samburu and Turkana identified residents sought to redefine, or restore their status as national citizens. Violence and claims to citizenship are assertions of what the post-independence Kenyan nation should look like and what sort of political system will best represent marginalized groups—a long-standing debate during Kenya’s process of nation-building. Following James (2013, 27) I highlight citizenship as “aspirational, providing visions of what a future social order might look like, and how political belonging and participation within that order ought to be structured.” Devolution and the new constitution do not simply put forward a unified vision of citizenship and nationhood, but produce new debates

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around citizenship and nationhood shaped by the politics of region, nationalism, independence, and marginalization.

Concepts of reform tend to suggest crisis, corruption, and weak states and institutions— problems that have identifiable solutions in the shape of reform packages. The language and practice of reform suggest an ideal of progress and a political and economic future that African states should aspire to and work toward. For example, much of the literature on African reform and politics and democratic transition has focused on the relationship between ethnicity, nationalism, and democracy (Berman et al. 2004; Ogot 1996). This approach is shaped by an

“episteme of ‘progress’ from an essentialist conception of ethnicity, via an instrumentalist nationalism, into a normative notion of democracy” (Atieno-Odhiambo 2002). Concepts, like reform, that researchers, policymakers, international agencies, and governments use to describe states, political process, and violence already take for granted a linear process of change and improvement.

Reform, then, refers to a set of policies and practices aimed at shaping the operation of states, governments, economies, and citizens—both as a set of ideas and as complex processes that take different shapes in particular contexts. But at the same time “reform” also refers to dominant narratives and political imaginaries of the state, political processes, economy, and democracy. Narratives and political imaginaries of reform provide a diagnosis of the failures of

African states to achieve the ideal of reform, promote depoliticized solutions for problems identified, and project a normative future for African states (that both disavows alternative futures and places Africa as behind Euro-American processes of state-building and democracy).

I do not seek to show the unintended outcomes, failures, or off-track trajectories of devolution—with the goal of refining, or even “reforming,” dominant conceptualizations and

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models of reform—but to provide a more critical analysis of how political and economic processes under the label of reforms are experienced, imagined, put to use, and responded to in

Kenya. I understand reform as both a set of policies and practices—the devolution of particular powers to regional government and the implementation of the 2010 constitution—and as narratives and political imaginaries that Samburu County residents draw on and challenge to shape debates around what new counties and the nation should look like, and competing claims to citizenship and state resources.

“We Are On Year One of Independence”

The capital of Samburu County, Maralal, is more than 200 miles north of Nairobi via a long journey by minibus. Much of the drive is on unpaved roads, making it particularly difficult in the mud and flooding that the rainy season brings and uncomfortable in the hot and dusty dry season. Often residents making the journey joke that they are “going to Kenya,” referencing the marginalization of northern counties where residents feel left out of national politics and development projects. Remarking on the same joke, Haugerud (1995, 41) suggests that through this narrative residents do not count themselves as full “citizens” of the nation—imagined or as a political community— “even though they reside within its territorial boundaries.” Residents’ commentary on “going to Kenya” highlights the gap between the nation as political territory and as a community of equally enfranchised citizens and underscores the “disjuncture” (Holston

2008) between formal citizenship and the everyday marginalization that residents of northern regions experience.

I traveled to Nairobi to meet David, a Samburu-identified politician who spends much of his time at his office nearby parliament in the national capital. David explained his view of devolution,

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Devolution is one of the key things that made Kenyans pass this constitution. Kenyans saw it as hopeful. Especially such northern areas where for a long time, you felt that you’d been neglected by the central government. So, I keep saying that this is our independence now. As we celebrate fifty years, we are on year one of independence. That was the aspiration of the constitution, and especially the devolution chapter in our constitution.

In 2013, Kenya marked fifty years since achieving formal independence from the British colonial regime in 1963. David emphasized the marginalization of northern counties by the central government, suggesting that devolution could correct this historical inequity. Shaped by their experience of the colonial government, many Samburu-identified Kenyans “did not view the transition in terms of their own independence, but more in terms of a change in the color of a government imposed upon them from the outside” (Holtzman 2009, 16). The historical experience of Samburu residents as not fully Kenyan citizens continues to be shaped by state violence, difficulties in obtaining national identity cards, and the disappointments of formal citizenship that has often failed to translate into substantive rights and recognitions for Samburu and other Kenyans living in northern regions (KHRC 2008).

David’s emphasis on the hopeful realization of regional independence after fifty years of national independence highlights the temporal dimensions of devolution as it is shaped by complex political histories of nationalism and regionalism. The promise of devolution sets

Samburu County on “year one” of “our independence” in comparison to central Kenya where many citizens stood to benefit more from the state. Here, devolution is not only a geographic dispersal of political authority to regions, but a temporal redistribution of access to state authority and resources to places left behind the rest of the nation.

James, a Turkana professional who lives in Maralal, had similar hopes for devolution and the new county government,

Devolution is a good idea for the nation. Samburu has been marginalized for many years, since independence. Before the [2010 constitutional] referendum there was a lot of civic 113

education on some of the advantages that will come along with the new constitution. One of the things that we were promised is development—that our marginalized county will be made to grow and develop like the other counties. And there was also the fact that resources from the national government will now come down to be enjoyed by the local person.

David and James’s description of the promised benefits of devolution draw directly on official government rhetoric. Prior to the 2013 election the Kenyan government released an ambitious plan called “Vision 2030” for development and infrastructure projects aimed at turning Kenya into a middle-income country by 2030. In an annex to Vision 2030 titled “Development Strategy for Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands” the plan states: “Nearly fifty years after our

Independence, inequality between the north and the rest of Kenya persists…New mindsets and methods, innovative strategies, and the understanding and support of all Kenyans will be required in order to release the potential of the arid and semi-arid lands and help people enjoy the promise of Vision 2030” (cited in Mosley and Watson 2016, 452).

Access to state resources, whether grand promises or slowly materializing projects, has become a key issue that shaped violence in Maralal and beyond during late 2013. The benefits of devolution have expanded to include almost any kind of political or economic benefit connected to the county. During this period, many Samburu-identified residents called for a prohibition on

Turkana residents in the buying and selling livestock at the market or engaging in livestock related trade, including procuring livestock products from the town’s slaughterhouse or operating butcheries. The prohibition extended to almost all forms of informal livelihoods and Turkana residents feared and experienced violence, intimidation, and exclusion from many forms of work in the county (see chapter seven). After receiving threats of violence, James’s family—like most other Turkana residents—were forced to stop operating the butchery they owned. James explained,

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But then specifically here in Samburu it became different. Devolution was misinterpreted. We have people who felt like, now we've been given our county and it is our time to benefit as a community. You see? So, one of the ways of doing that was shutting down the economic activities of other communities. And in the minds of many Turkana today, they feel like devolution was not the best option because of the way it was misinterpreted, locally here.

The “misinterpretation” of devolution as an opportunity to reap the benefits of “our county” relates to a longer history of ethnically framed claims to, and exclusion from, state resources and economic opportunities. In Samburu, political claims to regional sovereignty by the majority ethnic group took a specific form connected to herding livelihoods, livestock raiding, and the criminalization of Turkana livelihoods as a means of exclusion (see chapter seven). However,

Samburu County was not the only place where the rhetoric of “our county” emerged in the wake of the 2013 elections and new county governments taking control over key state resources.

Across much of northern Kenya, devolution enabled “a ‘go back to your county’ era”

(Carrier and Kochore 2014, 140) where majority ethnic groups4 claimed control over jobs, livelihoods, trade, development projects, government, political representation, and state resources (Scott-Villiers et al. 2014). In Samburu County, this rhetoric took the form of claims to

“our county” and “our land” by sections of the dominant majority ethnic group. In coastal regions, where many groups claim historical marginalization from the national government, a similar rhetoric of “our land,” “our jobs,” and “our port” (a reference to the Lamu Port Southern

Sudan-Ethiopia Transport, or LAPSSET, Corridor project—a key part of Vision 2030 involving the building of a large port, roads, railways, and pipelines to transport oil from land-locked countries to Kenya’s coast) emerged (Chome 2015, 312). Residents and groups in northern

Kenya have responded to hopes for access to benefits from devolution, and fears of losing access

4 Sometimes coalitions of ethnic groups. In addition, often those claiming political dominance are small elite sections within dominant ethnics groups with close connections to the political elite, sometimes expressed through clan, or other affiliations. 115

to state resources, by attempting to position themselves to increase their chances of gaining from devolution and county government resources (Mosley and Watson 2016; Elliot 2016; Greiner

2016). In addition to promises of development and infrastructure, expectations for certain groups to benefit from new county governments were raised by governors’ promises of patronage in their election campaigns and subsequent political rhetoric (Cheeseman et al. 2016; Scott-Villiers et al. 2014).

Roads again took on particular significance during struggles over inclusion and exclusion in Samburu County after the 2013 elections. With new responsibilities for transport and infrastructure, the county government provided contracts for construction of tarmac roads in the center of Maralal town, and from Maralal to Rumruti in neighboring Laikipia County where the tarmac road began. The expectation was that this road would provide a faster and more reliable transport connection to Nairobi, literally connecting region to nation. In Maralal, many young

Turkana men took work as day laborers on the road construction, however, they reported that they had to stop work and allow Samburu workers to take over when they reached Samburu- dominated areas. Turkana construction workers viewed this as part of Samburu targeting of

Turkana livelihoods and claims to “our county” (see chapter seven).

Development and infrastructure projects, such as roads, are not only sources of funding, work, and easier physical access to central Kenya, but also powerful markers of residents’ relationship to the state and position within the nation (Kochore 2016; Waro Arero 2007).

“Kenya” or having “reached Kenya”—referenced in resident’s satirical narrative of “going to

Kenya”—is often considered by residents of northern counties to be where the tarmac roads finally begin (Waro Arero 2007; Kochore 2016). In James’s discussion of marginalization in

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Samburu County, he was keen to point out the lack of tarmac roads in the county as a strong indicator of how underdeveloped the county was compared to the rest of the nation.

The idea that devolution has been “misinterpreted” or misused in Samburu County is widely shared, and many residents highlight the contradiction between the intent of devolution and how devolution has taken shape in the county. I spent part of the day with Robert, a peace coordinator with a local NGO, in his bright, sunny office. December 12th, 2013 was a national holiday to celebrate fifty years of Kenya’s independence from British colonial rule, but Robert remained in the office, trying to get some work done while it was quiet. He turned his phone off so we would not be disturbed. Toward the end of our meeting he turned his phone back on so he could share some contacts with me. It buzzed and chirped into life with a stream of messages and calls from the last three hours.

Robert explained that “unfortunately, although there were good intentions and the potential for devolving government under the new constitution, there have been unintended consequences.” Robert referred to what happened as “devolved tribalism” where county “leaders have taken advantage of the new powers given to local government.” Robert suggested that the ethnic politics and political patronage practiced by national politicians was simply spreading to county administrations. Tribalism here refers to the ways that those in positions of authority prioritize their own ethnic group, clans and political supporters at the expense of others.

“Tribalism” is a key term that many residents use to describe the politics they understand as underlying violence (see chapter two). As county leaders prioritize their ethnic and clan supporters, they at best overlook violence aimed at excluding other groups and at worst condone, incite, or organize violence. Robert, like many other residents and researchers, did not see this as a problem unique to Samburu. Instead tribalism and patronage embedded in national politics and

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the violence national elites use to legitimize and maintain state authority has been transferred to county governments.

Robert understands a lack of Turkana political representation and public employment in the county government as a key way that tribalism and national politics play out at the county level: "Part of the violence is about elected leaders and opportunities. Out of all the county representatives [Members of the County Assembly or MCAs, of which there are 15] there is only one Turkana. So, Turkana feel marginalized.” The idea that Turkana residents did not have leaders from the Turkana ethnic group—or a Samburu leader who fully supported Turkana—was repeatedly stated by Turkana residents, as well as many residents identifying as Samburu or other ethnic groups.

Many Samburu-identified residents promoted the idea that if Turkana residents in

Samburu County want to claim political rights they can achieve this by ‘returning’ to Turkana

County, rather than claiming minority status within Samburu. The association of particular majority ethnic groups with county (formerly district) boundaries and as having particular rights to the land was solidified by the attempts of the British colonial regime to create coherent administrative regions. In contrast to attempts to exclude Turkana, some Samburu residents argue that Samburu North could have been renamed in order to provide Turkana a sense of a stake in ownership and inclusion in the constituency.

Paul, a Samburu professional working for another peace-building organization in the county, also pointed to “inequalities and opportunities” behind violence, suggesting that “the new county government has largely denied opportunities to Turkana.” He viewed violence and the prevention of Turkana from accessing livelihood sources as part of “guerilla tactics being used to persuade Turkana that they do not belong in Samburu and should go.” Paul’s explanation

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provided a strong explanation of violence as deliberate political violence to drive Turkana from the county, an explanation that many residents held. Violent strategies and narratives involving moving Turkana out of Samburu question Turkana residents’ belonging in both the county and the nation. Understood as deliberate political violence, acts targeting Turkana tie their national and regional citizenship to Turkana County, placing limits on national belonging. Claims by certain Samburu residents, elites, and leaders to ownership or political control of the county (as a territory, set of resources, source of political representation, and government) is perhaps not so much a misinterpretation of devolution, as a reinterpretation of devolution that fits within retuned histories of ethnic and regional politics in Kenya.

Ideas surrounding marginalization, regionalism, and independence are complex and carry different values and visions that can work to both justify and contest the political dominance of

Samburu and violence against Turkana residents. David explained, “Samburu County is actually very lucky, in the sense that it’s a county on its own, almost one community. Because really the

Turkana percentage is really small, the Kikuyu percentage is really small, so you have a whole county to yourself.” Ideas of Samburu ownership of the county express the darker side of the politics of regionalism, a claim for independence for Samburu at the exclusion of other residents’ claims as citizens with equal rights to belonging, access to state resources, and regional political representation. David continued to talk about the kinds of exclusion that are linked to violence in the county and the contradictions in this narrative:

You say you were marginalized by the central government, but now that you have devolution with you, you are also marginalizing others. Over the years, because the Turkana are the minority in the county, they feel that ‘we have been neglected.’ In terms of development and various issues they just feel that they're not really part of Samburu County, or they have not been accepted by the Samburu. While the Samburu will feel that you know what, you are visitors here. So they say, you can’t just come in and start demanding we want this, we want that.

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The idea of Turkana as “visitors” highlights a regional form of citizenship—beyond formal citizenship—that attempts to limit who can claim what rights in the county. Who “really belongs” in Samburu County is bound up with competing claims to marginalization and citizenship. While Samburu claim a marginalized identity compared with the rest of the nation,

Turkana can also claim a marginalized identity as a minority group within the county (that does not have to be connected to residence in Turkana County).

Struggles over political representation, access to state resources, and belonging in

Samburu County, are not just about county-level politics, but about re-shaping national identities and political claims. These are not just ethnically framed claims to the county, but attempts to reshape what it means to be a national citizen (Munasinghe 2001). Competing claims of legitimate national belonging take the form of rights as an ethnic group resident in a marginalized region to protect their interests through domination of regional politics, and the form of a more inclusive nationalism emphasizing Kenyan national citizenship and universal rights regardless of where an individual or group reside.

“We Are Starting to Hate Them Again”

The visitor narrative glosses over more complex historical relations between Samburu and Turkana. Turkana residents in Samburu have maintained a significant presence in the county and many claimed rightful belonging in the county based on being born in Samburu, bringing up their children there, and having parents or grandparents who settled in Samburu. Whether

Turkana are considered visitors or legitimate residents has fluctuated with political transitions and modes of governance since the colonial administration (Broch-Due 1999). Many Turkana residents, even if they had moved to Maralal in recent years, had moved from other parts of the county. Many Turkana residents told me that they had never been to Turkana County.

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At times, many Samburu-identified residents used ideas of intermarriage and co- residency to emphasize long-term links between Turkana and Samburu and their similarities as pastoralist groups who peacefully co-exist in the same region. At other times, many Samburu- identified residents (often the same people) used the same ideas of intermarriage and co- residency to delegitimize Turkana residents by highlighting their lack of cooperation and adherence to the norms of neighborly behavior and their disruption of peace in the county (I explore this further in chapter five). Despite a history of intermarriage, co-residency and various forms of cooperation, when it is politically expedient many Samburu-identified residents cast

Turkana as “visitors.” The label “visitors” carries not only the sense of Turkana as not belonging, but also of having broken the rules of belonging and co-habitation.

Political narratives of belonging and exclusion are tied to larger “immigrant-guest” metaphors (Jenkins 2012) that cast particular ethnic groups in Kenya as legitimate targets for violence in order to displace them, and that often blame the targets of violence for violence and insecurity. While they take a particular form and are embedded in Kenyan histories of political violence, these narratives also resonate with global discourses of belonging and exclusion based on a particular group’s rightful claim to a region (Geschiere 2009).

David advocates for inclusion and equal rights as laid out in the constitution, but explained what he understood to be the political motivations behind the marginalization of

Turkana:

The best thing would have been to include a few Turkana in the county government, then you would solve yourself a lot of headache. Then it goes back to the same thing. Samburu feel, because we've given you one or two [representatives], that's enough. Then the Turkana feel, that is not enough, because we are equals. And Samburu feel, no we're not equals, you are just 3000 voters and you are visitors here.

The notion of “visitors” is closely tied to voting and political representation and renders legitimate representation and citizenship as proportional to the strength of ethnic voting blocs in 121

elections. Many Samburu residents believed that Turkana had ample representation, or even that they were lucky to have any representation at all. Often Samburu-identified residents portrayed

Turkana residents as simultaneously too few to be deserving of political representation in the county, and as a potential political threat to the Samburu political elite in elections.

Researchers have reported similar struggles over who can vote and stand candidate, framed in terms of ethnic and clan identities, in particular counties and regions in northern Kenya

(Carrier and Kochore 2014; Chome 2015; Scott-Villiers et al. 2014). Beyond Kenya, Geschiere

(2013, 47) describes ideas in Cameroon and globally where “immigrants” should “go ‘home’ and vote there; and stand candidate there and not in their new surroundings where they are only

‘guests’—if they want to join in politics they should do this there, rather than try to prevail over their ‘hosts.’ After all, a ‘guest’ should never try to dominate his ‘host’ in his own house.” The ways that some Samburu residents described why Turkana did not need more leaders, or should

“go back” to Turkana County if they wanted to claim political representations and rights, followed a strikingly similar rhetoric. Both across Kenya (Little 2014) and globally (Geschiere

2009; 2013) decentralization has raised questions over political belonging and who should be able to access political representation in a particular region.

Regional politics connect directly to national politics and elections. Strong representation for majority ethnic groups at the county level can make up for a lack of representation at the national level. As a direct result of devolution, groups who are unable or unlikely to gain political representation in national elections can still gain leaders who represent their interests at the county level (Cheeseman et al. 2016). In this sense, for Samburu-identified residents (who supported the winning county candidates) in Samburu County—even if they did not feel

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represented by Kenyatta’s election as president5—still “won” at the county level. Turkana- identified residents, however, “lost” both nationally and at the county level. While this multi- tiered representation was touted as a key benefit of devolution that would provide increased political representation for citizens across Kenya (Cheeseman et al. 2016; Ghai 2008), in contexts like Samburu it increased political marginalization of “minority” groups, like Turkana, at the county level. Further compounding this marginalization, Turkana-identified residents found that elected county leaders, in addition to not representing the interests of Turkana residents, either passively or actively condoned practices including the political exclusion of

Turkana, barring Turkana residents from public employment and informal livelihoods, and violence directed at Turkana populations.

For many Samburu residents, their feelings toward Turkana were ambivalent and contradictory and they recognized that they were influenced by political narratives. Residents described relations between Samburu and Turkana groups as changing both over longer historical periods, and over much shorter time periods (for example, after the violence).

Residents also highlighted regional shifts and variations in relations between groups and often those living in Maralal considered the town to be a place of co-existence between different ethnic groups, especially compared to rural regions.

About three months after the height of violence in town, I joined Mary as she watched the

Palm Sunday procession led by the town’s largest Catholic church. Women in brightly colored shawls sang hymns together in Swahili, Samburu and Turkana. Mary’s young son ran around us, stopping to dig in the dirt with a stick as she told me “We are starting to hate them again.” Mary explained that when she moved to town she began to lose some of her feelings of animosity

5 Just over 50% of voters resident in Samburu County voted for opposition leader Raila Odinga in the 2013 presidential elections. While many Samburu-identified residents were happy with county leaders that represented Kenyatta and Ruto’s party, many wished that the opposition had won the presidential elections. 123

toward Turkana that were particularly strong in the northern parts of the county. Her family had moved from a northern region where livestock raiding between Samburu and Turkana was a common occurrence. Mary told me, “you will have to listen to both sides. Because Samburu will be biased and full of themselves. Even me! You know they [Turkana] are our enemies. But when you think about it, all of us are bad.” Like others, Mary blamed county leaders for the violence.

She told me that a particular leader “hates Turkana kabisa [completely]!” Mary waivered back and forth as she spoke, between expressions of collective hate and personal guilt. “I know I shouldn’t hate them,” she told me, before giving me a puzzled look and asking, “If they have one representative is it not enough?”

Mary’s declaration “we are starting to hate them again” indicates how relations between

Samburu and Turkana residents continue to shift and change. Mary connected changing levels of animosity towards Turkana residents to political leaders’ promotion of hatred aimed at delegitimizing Turkana residents. Her question of what might count as “enough” representation for Turkana highlighted struggles over what level of rights and representation minorities like

Turkana are entitled to and when they are overstepping their position as a minority. At the same time, Mary was surprised by just how much the county leader she speaks of hates Turkana.

While Mary questioned how much Turkana should be entitled to, she also placed limits on the legitimacy of leaders’ actions to exclude Turkana residents. Sometimes when I met Mary, like many Samburu-identified residents, she would tell me how upset she was at a recent attack against Turkana residents. At other times she would deny that violence against Turkana was happening, or argue that it was not as bad as Turkana were saying and that they were exaggerating. Mary’s ambivalence highlighted the continuously unsettled and shifting struggles over the legitimacy of violence and political authority in the county. Mary’s statement “we are

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starting to hate them again” both normalized violence and at the same time recognized that hate, violence, and the status of Turkana was contingent on changing social and political circumstances.

For many residents, the violence was unexpected. They were hopeful that a new county government would move towards a fairer, more developed county, with new opportunities for political representation, employment and equality. Like Mary, many residents were surprised by, or disapproved of, how involved county leaders appeared to be in promoting division and violence. I asked James whether he had expected the violence.

No, no, no. Honestly, No. Because, the governor is young, well-educated, a graduate with a university degree. The Member of Parliament underwent his studies in the U.S. The MP for North, the MP for East, are former administrators, people who’ve had a lot of experience in governance. So I was feeling like now we have the best package, these are the people we needed to spur development. But then look at what happened. It was a disappointment. These things [violence and shutting down economic activities] were happening under the watch of people we expected to bring change. Nobody was expecting that to happen. And especially taking a tribal angle. It was the least we expected. Especially in the 21st century.

James described leaders and tribalist politics as an outdated, unexpected mode of politics when so many in the region and across Kenya hoped for the political changes that devolution, and new global, experienced, future-oriented leaders, promised. At the same time as James was shocked by the violence, he also emphasized that violence was part of “normal circumstances.” I asked James why he thought the violence was happening:

I think it is about displacing populations so that the people you don't want, or the people you think won't vote for you, fail to register as voters so that your chances of passing through an election increase. Under normal circumstances, the way it has been in Kenya most of the time, in a year before the elections, peace becomes elusive. That is when you start hearing of attacks. So and so was attacked and then it is treated as a criminal act. Yet we very well know that it is violence. It is a political thing. So most of us we're just there, waiting for 2016 to see how things will look.

James suggested that violence was “political” and directly connected to the 2013 county elections and preventing the political opposition from voting. Residents of neighboring Marsabit 125

County reported similar claims, asserting that violence following the 2013 elections often described in media and NGO reports as “criminal” or between ethnic groups was politically motivated and connected to electoral votes (Scott-Villiers et al. 2014).

James connected violence in the county following the 2013 elections to a broader context of election-related violence in Kenya. James discussed the previous elections and how “Kenyans and violence during elections are almost becoming synonymous.” Indeed, every election since the reintroduction of multiparty elections in 1992 until 2013 has been accompanied by violence before and after the election (see chapter three). Leaders and elites have mobilized male youth to take part in violence, including displacement and intimidation, as a deliberate political strategy aimed at securing votes (Anderson and Lochery 2009; Kamungi 2009; Lynch 2012). Like many ethnographers of violence in northern Kenya (Galaty 2005; Schlee and Shongolo 2012; Straight

2009), James emphasized the impact of national politics and elections on violence in Samburu

County.

Given the national context of political violence in Kenya, it is perhaps unsurprising that residents interpret violence as politically motivated. However, often violence, and political incitement of violence, is difficult to interpret, understand, or prove. Residents frequently read into and interpreted the actions and words of county leaders, attempting to discern their potentially violent or divisive intentions (see chapters five and six for further examples).

“Why Should We Care About Independence?”

As part of Independence Day celebrations, the Samburu County governor gave a speech in a similar style to the president's speech that day, although it was at a much simpler affair than the one in Nairobi filled with foreign dignitaries.

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Fellow Kenyans, Jamhuri6 Day is the most significant day in our national calendar, because it reminds us of the time in 1963 when Kenya attained her independence from colonial rule. This Jamhuri Day is also special as it is also a day to mark our country's golden jubilee of fifty years of independence […] Fellow residents of Samburu County, we have lived with the challenges of insecurity for decades and the menace has resurfaced over the past few months taking toll of innocent people and rendering families poor and without source of livelihood through bloody armed raids. This trend of lawlessness and insensitive killings are not condoned by my government and we are soon getting hold of the perpetrators of these heinous acts. We are working closely with the national government and the security organs to stamp out and get a lasting solution to this problem. At this stage I want to make a passionate plea that we stop butchering each other. As we let the law enforcement take its course we have as county government reached out to the warring communities to exercise restraint and give dialogue a chance as we pursue a comprehensive peace building process and initiatives that is already on course.

John, a young Turkana professional was disturbed by the governor’s words: "For me, it was not this. We are being butchered!" John read the governor’s words as “insincere” and as a dismissal of violence: “people are dying and he took it as just another part of the day.” While

John referred to specific acts of violence in town that targeted Turkana, the governor’s words placed violence within a less explicit, general context of “insecurity.” The governor represented violence as chronic “bloody armed raids” involving mutual livestock theft between “warring communities” that has taken place over “decades.” He did not refer explicitly to, or condemn, the recent acts of violence against Turkana. For John, this amounted to condoning the violence.

For John, the governor’s representation of violence also depoliticized recent events. John argued that Turkana were not represented in the county government and that instead leaders had

“hijacked the whole process” by resorting to “jungle law” and asserting that Samburu was “our county.” Like James and Robert, John saw this as a corruption of devolution and argued that this was “not what is in the constitution.” In addition, John understood violence as directly incited by specific county leaders who were “instigating everything.” John claimed that “during campaigns

6 Jamhuri is Swahili for Republic. Jamhuri Day is a national holiday celebrating Kenya's recognition as a formal republic on December 12th, 1964. This is also the same day that Kenya gained formal independence from Britain in 1963. 127

the current MP said that if he gets the seat he will move Turkana out.” Many other residents, as well as other leaders and staff at regional peace-building NGOs, also reported that the same MP had promised to force Turkana out of Samburu County.

John left Samburu to find work in a neighboring county after the violence, explaining,

It seemed like every night there were gunshots. You wake up to find out someone has been killed. We tried to talk to the government, but they won’t give us an audience. I know members of the government personally. I went with some elders to see the governor. We were told: “We don't have time for that. We have other more important issues.” So we have no place to go. The Turkana community…the majority are poor. They are being killed for nothing. I was neutral at first. I thought this thing would just end. I didn't take it personally. But then I realized that my family was at risk.

Like Mary, John’s response to and understanding of the violence shifted. While he struggled to achieve belonging and recognition in the county he feels is his home, he realized that the violence was not the “normal” violence that might “just end.” He moved his family to a neighboring county where he felt they were safer.

Two weeks after the governor’s speech, John took me to a diverse neighborhood in town where many Turkana live and introduced me to Richard. Like John, Richard did not have much faith or interest in the governor’s words. "We didn't go to hear the governor's speech at the stadium. Why should we care about independence? We were waiting to be killed!"

Richard insisted on speaking English. He wanted me to hear what he had to say directly from his own mouth. Richard's faded t-shirt read "Peace for Samburu." A honey bee hovered near his bright orange cap sporting the opposition party's Orange Democratic Movement logo. "I used to be a beekeeper you know. I worked for the Ministry of Agriculture for thirty years." We sat in a dirt yard lined with rows of simple rental housing constructed from wooden posts. This is where Richard lived, struggling to get by on his small government pension. Through referencing his work for the national government, Richard made a strong claim to citizenship. His bitterness

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emerged from a sense of betrayal after being treated in a way that does not match his loyalty to the government and status as a national citizen.

The idea of independence emerged as a key theme in David, James, and Richard’s discussions of violence and devolution. Richard’s question—“why should we care about independence?”—points to the ways that devolution is embedded in a history of politics and violence shaped by colonialism and visions and realities of Kenyan nationalism and independence. Many African scholars have questioned the celebration of fifty years of decolonization across the continent, highlighting the limits of decolonization and the failure of formal political transition to translate into deep political transformation that would be meaningful in citizens’ everyday lives (Mbembe 2010; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2012). Richard’s bitter words echoed these scholars concerns; what do ordinary people have to celebrate? As national and county leaders laud the fruits of independence and devolution, across Kenya, minority groups have not managed to realize basic rights as citizens as promised by devolution and outlined in the

2010 constitution (Abraham 2012).

Independence—both its celebration, heavily symbolized in the ruling government’s decision to name its coalition party “Jubilee,” and its betrayal, emphasized by the opposition— continued to be a key theme in political campaigns in the run up to the 2017 elections. Raila

Odinga, the opposition leader who Richard’s orange ODM hat represented, publicly accused

President Kenyatta of “betraying the independence dream” (Ayaga 2015). Odinga continues the work of his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who wrote the well-known autobiography Not Yet

Uhuru accusing Kenyatta’s father’s government of betraying independence.

President Kenyatta—son of Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of an independent

Kenya—has the first name Uhuru, meaning freedom, that carries both the promise and continued

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disappointment of what independence could mean. After winning the 2013 election Uhuru

Kenyatta and William Ruto—president and deputy president—formed the Jubilee Alliance Party, actively aligning their election success with the celebration of Kenya’s independence and, perhaps more implicitly, with the continuation of a political establishment marred by violence, authoritarianism and political patronage for certain ethnic groups. Both Kenyatta and Ruto underwent trial at the International Criminal Court, accused of inciting violence during the post-

2007 election crisis. Kenyatta and Ruto presented themselves as presiding over a government that has provided independence for its citizens. Others view the period since formal independence on the African continent as characterized by “five decades of misrule” (Amutabi and Nasong’o 2013) where leaders have repeatedly opted to place the maintenance of political power and economic gains over the full realization of decolonization.

Devolution, Violence, and Political Belonging

Devolution in Kenya is not just about institutional change, but connects to struggles over political belonging, representation, and authority at the county and national level.

Violence shaped by issues of political belonging, representation, and authority should not be viewed as an unintended consequence of devolution. Questions of political belonging and national and regional politics are precisely the issues that devolution intervenes in and shapes.

Rather than settling these questions, devolution opens up multiple interpretations of regional sovereignty and political belonging at the county and national level. Violence, in particular, attacks on Turkana residents, appears to have been an attempt to produce regional sovereignty and political belonging for a particular section of Samburu leaders, elites, and residents in the context of national and regional political contexts of violence.

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Samburu County residents’ and leaders’ political imaginaries of devolution both draw on and challenge the national government’s narrative of independence, nationalism, and regionalism. Changes in relations between Turkana and Samburu residents are shaped by political narratives and changes connected to electoral politics and institutional reforms. Neither

Samburu nor Turkana residents saw their vision for the new county realized in the months and years after the 2013 election. Many residents felt that devolution had not provided them with the political participation, rights, protections, or recognition by either the national or county government that reforms promised. Instead, many residents looked ahead to the 2017 elections— either to increase the power of county leaders so they had the chance to further consolidate their political control, or to change the county government entirely.

One way to understand the violence in Samburu County is as a failure of devolution through its corruption or misuse by leaders. County leaders’ and other political elites’ involvement in violence is certainly an important aspect of why devolution has produced violence. However, it only provides a partial explanation and blames the failure of reform solely on county governments. This works to disconnect violence from national politics, histories of political violence in Kenya, unfolding struggles over political rights and recognitions, and reforms that have been shaped and promoted by international actors.

Devolution, both as a process of policy and institutional change and as narrative and political imaginary, has increased struggles over how best to remedy the exclusion of marginalized groups from national citizenship and politics. Ultimately, devolution, so far, has not resolved political struggles and violence, but has simply transformed how they take shape at the county level. Processes of devolution always contain the potential of “starting to hate them

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again” by producing conflicts around political rights and recognitions and reshaping histories of independence, regional politics, and violence.

Beyond processes of reform and political violence in Samburu County, and in Kenya more broadly, Samburu County residents’ experiences of reform and violence highlight broader issues of violence related to political changes and the redistribution of resources and rights to marginalized populations. In addition, political imaginaries of the county connected to independence emphasize the unfinished projects of decolonization, nation-building, and democratic governance across the African continent.

Struggles over regional sovereignty and political belonging in Samburu County are not only important to political processes and violence at the regional level, but have larger implications for political futures across the African continent and globally. Can so-called democratic reforms bring about “independence” in the form of meaningful political rights as envisioned by marginalized groups? If so, which groups are able to position themselves to benefit from processes of reform and which populations are left vulnerable to violence? Rather than violence being an unintended consequence of processes of reform, in Samburu County the forms violence took after the 2013 elections were profoundly shaped by the uncertainties, struggles, and futures that reforms helped create. Governments, international organizations, policymakers, and researchers must reckon more fully with the potential for processes of reform to produce political violence, as well as to create more democratic political outcomes.

In this chapter, I have largely explored devolution and the implementation of the 2010 constitution as both a process and a political imaginary that has shifted the context for competing claims to state resources, political rights, and belonging. In the remaining chapters, I continue to explore political violence beyond the 2013 election campaign across multiple scales and focusing

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on specific aspects of devolution, electoral politics, and new rights outlined in the 2010 constitution. I focus more fully on different aspects of residents’ experiences and understandings of violence. In the next chapter, I explore how residents understand and use ideas of, and experience, peace and violence in the periods between elections.

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CHAPTER 5

“WE ARE JUST WAITING FOR PEACE”: VIOLENCE BETWEEN ELECTIONS

In early December 2013, a little over a month after Turkana houses in Maralal were burned, a large crowd gathered in the center of town around a “peace bus.” Local university students organized the peace bus under the name “Hands of Unity.” The back of a truck became a stage for three musicians from the region; one Pokot, one Samburu, and one Turkana. The three musicians took turns singing and emceeing and expressing their commitment to peace and unity between the three tribes they represented. They invited members of the audience to come up on stage and take part in mini dance-off competitions. Younger people from the crowd jumped onto the back of the truck and danced enthusiastically as the crowd sent cheers of encouragement. The “winner” of each dance-off was less important than the crowds’ eager participation. In this moment, residents could dance together in a time of violence and division.

That night, three Turkana residents living in town were targeted in a shooting attack on their home. Two men were injured and a woman was shot and killed.

The attack on a Turkana family revealed the fragility, contradictions, and ultimately absence, of peace in Samburu County. In this chapter, I focus on Samburu County residents’ lived experiences of peace and violence between elections in the months following the 2013 elections. Focusing on lived experiences of peace and long-term political violence suggests a need to expand concepts of political and electoral violence to include violence in the years between elections. In the following, I show how residents hold varied and often opposing views on what forms peace and legitimate violence take in the county. Further, I explore the political and everyday conditions that residents view as necessary to a state of meaningful peace in the county.

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As I write, in the run up to the 2017 elections, international and Kenyan observers are concerned about possibilities for electoral violence and question whether Kenya can once again avoid violence on election day. Whether the next election will be peaceful is, to some extent, the wrong question to ask. By the spring of 2017, many regions of Kenya had already experienced forms of inter-group violence connected to the elections, political incitement, and continued struggles for land rights and the rights of marginalized communities. Indeed, Bekoe (2017) argues that election-related violence started at least a year prior to the 2017 elections and included violence and intimidation during party primary elections in April and May of 2017, opposition protests against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in June 2016 where police injured and killed protestors, and political conflict over private land between herders and conservationists in Laikipa during 2016 and 2017.

While more than 300 people were killed in violence connected to political conflict at the county-level surrounding the 2013 elections (HRW 2013; 2014), the Kenyan government, media, and international observers largely focused on national-level violence and declared the 2013 elections peaceful (Burchard 2015; Bekoe 2017). A focus on the particular moment of elections, fails to account for political violence between elections, which is still very much connected to leaders, votes, and political recognition. Without a focus on longer-term political violence, what a peaceful, or violent, election reveals about the outcomes of political change and attempts to reduce violence is limited.

In thinking about peace and violence between election periods in Kenya, I draw on ethnographies of violence that trouble neat distinctions between clearly defined periods of violence and peace (Nordstrom 2004; Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004; Sluka 2009; French

2013). This work builds upon Max Weber’s argument that “conflict cannot be excluded from

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social life” and that “[p]eace is nothing more than a change in the form of conflict or in the antagonists or in the object of the conflict, or finally in the chances of selection” (Weber 1949:

26-27). Globally, political violence often continues into periods characterized as the resolution of violence labeled as “peaceful,” “post-conflict,” or “post-war” (French 2013; Nordstrom 2004;

Olson 2013; Schneiderman and Snellinger 2014; Silber 2014).

Normative models of peaceful transition place political reform—in particular the establishment or expansion of democratic elections, rights and protections, and political institutions— as essential to the development of “peace” (French 2013; Sluka 2009;

Schneiderman and Snellinger 2014). Rather than clear-cut periods of peace, apparent transitions to or transformations of peace can result in often prolonged periods of “not-war-not-peace”

(Nordstrom 2004: 166) where attempts to institutionalize peace mask ongoing forms of violence.

For many regions of Kenya, I argue that the 2013 elections did not mark a transition to peace.

Instead, devolution of power to new county governments contributed to a period between elections of “not-war-not peace.” In Samburu County, despite narratives of peace, residents experienced political violence which permeated and disrupted their everyday lives.

I begin by asking what political work was performed through labeling the 2013 elections as peaceful. I explore observers’ criticism of peace narratives and how global and national political narratives shaped shifting perceptions of peace at the national level in Kenya. Turning to Samburu County, I consider how residents understand and experience peace and violence beyond election seasons as connected to elections and county leaders. I also examine how narratives of peace operate at the county level and how residents’ often conflicting understandings of peace are connected to ideas of belonging, cooperation, who was to blame for violence, and the political legitimacy of the county government.

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The 2013 Kenyan Elections and Peace Narratives

Absent violence on the same scale as that which followed the 2007 elections, many international observers hailed the 2013 elections as peaceful and successful. United Nations

Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, praised the elections as a model for how electoral disagreements could be addressed without violence (Kelley 2013). Internationally recognized observers like the Carter Center and United States Institute for Peace celebrated the “largely peaceful” election (Carter Center 2013; USIP 2013). A commentator at the Brookings Institution suggested that there had been “no serious incidences of violence” in elections that had

“redeemed” the country (Kimenyi 2013). Despite technical and procedural flaws, international observers found the elections to be free, fair and credible (Karanja 2013). While the European

Union Election Observation Commission to Kenya (2013) recognized that “several serious violent incidents occurred in some parts of the country” they found that “overall the atmosphere was calm and the democratic spirit of Kenyans prevailed.”

The 2013 elections were the first since the post-2007 election violence, during which up to 1300 people were killed and more than 650, 000 displaced (HRW 2013). The elections were also the first since Kenya implemented the 2010 constitution mandating the devolution of a highly centralized government to new county-level administrations. Along with the presidential elections, Kenyans also voted for multiple new elected county government positions.

In the 2007 election, presidential incumbent Mwai Kibaki was declared winner by a narrow margin. Opposition candidate Raila Odinga claimed the 2007 election was rigged and contested the result. Kibaki was hastily sworn in as president. With many Kenyans suspicious of the legitimacy of Kibaki’s win, assertions of a rigged election were a major trigger of violence following the 2007 elections.

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Central to mediation efforts during the post-2007 election violence, the UN brokered a power-sharing agreement, with Mwai Kibaki retaining the presidency and opposition leader

Raila Odinga assuming the newly created role of prime minister. While the arrangement “helped to bring political violence under control, it did not lay a strong foundation for long-term political stability” (Cheeseman 2015, 218). In addition to the power-sharing agreement, mediation efforts in the aftermath of the post-2007 election violence provided the opportunity to push through long-awaited constitutional reform. International mediators and the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation report on the post-2007 violence emphasized the implementation of devolution and the 2010 constitution as integral to addressing the structural causes of the post-

2007 election violence. The 2013 elections, then, would be a test of how well these mediation efforts and reforms—intended to make the government more accountable, build institutions that

Kenyan citizens could trust, and protect the rights of marginalized groups—could address election-related violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta—son of first president of independent Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, and symbol of the continuation of the political establishment—won the 2013 election with just

50.51% of the vote, narrowly avoiding a run-off election. Raila Odinga, the opposition presidential candidate, once again contested the election results, asserting that the election was flawed and had been rigged. The Kenyan Supreme Court ruled that any flaws were not significant enough to challenge the election results, and ultimately decided and legitimated the

2013 elections (Ruteere 2014).

The goals of addressing the roots of electoral and inter-communal violence in Kenya set out by the Kenya National Development and Reconciliation agenda—formed to coordinate mediation efforts for the post-2007 election violence—and the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation

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Commission remain far from being achieved. This lack of progress combined with flaws in the management, technology and conduct of the 2013 elections may have shaken Kenyans’ faith in democracy as a vehicle for change and addressing their needs (Kenya Human Rights

Commission 2014a; Harbeson 2014).

While many international observers saw a relative lack of violence during the 2013 elections as a sign of the success of reforms, other observers were more cautious. Many critics carefully explored what exactly peace entailed, who it benefitted, and what the election had achieved in the long run. Benesch argued that the efforts of NGOs, numerous peace projects, and

Kenyan citizens “provided peace temporarily in Kenya,” however, “the election still divided the country along tribal lines, and even seemed to deepen those divisions” (Benesch 2013).

Cheeseman largely agreed, arguing that “although the 2013 presidential and parliamentary elections in Kenya passed largely without incident, all of the ingredients for election violence remain” (Cheeseman 2015, 218). The Kenya Human Rights Commission (2014a) worried that the elections did not signal a transformation of electoral processes and were instead a continuation of the ethnic mobilization and violence underpinning multi-party elections since their introduction in the early nineties. Additionally, observers have voiced concerns that demands for the peaceful conduct of elections may have undermined long-term democratic progress and may have led to some minority communities feeling further marginalized as their voices were at times suppressed in the name of peace (Cheeseman et al. 2014; Long et al. 2014).

Some observers were particularly critical of narratives of peace. Long and colleagues argued that “peace” was often a dominant narrative that leaders used to suppress political opposition and democratic freedoms (Long et al. 2014). Political blogger Patrick Gathara (2013) censured journalists’ coverage of the elections, arguing that the “press was induced into a ‘peace

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coma’ and ignored fundamental and widespread problems witnessed during the poll.” Gathara worried that the press and Kenyan civil society avoided engaging with election flaws and instead

“accepted the wisdom that the only alternative to a poorly run election is chaos, not a better run one” (Gathara 2013). Moreover, the dominant peace narrative may have indicated a shift in how the Kenyan media and government talked about violence and who was to blame. Gathara argued that before the 2013 elections “violence has always been seen as perpetuated by the government.

We never blamed ourselves.” Gathara described a “campaign to convince us that we were all responsible for this” (Gathara cited in Benesch 2014, 23-24) following the post-2007 election violence.

In the run up to the 2017 elections, the Institute for Economics and Peace (2016) declared that the Global Peace Index for Kenya, had fallen to 131 out of 163 countries reported on. The

Kenyan National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) also reported a drop in their

“cohesion index” and warned of deep divisions in the country in the year before the 2017 elections. The government’s violent crackdown on opposition protests, calling for the

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to be dismissed, indicated brewing political conflict. NCIC Chairman Francis Ole Kaparo was quoted in The Standard warning, "we are too shy to speak about it claiming every day that we are a peace-loving nation, because we do not want to scare away tourists. We must confess people are getting killed every day especially from ethnic violence" (Kaparo cited in Kajilwa 2016). In addition to everyday violence between elections, Kaparo argued that "when we went to elections in 2013 no one knew the importance of governors, MCAs, or senators. But it is now known how much power they wield; we are already seeing rival leaders salivating." Kaparo predicted potential violence at the county-level around

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the 2017 elections, warning that "if the marginalised ethnic groups are not brought on board and resources evenly distributed it will be worse” (Kaparo cited in Kajilwa 2016).

Just a few weeks later, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon praised Kenya for its role in fostering peace in the East African region (The Star 2016). Ban Ki Moon focused on

Kenya’s role in peacekeeping efforts in South Sudan and providing some of the world’s largest refugee camps. Given the Kenyan government’s recent threats to close Dadaab refugee camp, the

UN’s praise was clearly a politically motivated move. After political violence in the early 1990s,

Kenya shifted abruptly in the view of international governments and donors from a bastion of political stability and economic growth to a state on the verge of collapse (Haugerud 1995).

Following the post-2007 election violence, international observers once again showed concern for Kenya’s stability. From the perspective of many international governments and donors, the

2013 elections showed that democratic reforms—in particular, free and fair elections, could alleviate violence. Shifting political praise and concern regarding Kenya’s stability appear to be heavily shaped by global, as well as national, peace narratives.

Taking a longer view of violence between elections reveals a very different side to a peaceful election. Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs records that between January 2012 and June 2015, 1600 people were killed in “inter-communal conflicts” that also resulted in over 2000 injuries and more than 600, 000 people being displaced

(UNOCHA 2013; 2014a; 2014b; 2015). Although over a longer period, this is more deaths (up to

1300) than during the election crisis in the weeks after the 2007 election and a comparable number of displacements (more than 650, 000). This violence is also comparable in terms of deaths and displacements to political violence between 1991 and 1993 surrounding the first multi-party elections in Kenya, during which an estimated 1500 people were killed and 300, 000

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displaced (Lynch 2012, 161). Even supposedly “successful” elections such as the 2002 elections—which many Kenyans celebrated after the removal of authoritarian president Daniel

Arap Moi and the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) in power since independence—saw significant amounts (although far less than previous years) of election-related violence that domestic and international observers downplayed (Lynch 2012, 161).

The 2013 elections may have been relatively calm, but did not contribute to what residents of Samburu County, and many other Kenyan citizens, would consider to be sustained peace. Benesch (2014a: 22) distinguishes between calm, marked by a relative absence of violence, and sustained peace where social division, historical injustices, minority group rights, and underlying causes of the post-2007 election violence would be fully addressed and resolved.

For many Turkana residents and their supporters, their desires for peace centered on county leaders who might protect their rights and the ability of Turkana residents to be able to return to everyday forms of work to secure their basic needs.

“We Are Not Going to Vote Again!”

After their houses were burned in late 2013, several members of a predominantly

Turkana neighborhood on the edge of town told me that they would not vote again. A small group of young men from the neighborhood had tried to stop the gathered crowd from setting homes alight. They ran to gather up as many belongings as they could before houses were burned. One of the young men, Henry, who picked up casual work doing construction, gave his reaction a few months after the houses were burned:

We are not Kenyans. Because our houses were burned, our property was stolen, and nobody from the government came to help us, or even came to see how we were doing. Nobody has come except for the Red Cross who gave the women cooking pots and utensils. The police didn’t come until the morning, after all the houses had been burned. Some of our young men from our village, they ran to seek help at the police station, but

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they were locked up in the cells until the morning. If you remember what happened to our houses, you act like somebody who has gone crazy!

A small nearby police station is clearly visible from Henry’s neighborhood. The police must have been able to see the houses burn from the station, yet they did not respond. Some residents wondered if the police were too scared to act. Others thought they were afraid to intervene after accusations that they helped Turkana transport the stolen cattle that sparked the protest and after a police officer killed a local student leader (see next chapter). Still others thought the police had been paid off and told not to intervene by local leaders.

Henry was infuriated that after asking county leaders for help and protection, only the local chief and Red Cross had offered their assistance after houses were burned. Furious at leaders for not intervening, Henry exclaimed, “We are not going to vote again!” Henry added that Turkana were being discriminated against and denied the same opportunities as other tribes.

Henry was not alone in insisting that he would not vote again. Emma, a young woman from the same neighborhood showed me her home. Six months after the attack, there was nothing left in the single room she stayed in with her family except a charred bed frame with a layer of ash beneath it. The mud wall was blackened and cracked and the tin roof was warped.

Emma described continued prohibitions on Turkana engaging in livestock-related livelihoods:

I hear they are still going around looking for butcheries which have reopened. They are saying ‘where do those Turkana get the meat they are selling?’ [Accusing them of selling meat stolen in livestock raids] So I think there is no peace. We are just praying to God. We don’t have a leader who is Turkana who can help us.

During the election, the Turkana are the ones who voted for them [county leaders]. Nobody has come to talk to us, to say the fighting has ended. So we know nothing about it. We’ll just stay like this. But if they will let us go back to the slaughterhouse, to go to the forest to make charcoal and collect firewood, the way we used to, so that we can work together with them [Samburu], we can vote. But if they cannot do that, we cannot vote. Next time, when people vote again, we are not going to vote. I will not vote again.

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Adam was from another predominantly Turkana neighborhood in town. After losing his family butchery, Adam took work as a day-laborer doing construction on new roads being built in the county and picked up odd jobs doing repair work where he could. Adam acted as a spokesperson for Turkana youth in town and hoped to be a leader for youth and peace.

We are just waiting for peace. But even if peace comes, I will still face challenges going back. Our butcheries have been taken over by Samburu so it will be very hard. For peace to triumph, it must start from the top. Samburu leaders need to condemn the violence and address it. There will be no peace if the Turkana don’t have rights. If they open the butcheries, when women can fetch firewood without fear, when there are equal job opportunities, this will be a sign of peace.

Henry, Emma, and Adam’s experiences highlighted Turkana residents’ continued wait for substantial peace. Many Turkana residents were frustrated at being continually let down by a county government that failed to address ongoing violence, discrimination, and economic exclusion against Turkana residents. Despite exercising their right to vote in the 2013 elections, choosing leaders they thought would represent them, and believing that the elections could bring change, Turkana living in Samburu County found themselves lacking basic rights in the county.

For Emma, Henry, and Adam, and most other Turkana residents, peace would require political recognition of basic rights and protections. In addition, many Turkana residents saw the ability to return to their informal livelihoods to sustain basic needs as central to meaningful political participation. Beyond a temporary calm, indicated by a short-term reduction in violent attacks,

Turkana residents desired long-term, substantial peace.

It was not only Turkana residents who understood basic livelihoods, political representation, and basic rights as the necessary conditions for peace. A Samburu woman who lived in the same neighborhood where Turkana houses were burned made similar comments.

While her home was left untouched, she was also afraid of the attackers and fled her house to hide in nearby bushes. She explained, “We are praying to God to make this end. If they allow the

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women to return to the slaughterhouse, the way they used to go to buy intestines, we can see that peace is there. If the men can return to the livestock market, the way they used to go to buy and sell livestock, we can see that everything is fine.”

David, a Samburu politician, commented, “really what happened is that we’ve just covered it up. Because up to now the Turkana can’t do as much business. So the truth of the matter is that there’s no peace. Because the Turkana should have gone back to do business, but up to now they are not in their butcheries, they are not doing their livestock business. I keep saying that it’s just calm, it’s not really peace, because you’ve not had dialogue.” While many

Samburu expressed support for David and his commitment to peace, others saw David—as a national politician with potential to gain an elected seat in the county—as a threat to the county government.

Many Turkana residents expressed frustration that “nobody is talking” about the violence.

At the same time, there was a broadly shared fear of retaliation if people spoke out, so many residents felt they had to stay silent on violence and county politics. After threats from a county leader—apparently warning Turkana not to post on social media—one woman complained, “so now us Turkana, we don’t have to talk, we just have to keep quiet. We see what they [Samburu] are doing and we keep quiet.”

Insisting on the need for an official dialogue around violence and allowing Turkana to return to work, Adam was frustrated at the obstacles to dialogue. Adam explained that when people living in Turkana neighborhoods held meetings to address the violence against their communities “they [the county government/Samburu] are saying that we are protesting the peace.” Adam and some supporters approached the County Commissioner to try and begin an open conversation and to persuade the government to intervene.

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The County Commissioner told us “even me, I am trying to protect my plate.” We went to the County Commissioner’s office to talk about the issue with the slaughterhouse and he told us that this thing is still coming from above [i.e. county leaders]. So he told us to calm down and that he would talk to them to see what can be done. Now they tell us that officially we are free to go to the slaughterhouse. But we told them that we need to call a meeting with everybody, because we are still being prevented from doing business at the slaughterhouse.

Similar to David, Adam viewed county leaders’ as failing to take action to create a substantive peace where Turkana residents could return to their livelihoods. The County Commissioner—a position appointed by the national government—by arguing (according to Adam) that he was

“trying to protect his plate” and that things were “coming from above,” passed responsibility to elected county leaders. Adam was frustrated that county leaders could refuse to take responsibility for the rights of residents.

Turkana residents’ hopes for peace often contrasted sharply with many Samburu- identified residents’ notions of how to achieve peace and who was to blame for disturbing the peace. While Turkana residents saw the current situation in the county as a lack of peace, placing blame largely on the county government, many Samburu residents understood peace as existent, but threatened by Turkana residents’ challenges to the county government. Many Samburu residents blamed violence on Turkana residents who were failing to uphold peace and act according to standards of neighborliness, cooperation, and respect. Residents’ use of this narrative highlighted the legitimacy of the Samburu County government and often downplayed leaders’ responsibility for addressing violence and creating peace. In the next section, I explore how residents use narratives of peace, and residents’ different understandings of peace.

“Staying in Peace”

Many Samburu-identified residents and supporters of the county government asserted that Turkana voted for the county government and should respect their authority, rather than

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“complaining” and “disturbing the peace.” Martin, a student of mixed background at the town’s satellite university campus, described himself as “educated” and “forward-looking.” Martin explained a problem he had with one of his friends, also with both Samburu and Turkana parents, who was critical of the county government. That two friends, both having Samburu fathers and

Turkana mothers, could hold such divergent views on county leaders and Samburu dominance in the county troubles any clear divide between Samburu and Turkana residents.

When he complains that the Samburu leadership is biased, it’s funny because he does not understand that the land belongs to them, so of course automatically the leadership goes to them. When he complains about how it is only the Samburu benefitting I scold him. Actually, I’m amazed, because he is such a good person in so many other ways. You know I hate tribalism. Since I come from both sides, it seems to me that tribalists from either the Turkana or Samburu side are foolish. He tells me that even his father, a Samburu, is the enemy. Now my mother is pure Turkana, but even if Samburu come and attack her, I will of course defend her. I believe tribalism is cowardice and foolishness. It does not put anything on the table, it does not bring development. He is a tribalist and does not know the dangers that await him. He does not understand that he is in a foreign land and the only way to stay with them is to stay in peace.

After a pause, Martin added, “But you know a Samburu also cannot be a tribalist here. They should not be so sure that they are secure in their own land.”

Martin’s reasoning fits within a larger narrative of accommodation and cooperation by which many Samburu county residents measured “peace.” He placed his friend as being in a

“foreign land,” over which Samburu have clear authority. Criticism of the government, in

Martin’s view, is not only a form of tribalism, but is also a misunderstanding of the legitimacy the newly elected county government should hold. “Staying in peace” requires accepting the right of Samburu to dominate the regional government, as owners of the land, and acknowledging Turkana as temporary guests. At the same time, Martin recognized that Samburu assertions of ownership of the county, at the expense of Turkana rights, could also lead to a disruption of their position and held its own dangers.

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Bernard, a Samburu business owner in town, often encouraged me to stop by his office for a chat. He tried to explain the idea of cooperation to me, which he saw as central to violence,

These people [Turkana] I don’t know. You know, according to our culture, the person that we have shared together—like now you, we have taken food together, we have drunk together—I'm not allowed to kill you at all. It is sin… So traditionally if we relate with Turkana, like the way we are now, we have become the same. So if they will cooperate with us, actually the Samburu will have peace with them. Have you heard about any conflict between Somali and Samburu…or between Rendille and Samburu? No. And of course, we have cooperated with them. We shared with them and now they are among our bothers. You see? That is the cause of the conflict between Samburu and Turkana. They don't cooperate. Tomorrow they steal cattle, they kill.

In this description of cooperation, Bernard puts forward a moral argument regarding legitimate violence and the appropriate behaviors that groups, often viewed by Samburu residents as guests in the county, should follow. Bernard portrayed Turkana as breaking the rules of cooperation, failing to “become the same” and remaining in an outsider category, tacitly acceptable to kill.

Bernard described a social relationship in which “outsiders” must respect Samburu conditions for, and understandings of, peace.

Bernard clearly expressed that he did not agree with any ban on Turkana trade and explained that those calling for the ban on trade at the town’s livestock market were uneducated and could not think of an alternative solution (see chapter seven). In Bernard’s explanation of the ban on Turkana trading at the livestock market, Samburu residents supportive of the ban were simply trying to avoid conflict—if Turkana would not cooperate and continued to participate in livestock raids then they should not be allowed to trade in livestock. While Bernard may have disagreed with the method of achieving peace that residents calling for the ban put forward, his explanation of Turkana non-cooperation followed the same reasoning for the trade ban. Like the livestock trade ban, Bernard’s narrative of non-cooperation blames violence on Turkana who

“steal cattle” and “kill,” erasing violence carried out by Samburu residents who have also stolen livestock and killed. 148

Bernard’s friend, Joseph, added, “Even me, I am not understanding the reason why the

Samburu and Turkana in Baragoi cannot reach consensus and stay in peace. I wonder. Yet the

[Samburu] people in Porro with the Pokot are just staying in peace.” The idea that Turkana do not cooperate, continue to steal cattle, kill, and do not “stay in peace”—while other ethnic groups in the region do cooperate—was common.

Robert, a staff member at a county organization doing peace-building, recommended that

I speak with Chief L, a Samburu chief based in a nearby locality who had been active in peace efforts in the county. Chief L insisted we met for chai in a café when he was in town. He proudly recounted multiple success stories of peace initiatives that he was involved in that helped resolve

Samburu-Pokot violence in the mid-2000s. When I moved the conversation to the recent violence, he explained, “If those Turkana cows had not been brought here then there would be no conflict. This thing started in Baragoi. Turkana raiders are hiding in Maralal. They are only targeting homes where people from Baragoi come from.”

I was shocked that chief L appeared to justify recent violence against Turkana in town, while at the same time sharing a narrative of himself as peace-builder. This was not the first time that I heard the claim that only criminal raiders from the north of the county were being targeted.

This claim was the other side to the accommodation and cooperation narrative; those who did not cooperate were criminals, raiders, killers, who should no longer be accommodated or accepted as legitimate residents of the county.

Joseph—Bernard’s friend and a university student who identifies as Samburu—also claimed raiders hiding out in Maralal were the main targets of violence. Yet Joseph pointed out, with a touch of embarrassment, that he did not condone violence or the actions of leaders even

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though he considered Samburu as “best” and admired the leadership, many of whom he considered age-mates and family.

Joseph was deeply saddened by the attack on Turkana residents the night after the peace bus event. He explained that he knew the family who were targeted. Joseph also thought that the family attacked might have had a mixed background including Turkana and Samburu because he had heard them speak Samburu quite fluently. Joseph helped organize the peace bus with other students at the university and was frustrated that an attack took place the same night.

Joseph’s understandings of violence reveal an apparent contradiction in narratives that blamed violence on Turkana raiders hiding in town. At the same time as Joseph, chief L,

Bernard, and many other residents’ represented Turkana as criminals or outsiders that were responsible for violence, it was clear that it was not only Turkana raiders who were being targeted. Women and children were targeted in attacks in Maralal—actions that broke with

Samburu cultural norms that prohibit killing women and children in raids—suggesting that cooperation was a selective invocation of cultural norms and prohibitions. However, claims that blamed Turkana residents for disturbing the peace and refusing to cooperate despite Samburu accommodation did not necessarily also include a justification of attacks on Turkana residents.

Assertions of rightful Samburu political dominance in the county and narratives that placed

Turkana residents as guests and criminals responsible for violence could co-exist, if uneasily, with grief for lost friends and strong desires for a peaceful end to violence.

Despite some contradiction and ambivalence, a particular narrative of peace, tied to the rightful political authority of Samburu in “their” county, emerges from these conversations as privileged over others. The idea of “staying in peace” places the onus for an end to violence on

Turkana living in Samburu County who should “stay in peace,” “cooperate ,” and stop raiding.

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Rather than the people responsible for violence against Turkana communities, in this narrative it is Turkana themselves who are disturbing the peace. Disruptions of “peace” could include criticism of the county government for favoring Samburu. Although presented in some narratives as a traditional culture of cooperation, the new political status quo emerged with the election of a new county government dominated by Samburu representatives. While often ambivalent, pleas to stay in peace also muffled criticism of the new political status quo and muted the recognition of Turkana experiences of violence.

Often there was a fine line between keeping quiet and staying in peace. There was also a narrow margin between arguing for equal rights and citizenship and disturbing the peace. In residents’ commentary on peace, there was no easy distinction to be made between Samburu and

Turkana narratives and experiences of peace. Samburu county residents and politicians also demanded the protection of Turkana rights, concerted efforts toward dialogue, and a commitment to ending violence and ethnic politics. Many Samburu county residents were just as ready to question the existing “peace” and challenge the county government and its inaction.

Walking through the livestock market one morning I bumped into Charles, who identified as Samburu and Rendille and ran a business and a charity organization in town. He always greeted me with a smile. I asked him if he heard the gunshots the night before. Charles replied,

“you know Sean, there is no point in asking that since there are gunshots every day and it has become normal. You should just ask, ‘what happened?’” For Charles, there was no peace.

Violence had simply become a normal part of everyday life. I asked him what he thought was going on: “You know it is just a few, few people who are continuing the violence; those who don’t know better and don’t understand peace.”

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The idea that a small group of young Samburu men were disrupting the peace was a common theme in how residents understood violence. Both Samburu and Turkana residents expressed that most people wanted to stay in peace and that most Turkana and Samburu had no problem with each other and no desire for violence. Many residents believed that a small number of young Samburu men, motivated by the incitement (and perhaps pay) of particular county leaders, continued to carry out acts of violence to divide the communities. Charles’s experiences of violence—as an everyday occurrence that impacts everyone despite a small number of instigators of violence—highlighted residents’ conflicting understandings of what peace means.

Residents of Samburu County often held ambivalent and contradictory notions of what conditions counted as peace. What peace meant and what it should look like in the county was itself a source of tension and debate. Peace could be the new political status quo brought in by a majority-Samburu county government. Peace could be equal rights for all in the new devolved county. Peace could be silence. Peace could be cooperation. Peace could be frustrating. Peace could be misunderstood. In many resident’s narratives, peace and violence were intertwined. To

“stay in peace” was not a settled state.

Leading the Way to Peace?

Despite narratives of peace that at times displaced responsibility from leaders for intervening in violence and creating peace, many residents’ believed that county leaders were involved in violence. County leaders themselves also put forward different ideas of peace and how to achieve it. Leaders often criticized each other’s approaches to peace-building, arguing that other leaders merely sought personal gain, or were attempting to deflect attention from their own roles in inciting violence. One former leader, who many residents lauded as peaceful, commented that “peace caravans” – events similar to the “peace bus” – were just “singing songs

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and making money and have very little impact.” A current county MP—often accused of inciting and organizing violence—also accused leaders involved in the peace bus of participating in peace projects for profit and popularity and argued that education should be the focus of peace- building. The MP’s comments appeared to be aimed at David, a leader who had openly accused county leaders of incitement and supported initiatives like the peace bus.

Sometimes disagreements between leaders appeared to result in violence. When Turkana leaders from the neighboring Turkana County visited Samburu during violence against Turkana, the hotel they were staying in was shot at. One of the bullets reportedly narrowly missed one of the leaders. When I asked Joseph about the meeting, he said rather angrily “you know, we have to see why those guys were really meeting there!” He felt that while the leaders claimed to be there to discuss the violence and defend the rights of Turkana, they may have really come to “stir up conflict rather than create peace.” Several county leaders claimed the Turkana leaders had come without telling them. In a television appearance, a Samburu leader told a Turkana leader that they should leave the Samburu government to deal with the violence and represent Turkana living in Samburu (see next chapter). Rumors circulated claiming that a Samburu leader behind attacks on Turkana had paid a group of young men to attack the Turkana leaders.

Many residents believed that leaders participated in violence because of their own experiences as victims of violence and livestock raiding—perhaps having lost loved ones or their family’s livestock. David reflected on the role of leaders in violence. Commenting on an initiative that brought professionals and leaders together from northern counties David explained,

You might just think that it actually happened for the people who’ve not gone to school, that the hatred is just in them alone. But when we met and we started to engage, we realized, it is even in us. Those of us who stay in the city and everywhere else, we have that hatred. And then I guess that’s what translates, because you are the ones who are seen as opinion leaders, as people who can influence, you know, the people who could

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talk to your people and show them direction. If you tell them that these people are bad, then they tend to listen to you.

David explained that leaders often faced pressure to act like “warlords” and prove to their constituents that they could protect their communities. In turn, leaders promoted hatred and division. Leaders’ role in violence was often understood by residents and leaders like David to be multifaceted. Leaders themselves might have experienced violence, or may be responding to political expectations and the common use of political violence and ethnic politics during multiparty electoral campaigns.

Some county residents believed that leaders were involved to different degrees in inciting and organizing violence. Sarah, a Turkana resident of the neighborhood where houses were burned, told me that she did not trust what local leaders said. She claimed that at a meeting in town prominent local leaders used “disguised” comments that “condoned violence against

Turkana.” In addition to suspecting county leaders’ involvement in violence, Sarah was sure that

President Kenyatta was guilty of inciting and organizing violence and hoped that he would have to stand trial and be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. She argued that there could only be hope for Turkana in Samburu County if national leaders were held accountable for their role in violence. Sarah believed that county leaders involved in violence had the blessings of

Kenyatta and his Jubilee party.

Sarah, a Turkana woman who eventually left Samburu County, was deeply disappointed by the outcome of the 2013 elections. At the national level, she (as just over half of voters in

Samburu County did) hoped Raila Odinga would win. At the county level, she believed in the integrity of leaders who had persuaded many Turkana to vote for them by claiming that they were committed to building peace and defending the rights of Turkana. Then, once elected, certain leaders revealed their true intentions.

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For many residents, the prevailing quiet and temporary reprieve in physical attacks in the spring of 2014 appeared to conceal a reality filled with potential violence. Richard, a Turkana supporter of Raila Odinga, explained, “We have had almost two weeks with no incident. Why?

They have been exposed! It is clear that violence has been initiated by Samburu leaders. I have heard that people are being paid to carry out killings.” Richard was not sure if what he heard was rumor or fact. He also heard that a county leader involved in organizing the killings was “laying low.”

Emma, whose home was burned, had also heard rumors about leaders’ involvement in inciting violence. “Since the councilor [the Member of the County Assembly for her local ward] became leader, he has never come to see us. Some of us don’t even know him. We just know him by name. I think that councilor did not want to know what is happening to us. Because we heard people saying that he was also one of those people who are inciting the murrans [young male warriors].”

County residents linked peace to the voting-in of good leaders, but recognized the difficulties of getting “good” leaders elected. Sarah described the former MP (a Samburu—there has never been a Turkana MP in Samburu County. He was in power for two terms until the 2013 election in which he did not run) as “for peace and against tribalism.” However, “he was left with only Turkana votes in the last election.” Many county residents believed that Turkana votes were too few to elect a representative committed to peace and the equal rights of all in the county. A county leader who might represent and protect Turkana residents did not need to be

Turkana themselves (although many believed this would help), but, like Sarah, many Turkana residents believed that even a Samburu leader who spoke up for Turkana residents’ interests would lose Samburu votes.

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Emma explained, “If they elect a very good leader, who will try to bring peace among the

Samburu and Turkana people, we can think that our future will be good.” Emma claimed that the former MP “never incited people to fight.” As for the current MP, “We have never even seen him with our own eyes. We just hear of him.” Emma hoped that the former MP could be re- elected in the next election in 2017. Despite her hopes for the return of a good leader able to bring peace she was hesitant about voting, “We only have three years to vote again. But I can't say if I can vote.”

Joshua, a Turkana resident whose home was shot at, did not believe that peace could be achieved through the current county leadership, explaining, “for this thing to finish up I think they have to return the county to [the national] government, to be like the way it used to be—not like now with the county being managed by these Samburu. If they say that it will remain like this, the way it is now, for us I think that peace will never come. People will continue fighting the way they are now. We will never get peace.”

I visited a group of Turkana women living in a neighborhood at the edge of town. They had been attacked at night in their homes and claimed their attackers were young Samburu men on motorbikes. Two of them were mothers and their children were severely injured in the attacks. In response to the violence, these women would leave home early in the morning to find tasks-for-cash work and hurry back to make dinner and sleep before nightfall. Some of them continued to sleep away from their homes closer to the center of town where they felt less likely to face attacks. Rebecca, whose son was shot, told me “we don’t usually sleep. We still hear motorbikes going around at night.” Several months after the attack, Rebecca was still shocked that anyone could “come and shoot me when I am with my children in my house, without even taking anything. They only want our hearts. And I am a citizen of Kenya.”

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Josephine, whose son was shot, argued that while some leaders were involved in violence, she did not believe the governor was behind the violence, explaining, “he doesn’t like

Turkana being killed. Because he knows that the Turkana are the ones who gave him votes. The only people we think are bad are the MP and the Women’s Rep.” Another woman chimed in claiming “they are the ones who said ‘even if I will be removed from my position in the next election, I will continue to fight to drive Turkana from the county.’” The women broke into discussion among themselves, wondering why the MP for Samburu West incited violence against Turkana. They wondered if perhaps a Turkana raider had killed his mother or father, recognizing a long history of violence in the county and how it may have shaped his role in the violence.

Another Turkana family, who were targeted in a shooting attack that killed one of their family members, told me that they were looking forward to 2017. They hoped that a new county government would be elected and the county leader behind the violence would be voted out.

However, they were wary of politics after their uncle was killed in Eldoret (a key town where much of the violence broke out) during the post-2007 election violence. Here, this family placed the violence that happened to them in the same frame as political violence at the national level.

As much as they were hopeful for the future, they knew that political change also had the potential to bring more violence, threatening the loss of yet another family member.

After a few weeks of struggling to find work in a neighboring county Sarah returned to the county capital. She felt it was still not safe to come back, but she could not stay there any longer without a job. Her and two friends decided they had to “try our chances” despite other

Turkana telling them to stay away for longer until it was safer. Sarah told me that there still had not been any talks or negotiations between Samburu and Turkana, so people were wondering

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what would happen next: “2017 will be election time. Current leaders know that they won't get votes from Turkana this time, so they will kick them out. Turkana voted them in last time, but now they know.” Sarah, like many Turkana residents, believed that she had voted for leaders that had promised to bring peace, end tribalism, and protect all residents of the county. But now that leaders had revealed their “true colors” Turkana could not “be fooled again.”

Sarah did not manage to find work in Maralal and felt that her family remained unsafe.

She eventually returned to a neighboring county where she found work with a non-profit. She told me that it was much better than having to sleep under her bed after long days struggling to find piecemeal work washing clothes for the few Samburu who would employ her.

Waiting for Peace

The 2013 elections may have been peaceful at the national level—in the simple sense of a relative absence of overt political violence on election day when compared with the post-2007 election crisis. However, residents of Samburu County experienced violence following the 2013 elections that many clearly connected to county elections and leaders. “Peace” remained an unsettled and contested state with residents holding very different ideas about what conditions were necessary for peace and how to achieve those conditions.

Turkana residents’ assertions that they would not vote again directly connected their experiences of violence to their political participation in the 2013 county elections. For many

Turkana residents, violence spread out beyond elections and was intimately bound up with the rhetoric and actions of county leaders in the months after the elections. While many Turkana residents hoped they could elect a leader who would bring peace and represent them, many of their desires for peace were grounded in their everyday ability to freely engage in tasks-for-cash

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work without fear of violence. For these residents, the success of elections did not signify peace.

Instead, peace was dependent on securing their basic needs in the new county.

Turkana residents in Samburu County were not alone in their proposed rejection of voting as a means of creating peace and addressing the violence they faced. Scott-Villiers and colleagues reported women from neighboring Marsabit County as claiming “There is no way words of wananchi [the people] can get heard. Perhaps we should boycott elections. That might bring peace.” (Scott-Villiers et al. 2014, 28). County elections did not guarantee that the constitutional rights of all residents would be championed by county leaders. Often minority groups within counties, like Turkana residents in Samburu, without strong connections to the dominant groups represented in county governments were left vulnerable to violence. For

Turkana residents in Samburu County, elections held the promise of rights and protections as equal citizens in the nation, but instead enabled violence that targeted them as a group.

Much as declarations of national peace during the 2013 elections suppressed political opposition and criticism of the government, Samburu residents used narratives of peace in a similar way that suppressed Turkana voices and experiences of violence, and the voices of

Samburu residents who condemned violence against Turkana residents. Narratives of peace could both obscure violence and its sources and legitimize violence against Turkana residents.

At the heart of conflicting narratives and understandings of peace—and how such a state could be best achieved—was the question of whether political leaders elected in the 2013 elections could guarantee peace, and for which residents. For many Samburu residents, peace was guaranteed by a majority-Samburu government legitimated by democratic elections. Any challenge or threat to the government was therefore a potential disruption of peace, a challenge to the political order. West (2008) shows how political contests integral to multiparty democratic

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processes can be viewed by those allied with dominant groups controlling local government as dangerous, and threatening the peace of political authority based on consensus. This idea has particular significance in Kenya where President Moi used the argument that the consensus of one-party rule was necessary to avoid ethnic division and that multiparty elections would only spur violence between ethnic groups (Fratkin 1994). Democracy, especially in contexts with decentralized local government, can disrupt the political authority—read as consensus, cooperation, or peace—of the dominant group. In Samburu County, many Samburu-identified residents understood cooperation with norms established by the dominant group as central to peace.

Ultimately, “peaceful” elections revealed limited information about the necessary conditions for long-term peace and a reduction in political violence in Kenya. At the county- level devolution produced political violence, in the case of Samburu County taking the form, in part, of struggles over peace in the new county. For many residents, elections could not guarantee peace and voting entailed the risk of violence, as it has done throughout Kenya’s experience with multiparty elections since the 1990s.

Elections in Samburu County worked to legitimize the political dominance of Samburu- identified groups connected to elected leaders and the political elite. To return to Weber’s assertion that “[p]eace is nothing more than a change in the form of conflict or in the antagonists or in the object of the conflict” (Weber 1949: 26-27), it appeared that the 2013 elections in

Samburu County merely shifted the focus of political violence in the region. Rather than contributing to a transition to a state of peace, elections worked to change the form of conflict in

Samburu and reorganized who controlled dominant narratives of peace and legitimate violence.

Within many Samburu residents’ narratives of peace and understandings of violence, Turkana

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became at once both the antagonists—disturbing the peace—and the targets of violence. Shifting struggles following the elections over what peace should look like in the county and who was responsible for violence were shaped by electoral politics. As a political threat—through their power to vote—Turkana residents were also a threat to “peace.” Violence worked to reduce the political power of Turkana to challenge the political dominance of Samburu elites. Subject to violence, often unable to work, and lacking strong political representation, many Turkana residents lost faith in the power of their vote.

Assessments of peace and the outcomes of political reforms intended to produce more democratic local government, rather than focusing on dramatic political events, must be expanded to include periods between elections. Regional political struggles beyond elections should be connected back to national politics and the long-term outcomes of attempts at political reform. In particular, assessments of peace and reform should center on to what extent citizens are able to achieve their basic rights and needs in their everyday lives.

In the next chapter, I continue to explore violence between elections, but this time focusing on county and national leaders’ rhetoric on security and residents’ different understandings of insecurity. I focus on how the rhetoric and practice of security, much like peace, also frequently shaped and legitimized violence at both the national and county level.

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CHAPTER 6

“SECURITY IS IN THE ARMS OF THE GOVERNMENT”: INSECURITY, BELONGING,

AND STATE VIOLENCE

In this chapter, I focus on how experiences of, claims to, and political rhetoric on security shape violence, and how residents’ understand violence, in Samburu County. While responsibility for security has not been transferred to county governments as part of devolution, the issue of security was central to attempts to produce sovereignty at the national and county levels. In particular, I examine how county leaders’ public discourse on security may have legitimized violence against Turkana residents. By claiming the absence of security interventions from the national government, Samburu county leaders helped to construct violence against

Turkana residents as a necessary form of self-defense for Samburu citizens. Debates centered on insecurity raised questions connected to citizenship around which residents were deserving of rights to security and protection from violence, and which residents were responsible for violence, and therefore legitimate targets of violence. The scapegoating of Turkana residents for violence redeployed important aspects of national security rhetoric blaming terrorist attacks on

Somali refugees. Both county and national leaders’ rhetoric on security echoed global security narratives and policies that frame migrants as threats to security and the integrity of national borders.

As I began to detail in previous chapters, Samburu County residents largely understood county leaders to be key actors in violence. Further exploring leaders’ public speech on violence and security—and how residents interpreted leaders’ words and behavior—I suggest that county leaders’ rhetoric worked to condone violence against Turkana residents. At the same time, county leaders’ security rhetoric worked to blame violence on Turkana residents. County leaders

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used the fact that security has not been devolved to county governments to place responsibility for dealing with insecurity on the national government. Two Members of Parliament (MPs) for

Samburu County consistently emphasized Samburu citizens’ need to defend themselves in their public speech.

Struggles over political belonging, who is to blame for violence, and who has a right to protection from violence, are central to violence and security in Samburu County. At the national level, Sarah Jenkin’s (2012) work shows how a shifting “immigrant-guest metaphor” shapes ideas of political belonging. Much as many Samburu residents and county leaders represent

Turkana residents as visitors and as a threat, metaphors of ethnic others as unwelcome guests who refuse to abide by the rules of their hosts extend to many minority groups in regions dominated by an ethnic majority. The use of the immigrant-guest metaphor tends to intensify during times of political transition and tension. Rather than just the presence of minority communities, it is their perceived political opposition to majority communities that makes them a threat. Minority groups who represent political opposition are frequently “cast in the role of

‘strangers’ and are subject to the same secondary citizenship status as immigrants at the macro- level” (Jenkins 2012: 583). Immigrant-guest narratives frequently shift and “who constitutes a distant relative, a political ally, and a welcome guest, and who represents an unwelcome occupier and enemy, is relatively flexible and highly contingent upon the immediate context” (Jenkins

2012: page number). I extend Jenkin’s argument that rhetoric on political belonging, immigrants, and guests are part of national “geospatial imaginaries, which are embedded in everyday practices” (Jenkins 2012: 577) by also placing these geospatial imaginaries within the context of national and global security rhetoric. Through this I hope to move toward an understanding of

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how global security policy helps to shape the conditions which enable the Kenyan government to promote ethnic othering as part of their security rhetoric and practice.

In thinking about insecurity and violence, I draw on critical perspectives on security that situate security discourse and practice as processes that construct—rather than respond to— threats, enabling and legitimizing particular political actions (Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde

1998; Gambetti and Godoy-Anativia 2013; Goldstein 2010; Walters 2010). Ethnographic studies of security highlight tensions between security as a demand upon and objective of government and the frequent suspension of laws, values, and rights in order to enforce security agendas

(Burrell 2013; Gambetti and Gody-Antivia 2013; Goldstein 2010; Hansen and Stepputatt 2005).

Following critical approaches to security, scholars have pointed to the “securitization of migration” as a growing global rhetoric and practice that constructs migrants—or those represented as migrants—as a security issue and normalizes security policy and practice as the key political response to managing the movements of populations between national borders and deciding who qualifies for legitimate membership in the nation (Huysmans 2000; Walters 2010).

Globally, anthropologists have drawn attention to how national governments’ rhetoric, policy, and security practices frequently represent and produce migrants as violent threats to national security (Andersson 2014; Fassin 2011; Kovic and Kelly 2017). Framing migration as a security issue, governments have increasingly proposed and developed new forms of surveillance, increased patrols and raids, and physical barriers—like fences and walls—to prevent migrants from entering national territory (Andersson 2014; Fassin 2011; Kovic and

Kelly 2017). Government attempts to secure and police their borders often rely on the suspension of the rights of persons classified as “illegal” and create racialized boundaries that enable detention and deportation (Fassin 2011; Kovic and Kelly 2017). While security and migration

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rhetoric, policy, and practice criminalizes migrants (Bosworth and Guild 2008), at the same time political rhetoric on security and migration can legitimize illegal practices including unlawful dentations and deportations and rights violations (Amit 2013).

I consider security rhetoric and the representation of Turkana as visitors, and criminals responsible for violence, as connected to global narratives of belonging, immigration, and security that represent (often so-called) migrants and outsiders as threats (Burrell 2013;

Geschiere 2009, 2013; Turner 2005). For example, in neighboring Tanzania, the government consistently pursues repatriation of Hutu refugees housed in Tanzanian camps, often in response to accusations from the Burundi government that camps harbor Hutu “rebels” (Turner 2005:

256). The Kenyan government’s attempts to scapegoat ethnic groups for violence—in particular

Somali refugees for terrorism—draw on global security rhetoric that blames violence on ethnically identified migrants.

I understand security as a technique of power central to producing sovereignty, rather than insecurity as the result of government absence or failure (Besteman 2010; Gambetti and

Godoy-Antivia 2013; Hansen and Stepputatt 2005). At the same time, multiple groups use violence in struggles over sovereignty beyond formal state institutions (Arias and Goldstein

2010; Hansen and Stepputatt 2005). In Kenya, as wells as other African countries like South

Africa and Nigeria, there is a strong history of vigilantism where non-state groups take on the role of producing security and enacting state violence (Smith 2004; Anderson 2002; Hickel

2014). Frequently citizens have asserted ownership over security, enacting vigilante violence against migrants and persons represented as outsiders, frequently in the name of law and justice

(Goldstein 2003; Hickel 2014; Smith 2004). Through these forms of violence, citizens frequently reproduce state violence in regional and everyday contexts (Das 2006; Das and Poole 2004;

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Bourgois and Scheper-Hughes 2004). I situate some of the violence against Turkana residents, carried out by young Samburu men, as an attempt by some Samburu residents to assert ownership over security in the county and enact forms of violence and ethnic othering that share important elements with broader forms of state violence.

I begin by recounting a protest centered on calling for government intervention into returning livestock taken in raids and for providing security to Samburu-identified residents. I then examine county leaders’ rhetoric on violence and security surrounding the protest and violence targeting Turkana in Maralal that shortly followed the protest. Drawing on county leaders’ rhetoric as important context for violence I then revisit the protest to understand how some of the violence may have been legitimized by leaders rhetoric and can be understood as very much connected to demands on the state for security for Samburu residents. Finally, I explore national security rhetoric and how some Samburu county leaders and residents’ attempts to blame Turkana residents for violence mirrored the scapegoating of Somali refugees for terrorism. Rather than viewing rhetoric linking migrants or those labeled as outsiders with insecurity as particular to Samburu County or to Kenya, I explore how Kenyan security rhetoric and practice is enabled and shaped by global security and counter-terrorism policies that emphasize security often at the expense of legal rights.

Protesting Insecurity

Most residents, Samburu and Turkana, considered the police killing of a highly regarded

Samburu student leader at a protest as a key event that led to the escalation of violence in late

2013. This moment provides insight into competing interpretations of “insecurity” and how state violence is embedded in the everyday in ways that impact both Samburu and Turkana residents in the county.

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In October 2013, a large crowd, reportedly led by a well-known student leader from the local university campus, gathered outside the main police station in Maralal. The police were holding cattle they had confiscated from a truck traveling from the north of the county after the cattle were reported as stolen. Several people in the crowd tried to enter the police compound, reportedly with the intent of taking back the livestock. Police officers responded with gunfire and shot and killed the student leader. Later that night, houses in Turkana parts of town were set alight, reportedly by a large group of young Samburu men. The police did not respond to these attacks until those behind them had left, despite the fact that at least one neighborhood police station was located within clear sight of targeted homes.

The county court reviewed the case, ruling that the person transporting the cattle was the rightful owner. Many protestors and residents, however, were sure that the cattle belonged to a

Samburu livestock-owner, and not the businessman who claimed them. Many of the protestors and other residents claimed that the Samburu livestock-owner could identify the cattle as his own based on distinctive markings. The livestock had been transported from an area in the north of the county where there had been recent livestock raids. Many were convinced that the cattle had been stolen from Samburu. Some believed the police were complicit in helping Turkana livestock raiders move stolen cattle.

Joseph, a close friend and classmate of the deceased (self-identified as Samburu), explained that the protest was a “peaceful” demonstration to demand that the national government respond to “insecurity”—in particular, livestock raids—in Samburu County. Laura, also a university student and friend of the student leader (Samburu-identified), told me that some people had tried to persuade the student leader to calm down and that the university director had

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tried to persuade students not to protest. Laura believed that a county leader persuaded the student leader to organize the protest and had promised to be there to support him.

Jeremiah, a Samburu school teacher, rushed to the scene after he heard that his high school friend had been shot dead. Jeremiah “tried to inquire about what happened, but there was no clear answer. Students didn’t really have a reason to riot at the police station,” however, “the police should have used other means rather than live bullets.” Jeremiah described what he saw,

“it was a very terrible sight. There were so many people. They were refusing to move the body until local leaders came to see. They wanted to show the community that police officers did something bad. They wanted everybody to see.”

After the police did not intervene, Turkana in some of the worst affected areas of town responded to attacks by organizing youth to patrol communities at night. Some residents wondered if the police were afraid of showing support for Turkana after Samburu leaders loudly condemned their killing of the student leader. Many Turkana residents decided to take security into their own hands as they did not trust the county government or state authorities to provide them protection. Most of those patrolling were young men, armed with machetes or bows and arrows. Many of these young men told me that if they had a gun they could better protect their communities. One of the town’s chiefs, a Samburu, brought a Samburu volunteer from the

Kenya Police Reserve, to conduct an armed patrol of the neighborhood after homes were burned.

Residents of other neighborhoods were frustrated that no one had provided them the same protection, or that this small amount of protection did not come sooner.

The Kenya Police Reserve, or KPR, are highly contentious. KPR are unpaid volunteers supplied with guns by the Kenyan government. The original intent was that KPR would act as a supplementary community policing force to help protect pastoralists’ livestock in remote regions.

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With a lack of oversight, record-keeping, and clear mandate, politicians frequently recruit KPRs for their own purposes, weapons are frequently diverted, and KPRs have been involved in armed violence (Mkutu and Wandera 2013; Wepundi et al. 2012). Often residents view KPR as arming or protecting one ethnic group over others.

Before and after the protest, prominent Samburu leaders, including two MPs, called for the national government to disarm Turkana communities, warning that Samburu must arm themselves in defense if the government could not protect them. Much of this call referred to an ambush of police officers responding to a livestock raid in November 2012 that led to the killing of 42 security personnel, reportedly by Turkana raiders (Greiner 2013). News reports and residents refer to the event as the “Baragoi Massacre.” According to media reports, county leaders, and residents, the attackers stole the security officers’ guns, which have yet to be recovered.

While the national government occasionally carries out disarmament campaigns, they are highly ineffective and distrusted by residents. Security forces have frequently used excessive force, violated human rights, and carried out acts of violence that at times have amounted to torture and massacres (Wepundi et al. 2012). Samburu leaders frequently speak out against disarmament operations, arguing that security forces use excessive force and harassment against residents. However, in the case of the Baragoi Massacre, some Samburu leaders repeatedly called for Turkana communities to be disarmed, even though they largely condemned disarmament of Samburu communities.

In the weeks before the protest, groups of armed young men had attacked villages in the north of the county, near the site of the Baragoi Massacre. News reports explained the violence as escalating retaliatory livestock raids between Samburu and Turkana herders. However, in

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addition to livestock theft violence included shootings, burning homes, and vandalizing water sources. Both Samburu and Turkana residents were killed and injured in the violence.

About a week before the protest, The Daily Nation quoted the MP for Samburu West who commented, “We will have no choice but to look for alternative ways to defend ourselves as

Samburus if the government cannot protect us. We are tired of appealing for help every other day while our people are being slaughtered by raiders” (Obuya 2013). The MP represented violence as attacks against Samburu and the national government as failing to intervene. This both erased violence against Turkana residents and attempted to separate national and county government by placing himself as firmly outside of the national government, even though he is an MP and sits in the national assembly. In the next section I explore county leaders’ rhetoric on “insecurity” and how this context can provide a better understanding of the context for the protest and subsequent violence against Turkana residents living in Maralal.

County Leaders on Insecurity

A few days after the protest, the MP for Samburu North (who was also the chair of the national parliamentary committee on insecurity in northern Kenya) appeared in a television news interview to discuss “insecurity in Samburu” (Citizen TV 2013). When asked by the host about

Samburu attacks on Turkana, the MP responded, “they [Turkana] are causing more atrocities than the Samburus” and that Samburu only attacked in “revenge” or in “defense” and never initiated raids or attacks. Like the MP for Samburu West, he claimed the same firearms taken from the police officers in the November 2012 ambush were being used in Turkana raids on

Samburu. He argued that since Turkana had such “powerful weapons” the police were unable to apprehend them. A little over a month after the protest, the MP for Central was quoted in the

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Daily Nation newspaper, arguing, “these guns are being used to kill our people and even police working in this Samburu area are demoralised” (Wachira 2014).

County residents paid close attention to what county leaders said, and how they acted, in public appearances, particularly on television news. An evening news special, “Silent Massacre:

Leaders from Pokot, Samburu, Turkana shed light on the unrest in their region” brought together the MP for Samburu West, an MP from West Pokot County (bordering Turkana County and close to Samburu County) and the MP for Turkana East (neighboring both West Pokot and

Samburu county). At the time, violence focused on disputes over the county boundary between

West Pokot and Turkana East was escalating and was widely reported on. During the discussion, the first thing the Samburu West MP brought up were the guns taken in the November 2012 police operation. He claimed that since the Baragoi event the Samburu North region “has never been peaceful.” A little over a year after the 2013 violence in Maralal, the idea that if the national government would disarm Turkana in possession of the stolen weapons then the violence would be brought to an end continued to be a consistent theme in the MP’s political rhetoric.

Responsibility for security was not transferred to county governments under the 2010 constitution and county leaders have used this to place blame for insecurity on the national government. The MP for West Pokot began by criticizing the lack of national government presence despite their responsibility for providing security. This was perhaps the only point the three MPs agreed on. The MP for Samburu West argued that while the national government made strong statements about retrieving the stolen guns, they had failed to act, remarking,

“there’s no government.” After the host asked what responsibility county leaders had for intervening in violence, the Samburu MP emphasized that, “security remains with the national government. We as local leaders, we’ve done everything possible…But when these thugs use

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stolen guns to go and maim Samburus and their children, you know, you don’t expect an MP to be in the frontline trying to take away guns from the bandits.” The Samburu MP argued that

Samburu were not armed, while Turkana were heavily armed.

The Pokot and Turkana MPs and the Turkana and Samburu MPs blamed each other for violence. Both the Turkana and Samburu MPs claimed that Turkana and Samburu did not raid other communities. The Turkana MP asserted that only Pokot were raiding. In response, the

Pokot MP argued that the Turkana MP’s assertions were “clear evidence that we are not being truthful to this matter.” The Samburu MP argued that, “no single attack was done by Samburu raiders. You know I blame anything bad that is done by raiders, but Samburus have not done anything. The government knows it, and everybody knows it.” The Turkana MP interrupted to criticize this claim as misinformation and argued that the Samburu MP had “just given a series of stories from one side.” Instead, the Turkana MP argued that “the Samburus, they are represented by their kinsmen, and the Turkanas, nobody speaks about them. Like now the raid which took place [in the location where the Samburu MP claims the Turkana with the stolen police guns are] where eight people were killed, those people are raiders from Samburu!”

The Samburu MP responded, “In Samburu, the representation is per the leaders who were elected democratically. The Turkana who live in Samburu have an MCA [Member of the County

Assembly], and they had also [a candidate for] MP in Samburu North, but he lost the election.

We represent them, even now, we do represent those people. But I want to make it very clear madam [to the host], that…every time we put a lot of weight on the [county] leaders…there is very little that we can do because security is in the arms of the government.”

The Samburu MP accused Turkana leaders of interfering in Samburu affairs. This was a loaded claim as in late 2013 Turkana leaders were shot at while staying in a hotel in the Samburu

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County capital. The Turkana leaders accused Samburu leaders of organizing the attack. Many

Samburu residents and leaders claimed that the Turkana leaders had come to stir up trouble. The

Turkana leaders claimed they were in Samburu for a church fundraiser. Turkana residents who had been shot and injured in their homes, reported to me that the leaders visited with them to hear how Turkana had been affected by violence and gave them money to pay hospital bills to treat their injuries.

Toward the end of the show, the MP for Pokot West claimed that Kapedo (a region on the border between Baringo and Turkana East counties) was clearly in Baringo County (neighboring

Turkana County, also has a large number of Pokot-identified residents). The Turkana MP interrupted, “no, no, no, no. Let’s not mislead Kenyans.” The two MPs began talking over each other. The Turkana MP raised his voice to assert that “Kapedo is in Turkana County!” The discussion ended with the leaders talking over one another, in clear disagreement, and blaming each other for violence. The border near Kapedo has been hotly contested, particularly after the

2013 elections of county governments. In October and November of 2014, more than 20 security officers were killed in ambushes that were compared to the 2012 Baragoi massacre (Daily Nation

2014; Some 2014) and multiple civilians have been killed or injured in the land conflict in the following years.

Samburu County residents frequently provided their interpretations of leaders’ words and behaviors in their public appearances. Jane, my research assistant, identified as a Turkana woman married to a Samburu man. After recently viewing the MP for Samburu West in an interview appearance on a major television news network, she exclaimed that the leader had become “morri,” literally shaking with emotion and anger. She explained morri to me as a

Samburu term for “somebody with a hot temper, jumping around like they want to eat someone.”

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In Jane’s reading of the interview, violence was not only present in the MP’s words, but in their very visible body language. As much as the MP was supposed to be professional, to Jane it appeared that they could not contain their rage—an anger that revealed their hatred of Turkana.

Some residents directly connected the county leaders’ rhetoric to violent events in the county. John, a young Turkana professional who left Maralal seeking work and safety after the

2013 violence, interpreted leaders’ calls to recover stolen guns as incitement to violence. John explained his reading of the Samburu West MP’s appearance on national television the day following violence against Turkana in town. John says that the MP “lacked integrity.” John relayed to me the MP’s claims that while “we have made a truce with the Pokot (another herding community in northern Kenya involved in conflict with Samburu in the mid-2000s), we are not yet satisfied with the Turkana. We want the government to go to the Turkana community and confiscate the fifty guns stolen from the police.” John claimed that the MP went on to say that if the government would not disarm Turkana, they should at least give Samburu the same number of guns “so they will be equaled.” According to John, the leader suggested that if the government would not address the situation, “we will use our own means to protect ourselves. We cannot be harassed on our own land.” For John, this leader’s words were filled with violence. At the same time, many Samburu residents took to social media to applaud the words of their “warrior” leader for taking a firm stance on insecurity in the county (see chapter eight). John was frustrated by what he interpreted as blatant incitement to violence against Turkana. He explained, “peace won’t come soon since leaders won’t help. No one is talking about a truce or bringing peace to the community.”

County leaders’ rhetoric on violence and insecurity in Samburu County promoted particular understandings of violence in the region. Perhaps most importantly, in their media

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appearances MPs blamed Turkana residents for insecurity. Leaders emphasized the taking of

Samburu lives in highly emotive messages that frame violence as happening to Samburu. Two

Samburu MPs both claimed that Samburu did not initiate attacks, and instead only responded in revenge or self-defense. This rhetoric erased recent violence that targeted Turkana residents and justified violence against Turkana residents. Further, county leaders only focused on livestock raiding and largely failed to address other forms of violence. Confirming leaders' intentions and how involved they were in violence is difficult, however, Samburu County residents’ drew on this rhetoric to explain violence against Turkana as legitimate and as self-defense against criminals attacking Samburu residents. In chapter eight, I further highlight how some Samburu- identified Kenyans used similar narratives around security, self-defense, and citizenship in online commentary that blamed violence on Turkana residents.

While the 2013 violence in town targeted Turkana, across the region violence is not simple, one-way violence only carried out by one group. Both Turkana and Samburu residents have committed livestock raids and other forms of violence against the other. However, many

Samburu residents framed Turkana-on-Samburu violence as connected to the instigation of raiding and as carried out by criminals from the north disturbing the peace. Through this framing the violence in town is justified as a response to the killings of Samburu by Turkana in the north of the county. This both denies any Samburu role in instigating violence—instead framing it as a response to Turkana attacks—and criminalizes an entire community. In the previous chapter, and in chapter eight, I also provide examples of how residents drew upon this narrative—often blaming Turkana residents for “disturbing the peace.”

County leaders consistently blamed insecurity on a lack of intervention from the national government. Leaders also argued that there was little they could do to address violence. Through

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placing the onus to address insecurity on the county government, as well as blaming each other for violence, arguing over boundaries, and accusing other leaders of interfering in situations outside “their” county, leaders reinforced ideas of bounded regional authority and what were legitimate means to defend counties. Leaders’ rhetoric also worked to place ethnic division as central to violence through claims that entire communities were responsible for violence, rather than individuals or small groups. Samburu leaders used the Baragoi Massacre to argue for the need to defend themselves—again framing violence against Turkana as legitimate self-defense.

Leaders’ rhetoric on who was responsible for violence and legitimate means for groups to defend themselves raised questions of who legitimately belonged in Samburu County and blamed those who did not “belong” as responsible for violence.

The discussion also revealed that leaders themselves disagreed with each other, and blamed each other for violence. Throughout their discussion, they used misinformation about violence (“no single attack was done by Samburu raiders”) and made inflammatory claims

(“Kapedo is in Baringo County!”) that worked to justify violence. However, leaders’ violence was not just in their words, but as Jane pointed out, in their public action and behavior. By arguing over boundaries, political representation, interference in other county’s politics, and who was to blame for violence, leaders enacted—both in the sense of performing and authorizing— conflict on screen.

Placing the protest and the violence against Turkana that followed in the context of leaders’ rhetoric on insecurity sheds light on why Samburu-identified residents’ protest against

“insecurity” itself produced violence. The attempt to take back the livestock held by the police showed that a large number of Samburu residents did not trust the police or the courts to fairly adjudicate the situation. Leaders’ rhetoric before and after the protest emphasized that the police

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and national government were unable or unwilling to protect Samburu citizens. By claiming ownership over the livestock, protesters attempted to take the matter of insecurity into their own hands. Protestors’ calls for the national government to address insecurity in the county critiqued the state’s inability to provide security. In a later conversation on conservation and poaching that quickly turned to insecurity in the county, Joseph, a Samburu university student and friend of the student leader killed by the police, declared angrily that the national government “are not even protecting wild animals, how will they protect us!?”

Leaders’ rhetoric justified blaming insecurity on the police and on Turkana residents. If

Samburu residents could not seek relief from state authorities, it seems the answer was to follow leader’s rhetoric and attack Turkana residents. Richard—a Turkana resident—explained,

“Instead of attacking police, they came to attack the Turkana. They can't attack soldiers.” Many others, Samburu and Turkana, used a similar frame to explain the attacks on Turkana following the death of the student leader, some Samburu residents suggesting that Turkana residents had brought it upon themselves. For example, Joseph commented,

Actually it was not the Turkana who killed this guy. It was a police officer… [they could not attack the police] so instead for them to at least engage some people, at least justice should be done…You see the Samburu people, I think that you have seen, they had a way of hosting these guys [Turkana]. After they [Turkana] killed some people there [Baragoi, in the north of the county], they moved this side in Maralal and we host them. Most of them weren’t even living in Maralal, because we know who those people are living in Maralal and those from Baragoi.

Joseph understood the actions of some Samburu residents’ violence against Turkana as a form of

“justice” against Turkana raiders from the north who had moved to Maralal town after their involvement in killing and raiding Samburu residents. In the previous chapter, I detailed how this narrative was used to undermine Turkana residents’ belonging in the county in the context of

“peace” and representations of Turkana as not cooperating with their “hosts” and “disturbing the peace.” Here, some Samburu residents used a similar logic to justify violence as a legitimate 177

form of self-defense after the government failed to provide them with the security and justice they demanded as citizens.

The police’s violent response to the protest did not just reveal a lack of intervention on the part of the national government, but also the state’s continued violence against Samburu citizens—where pleas to address insecurity were met with violence. Whether the police were complicit in helping move stolen livestock remained unclear, however, the idea that police perpetuated violence against Samburu residents, contributing to rather than alleviating

“insecurity,” was based on a continued pattern of state violence. The Final Report of the Truth,

Justice, and Reconciliation Commission found “that Northern Kenya…has been the epicenter of gross violations of human rights by state security agencies. Almost without exception, security operations in Northern Kenya have been accompanied by massacres of largely innocent citizens, systematic and widespread torture, rape and sexual violence of girls and women, looting and burning of property, and the killing and confiscation of cattle and other livestock” (TJRC 2013, 8

[Vol. 4]).

That the police could not be trusted and rumors of police involvement in helping transport stolen cattle are legitimate claims when understood within the historical context of police violence in Kenya. The police and security forces in Kenya have been used as a tool of repression during the one-party state era, continue to carry out extra-judicial killings and torture and are viewed by many Kenyans as inefficient, corrupt, and heavily involved in crime themselves (Ruteere and Pommerolle 2003). In Samburu, police forces have committed violence and human rights violations against Samburu villagers and arbitrarily detained their livestock

(Paula and Allan 2010). In more rural areas of the county, residents complain that despite the presence of a number of security stations established to address violence, the police do not arrive

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until after livestock raiding and violence have taken place (see also Holtzman 2017). Security personnel have also frequently impounded livestock that residents’ claimed were not stolen, or used communal forms of punishment by confiscating an entire communties’ livestock (Paula and

Allan 2010). Given these practices, claims that the police took cattle that rightfully belonged to another community (in this case claimed by some Samburu residents to belong to a Samburu owner) are based on residents’ experiences of how police and security forces consistently fail to address insecurity in the form of livestock raids. Further, residents’ suspicion that the state is involved in livestock raids is based on reports that security forces and politicians either benefit economically from livestock raids or use them as a means of displacing communities to provide land to their supporters as a form of patronage (Galaty 2005b). In chapter eight, I further explore how residents’ claims to security and citizenship, and narratives of violence, center on debates around how government should intervene in livestock raids and assessments of government action.

National Security Rhetoric and Practice

County leaders’ public discourse was a response to, and was shaped by, national political discourse on insecurity. While county MPs blamed the government for not intervening to deal with “insecurity,” the national government describes violence in ways that make it not worth intervening in, and localizes and depoliticizes violence. Much of the state authorities’ response to violence impacting herding communities has been dismissive and patronizing. Frequently the

Kenyan government responds to accusations that it has failed to intervene in violence and guarantee the security of citizens by portraying violence in northern Kenya as “backward” and as part of an entrenched culture of violence among pastoralist groups (Galaty 2016, 101-102).

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After two Turkana herders were killed in a raid, reportedly carried out by Samburu raiders, the Samburu County Commissioner was quoted by The Standard newspaper, commenting, “these people [Samburu and Turkana] have defied the peace agreement and have returned to killing one another. The police have been forced to protect them like children. The fight for pasture and water is unending” (Kulei 2015). County Commissioner is an appointed position. The national government established County Commissioners after devolution despite criticisms that maintaining national representatives at the county level undermined the goal of devolution to transfer political authority to county governments. Prior to devolution, and the renaming of districts as counties, County Commissioners were known as District

Commissioners, a position established during British colonial rule. In another example, following violence in the north of the county that resulted in 13 deaths, a senior police officer based in the region was quoted by The Standard newspaper, commenting, "they [Samburu and

Turkana] have been fighting since we were born. What do they want us to do? We are also tired.

Let them continue fighting if they think that is good" (Kipngenoh and Saitoti 2015).

Residents of Samburu County also paid close attention to national leaders, attempting to interpret national leaders’ discourse on insecurity and their potential participation in violence.

James emphasized the impact of national politics and elections on violence in Samburu County.

He explained, “You look at your local politician, you know his camp. So, you are able to know his ideology from what is happening in national politics.”

Residents of Maralal were packed in to a café in town to watch the latest development in the International Criminal Court (ICC) case on the evening news. Despite being so busy, the café was quiet. Everyone faced the television screen absorbed in media commentary on whether or not the president would be required to stand trial. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto—running

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mates for President and deputy president in the 2013 elections—stood accused of organizing and inciting violence during the post-2007 election crisis. Kenyatta and Ruto formed a political alliance and turned the ICC accusations to their advantage by portraying the ICC as an unwelcome foreign intervention (Lynch 2014). While the ICC case may have contributed to a relative lack of violence during the 2013 election campaigns, it also enabled leaders accused of inciting violence to be democratically elected. The ICC case collapsed after the Kenyan government failed to meet ICC requests for evidence and Uhuru and Ruto avoided trial. As of yet, neither Kenyatta or Ruto, nor anyone else, has been held accountable for the post-2007 election violence.

Distrust of county leaders is not surprising given many Kenyan’s distrust of national leaders and their role in inciting and organizing violence, for which they appear to enjoy considerable impunity. Leaders at the national and regional level have likely incited and organized violence during both one-party authoritarian rule and the current period of attempted multiparty democratic reform (Kamungi 2009; Anderson and Lochery 2008; Lynch 2012;

Greiner 2013). Holtzman (2017) reports that many Samburu residents view the national government as indifferent to violence in the region, failing to bring peace, recover livestock, address the Baragoi Massacre, and perhaps even as having vested interests in the violence.

Samburu residents in Maralal reported very similar complaints.

National security rhetoric in Kenya appears to be significantly shaping regional struggles around belonging, security and violence at the county level. The Kenyan government has used attacks on Kenyan citizens claimed by Al-Shabaab—most notably the attack by armed groups on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in September 2013 and on Garissa University in April

2015—to scapegoat Kenyan Somalis and Somali refugees as a threat to the state and cause of

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insecurity. Human rights organizations have documented the mass deportations, arbitrary arrests, extortion, imposed curfews and abuses against Kenyan Somalis and Somali refugees (Amnesty

International 2014; Human Rights Watch 2013b).

National security rhetoric shares similar features to “immigrant-guest metaphors”

(Jenkins 2012) and has shaped discourse on insecurity in Samburu County. The Kenyan national government’s security rhetoric has largely focused on removing Somali refugees from the country as a response to terrorism. Similar rhetoric appears in discourse around Turkana residents in Samburu, suggesting that ideas around removing Turkana from the county as a way of tackling insecurity are shaped by national security rhetoric. Kenya’s national security rhetoric, and the prioritizing of “security” over human rights is in turn shaped by global discourses of immigration, security, and counterterrorism.

In September 2013, 67 people were killed in an attack on Westgate mall in Nairobi claimed by Al-Shabaab. Following the attack, Kenya’s interior minister blamed the attack on

Somali refugees and called for Dadaab refugee camp, the largest in the world, to be closed. He claimed, “some of these refugees have abused our hospitality and kindness to plan and launch terror attacks from the safety of the refugee camps” (Pizzi 2013). This rhetoric is very similar to claims that Turkana “visitors” and “raiders” responsible for criminal violence were hiding out in

Maralal town discussed in the previous chapter.

While the Kenyan government has not succeeded in closing Dadaab, they have continued to demand the closure of the camp and deported Somalis in the name of national security. In

April 2015, an attack claimed by Al-Shabaab on Garissa University killed 148 people, most of them students. The Kenyan government once again blamed the attack on Somali refugees and called for Dadaab refugee camp to be closed. After the United Nations asserted that for Kenya to

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forcibly repatriate refugees to Somalia would violate international human rights law, the Kenyan deputy president, William Ruto, told the UN that if they did not comply with the government’s demands, “we shall relocate them ourselves” (Cumming-Bruce 2015).

The Kenyan government placed national security concerns above human rights protections for refugees. Deputy President Ruto declared, “The way America changed after 9/11 is the way Kenya will change after Garissa… We must secure this country at whatever cost”

(Allison 2015). Here, the Deputy President explicitly referenced American security and anti- terrorism practice as the model for Kenyan security. The head of the parliamentary committee on national security argued “That camp has become a nursery for terrorists. The UN must now understand the security of Kenyans comes first. Even if it is about human rights, it should not be at our expense” (Allison 2015).

In early 2017, after Kenyan human rights organizations filed a petition, the Kenyan High

Court ruled the government’s calls to close Dadaab refugee camp unconstitutional (Wesangula

2017). The High Court judge asserted that “specifically targeting Somali refugees” was an act of group persecution” that was “illegal, discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional” (Odula

2017).

During March to May 2014, Al-Shabaab claimed multiple bomb attacks in Nairobi targeting neighborhoods and markets in predominantly Somali areas. The police responded with mass arrests and curfews in neighborhoods where many Somali refugees and Kenyan Somalis live. Arrests, curfews, and police harassment became highly normalized, particularly in Nairobi neighborhoods associated with Somalis. Bruce, a young man living in Nairobi told us (a group of expats) his story of police curfew over dinner one night. Police officers had begun their patrol of the neighborhood during a crackdown and had demanded to see Bruce’s ID card. After several

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months of repeated curfew, demands for documents, arbitrary arrests, and demands for bribes

Bruce (who did not identify as Somali) spoke back to the officers. “It’s not yet time!” he had exclaimed to the officers, pointing out that curfew was not supposed to start until 8pm. Police harassment has become so embedded in everyday experience in certain neighborhoods in Nairobi that it is no longer shocking. Rather than discrimination against Somalis, or the routinization of police violence, Bruce’s complaint registered frustration with the police for breaking routine.

Anti-Somali sentiment was also present in Samburu County. In discussions about local violence and “tribalism” in Samburu, many of the people I spoke with were ready to denounce tribalism and viewed it as an imposed ideology, an injustice, and as leaders inciting communities when this was not what people on the ground really wanted or believed. But when it came to discussions of the treatment of Somalis I often encountered a very different response from the same people, who were often ready to brand all Somalis as terrorists.

Jane, a Turkana woman married to a Samburu man, and I were discussing the recent bombings in Nairobi, just a few days after a bus had been bombed. Jane told me about her

Muslim friend in Maralal who was accused of being Somali because she wore Islamic style clothing. As Jane told the story, the injustice was not that Kenyan Somalis were being unfairly targeted—in a way that was similar to how Turkana were being targeted and used a similar rhetoric of belonging and security. Rather the injustice was that a non-Somali Kenyan had been accused of being Somali.

At the same time as Jane was angered by the profiling of her Muslim friend, she also told me about the importance of “looking for strangers” and profiling your neighbors. Jane was convinced that something similar to the attacks in Nairobi could happen in Maralal: “they once came in the Catholic church last year, a strange guy who came, who looked somehow Arabic.

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Since that time people started to talk about Al-Shabaab. You know they are even saying

“Nyumba Kumi” [Swahili: ten houses] now—that you should be looking for strangers.” I asked

Jane where she had heard about the idea of Nyumba Kumi: “You have to count your neighbors, up to ten, and say, okay, these are my neighbors. And you must know them—who they are, where they are from. You must even know who the people visiting them are. It is the government who are saying this. They were saying it on the news.”

Nyumba Kumi—literally “ten houses” in Swahili—is a security initiative promoted by the Kenyan national government. In the above newspaper article where a senior police officer dismissed violence as not worth intervening in, “Community Policing Director Aggrey Adoli urged county governments to support the 'Nyumba Kumi' initiative, adding it was one of the surest ways of ending the attacks” (Kipngenoh and Saitoti 2015). Director Adoli presented

Nyumba Kumi as a solution to regional livestock raids, placing this form of violence within the same security context as terrorism, suggesting it can be addressed with the same means. In a sense, government encouragement of neighborhood surveillance, with its emphasis on identifying “strangers,” decentralizes responsibility for security to ordinary citizens.

National security rhetoric blaming Somali refugees draws on a history of anti-Somali narratives and state violence that dates back to Somali residents in northern Kenya struggling for an independent state. Between independence in 1963 and 1967 the Kenyan government declared emergency law and used military force, abuse, and massacres to put down the Somali movement for secession (Anderson and Rolandsen 2014; Lochery 2012). The Kenyan government criminalized Somali populations and represented them as “shifta,” or bandits, who did not belong in Kenya (Anderson and Rolandsen 2014; Lochery 2012). The Kenyan government has continued to subject Kenyan Somalis and refugees to screenings and violence that undermine

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their status as national citizens. In 1989, the Kenyan government—claiming a need to respond to insecurity in northern Kenya (near the Somali border)—conducted a massive screening campaign, subjecting Somali populations in northern districts and Nairobi neighborhoods to raids and demands for papers to prove they were Kenyan citizens (Lochery 2012). The Kenyan government blamed insecurity on growing numbers of “aliens” crossing the border from

Somalia. In addition to proving their citizenship, through a flawed verification process, the

Kenyan government demanded that Somali populations move out of districts where they did not belong (Lochery 2012). The idea that some Somalis could not claim legitimate residence in certain districts continued ideas of certain ethnic groups belonging to particular regions (Lochery

2012), which I explored in chapter two. The government charged many Somali individuals with

“disturbing the peace” (Lochery 2012, 624), mirroring more recent claims of Turkana residents disturbing the peace that I explored in the previous chapter.

Similar to Samburu and Turkana county leaders asserting that their communities did not take part in violence, during the 1989 screening politicians accused other populations of involvement in violence including banditry, poaching, and crime, while asserting that their constituents were not involved in violence (Lochery 2012, 625). The courts pushed back against the government’s screening process, declaring their treatment of Somali populations illegal because—much like recent attempts to deport Somali “refugees”—the government was targeting an entire ethnic group (Lochery 2012).

In another example, in 2009 the Kenyan government enacted a crackdown on Somali- owned businesses and Kenyan and Somali refugees—carrying out arrests and deportations—in response to fears that Somali populations were involved in illegal business and were dominating particular areas of trade (Little 2014). As in previous anti-Somali government campaigns, many

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legal Kenyan citizens were targeted in these campaigns, undermining their national citizenship

(Little 2014).

Security rhetoric targeting Somalis became increasingly associated with terrorism after the September 11 attacks in New York and the global shift in security policy. In 2011 Kenya sent troops into Somalia to help secure the border with Somalia and engage reported Al-Shabaab groups (Little 2014; Lochery 2012) and was hailed by many in the international community as a key regional military peacekeeping force in the region. In addition to official security rhetoric and policy, anti-Somali sentiment that blamed insecurity on Somalis also permeated national discourse at a broader level. In 2014, journalist Kwamchetsi Makokha wrote a piece in the Daily

Nation—perhaps Kenya’s best known English daily newspaper—claiming,

Kenya has continued to host thousands of Somalis in camps, where, overfed on rations, they plot how to harm their hosts. After infiltrating every state department, they have pledged their loyalty to their kin by issuing identity documents and passports, thus turning Kenya into a major transit point and recruiting ground for terrorists.

Instead of complaining about the legitimate security operation to flush out terrorists and their sympathisers from the midst of Kenyan society, the leadership of the Somali community should encourage its people to convert to Christianity, wear fewer clothes and line up at the border to be processed for re-entry into Kenya.

It is the only way the government can be certain that Kenya is indeed for Kenyans. (Makokha 2014)

Delegates—including journalists from across the continent and representatives from the

African Union—attending a forum on hate speech held in Rwanda in 2014 identified Makokha’s article as a clear example of hate speech toward Somalis (Kwibuka 2014).

The Kenyan government’s security rhetoric and policy has continued anti-Somali sentiment and characterizes an entire population—that includes Kenyan-Somali citizens who security forces have profiled, targeted, and abused—as “refugees” who need to be at the least contained, and preferably removed from the nation to ensure security. Before US President

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Donald Trump promised to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, the Kenyan government moved to build a wall along the Kenya-Somali border. However, President Trump’s executive orders banning travel to the US from predominantly Muslim countries included Somalia and made it difficult for Somali refugees in Kenya to travel to the US (Wesangula 2017). The US government’s security rhetoric also blamed Somali refugees for terrorism and violence and attempted to prevent them from entering the country in the name of “national security,” indirectly legitimizing the Kenyan government’s anti-Somali policies.

The controversy around Dadaab refugee camp and Kenyan security forces abuse of

Somali refugees and Kenyan-Somalis shows that the Kenyan government frequently places security above human rights. A 2017 Kenyan high court ruling suggested that the Kenyan government’s targeting of Somalis contravened Kenyan citizens’ constitutional rights and went beyond the constitutional powers of the government (Wesangula 2017). While the Kenyan government has occasionally been chastened by the courts, it largely continues to discriminate and enact violence against the Somali community. When the national government abuses the rights of a population in the name of security it helps legitimize and normalize violence against

Turkana residents in Samburu County—and other populations deemed ethnic “others” who “do not belong”—in the name of “Security.”

Global security policy, heavily influenced by US approaches to counter-terrorism overseas, has shaped national security rhetoric and practice in Kenya. International donors have frequently made aid to the Kenyan government conditional on their support for counter-terrorism efforts (Lind and Howell 2010). Funding and support for democracy promotion has gone hand- in-hand with efforts to fight terrorism (Whitaker 2008). Yet security practices have often worked to hamper democratization in the short term (Kaganjwa 2006). Donor priorities have emphasized

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traditional approaches to security that have privileged homeland protection over the promotion of civil rights (Bachmann and Honke 2010). The merging of development and security in the policies of international governments and donors has helped to enable the Kenyan government’s repressive use of anti-terror policies (Kagwanja 2006). The Kenyan government's efforts to improve security have largely focused on counter-terrorism in the form of expelling enemies who have penetrated Kenya's border. Additionally, the Kenyan government sends military forces into Somalia as part of international forces claiming the objective of fighting Al-Shabaab groups.

Anti-Somali political rhetoric helps the Kenyan government to legitimize its military operations in Somalia.

Insecurity, Belonging, and State Violence

In the previous chapter, I emphasized the ways in which political violence related to electoral politics and county leaders continued between elections. A focus on county leaders’ rhetoric again highlights forms of political violence that continue between elections. The above examples of county leaders’ public rhetoric come from media appearances around the peak of violence and MPs’ continued use of similar rhetoric more than a year later.

County leaders’ political rhetoric on insecurity contributed to legitimizing violence against Turkana residents. Leaders’ representations of Turkana residents as “thugs,” “bandits,” and “raiders” using “stolen guns” to attack Samburu residents constructed Turkana residents as a threat to Samburu County. By framing Turkana residents as responsible for violence, leaders promoted understandings of violence against Turkana residents as legitimate self-defense by

Samburu citizens abandoned by the national government. Violence against Turkana residents can be understood as a mode of vigilante violence that seeks a kind of justice for Samburu residents

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after Samburu leaders and some residents represented the Kenyan state as unable or unwilling to intervene in insecurity in the county.

In understanding Samburu County leaders’ rhetoric around insecurity and its connection to violence against Turkana residents, I draw on Besteman’s argument that “the contexts in which citizens take responsibility for their own protection are not defined by an absence of power but rather by a particular structure of power that makes citizens insecure and fearful”

(Besteman 2010, 501). While I focus in other chapters on specific powers and institutions that have been decentralized to county governments, security rhetoric and policy in Samburu County shows that areas of government and policy that have not been devolved also have a significant impact on violence at the county level. Security and responsibility for the protection of citizens, is at the center of struggles between county governments’ and residents’ attempts to produce and secure regional sovereignty, often in opposition to the national government as power struggles between the nation and counties continue to play out.

While control over security forces has not been officially devolved, state violence and issues of “insecurity” have in a sense been transformed through devolution. The national government’s “Nyumba Kumi” initiative, for example, while not transferring security powers to regional government, effectively decentralizes responsibility for security to ordinary citizens in their everyday lives. At the same time, the national government has largely failed to act on recommendations from Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to tackle the kinds of structural injustices that contributed to political violence during the multi-party transition (see chapter three).

Rather than unique to Samburu County, violence against Turkana and leaders’ security rhetoric draws on national debates on security and migration. National and County-level security

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rhetoric and practice both drew on ethnic othering and violence as a means of producing sovereignty through exclusion of some members of a population. Attempts to produce security by blaming violence on particular residents represented as “guests” or “visitors” are shaped by

Kenyan government attempts to control population movement across national and internal borders in the name of security—and by a longer history of regionalism, violence, and struggles over belonging. Narratives used by many Samburu County leaders and some Samburu-identified residents blaming and targeting Turkana “guests,” “raiders,” or “criminals” supposedly hiding out in Maralal eerily echoes national government rhetoric towards Somalis represented as terrorists hiding out in refugee camps.

Official national security rhetoric and practice blurs any clear distinctions between legal and illegal forms of violence and ethnic othering. While at times the Kenyan government is partially held to account for its anti-Somali security policies, it has largely continued state violence against Somali populations—including Kenyan citizens—that violate the rights of

Somali residents and undermine their national citizenship. The national government’s ability to avoid significant challenges to its security rhetoric and practice can contribute to the normalization of ethnic othering as a response to insecurity and violence. At the same time, while the Kenyan government’s security rhetoric and practice that targets Somali residents should be of great concern, it should not be considered as separate from global security practice and rhetoric that constructs migrants as a threat.

Violence against Turkana residents in Samburu County can be considered as a response to state violence. The protest highlighted the national government’s neglect of Samburu citizens through its unwillingness or inability to protect their security and property. Instead, pleas for security were met with yet another example of state violence against Samburu citizens where

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police killed a highly respected member of the Samburu community. Both the protest and the violence against Turkana residents that immediately followed, can be considered a response to a continued history of not only state neglect, but active state violence against Samburu citizens.

The targeting of Turkana residents and attempts to blame violence on Turkana residents represented as guests and criminals also reproduces state violence and security rhetoric that targets Somali residents. At the same time as calls for the national government to provide security for Samburu residents challenge state authority, they also draw on the state’s violent rhetoric and practice against its own citizens—calling for the harsh treatment and removal of ethnically-defined communities within a certain territory in order to produce security and sovereignty. Part of the danger of county leaders’ rhetoric is that it is in some sense a valid characterization of how the national government has marginalized and committed violence against Samburu citizens. The tragedy is that frequently the solutions put forward to address

“insecurity” and violence help shape further violence against Kenyan citizens.

Throughout this dissertation, I show examples of how beyond labels of “guests” that the label of “refugee” is frequently applied to both Samburu and Turkana residents. While Turkana who have moved from the north of county to Maralal were represented by some Samburu- identified residents as criminal raiders hiding out in town, other Samburu residents were also labeled “refugees.” During the colonial processes of documenting boundaries and adjudicating competing claims to land Samburu from lowlands who moved to the highlands in response to livestock raids were labeled by Samburu in the highlands as “refugees” (Holtzman 2004). More recently, a Samburu man who moved to Maralal from the north of the county after his livestock were raided described to me how he faced discrimination and that residents of Maralal dismissed him as a “refugee.” In chapter eight, I detail how a poster claiming to be a Samburu woman was

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accused of being a “refugee” and told to “go back” to Turkana County after they criticized the

Samburu County government. In the next chapter, a Turkana man describes Turkana residents as

“like refugees” because they cannot obtain work due to discrimination against them.

At the national level, the Kenyan government openly attempts to suspend the legal rights of Somali residents and citizens by asserting that security and counter-terrorism trump human rights. At the county level, claims of the absence of the state and failure of the state to provide security to Samburu citizens legitimizes violence against Turkana residents as necessary self- defense. Through appeals to security, Samburu leaders and some residents undermine the citizenship and residency of Turkana residents and claim national citizenship and regional sovereignty. In the next chapter, I continue to explore how some Samburu residents’ representations of Turkana residents as responsible for insecurity and livestock raids are part of attempts to undermine Turkana residents’ claims to new economic rights.

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CHAPTER 7

“FINDING KIBARUA”: VIOLENCE TARGETING LIVELIHOODS AND ECONOMIC

CITIZENSHIP

Violence targeting livelihoods and prohibitions on economic activities that Turkana residents engaged in were important aspects of violence in Samburu County in 2013 and 2014.

Following the burning of, and shooting attacks on, Turkana homes, some Samburu residents called for a ban on Turkana residents buying and selling livestock at the town’s market. The ban soon extended to all economic activities that Turkana residents relied on to secure their basic daily needs. After being banned from trading at the livestock market, Turkana residents faced violence and intimidation that forced them to stop operating butcheries and prevented them from acquiring products at the town’s slaughterhouse. Turkana women described fears of being attacked or harassed by Samburu residents when gathering firewood to produce charcoal.

Turkana residents explained that they faced difficulties finding Samburu employers, or were forced to leave their employment. Violence in general also made it difficult for Turkana residents to safely search for what little work they could access.

In this chapter, I examine how violence targeting Turkana residents’ livelihoods and struggles around economic justice were shaped by legislation offering new rights to economic opportunities and employment. I begin by providing an overview of legislation aimed at addressing patronage, ethnic discrimination, and economic inequality before exploring how decentralization may have increased political patronage. In Samburu County, most public employment in the county government was dominated by Samburu residents with strong connections to county leaders elected in 2013. A court case accusing the Samburu county government of employment discrimination provides an example of how some Turkana residents

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attempted to claim new constitutional rights. Turning to forms of wageless work, I show how beyond public employment and claims to formal constitutional rights, Turkana residents’ articulation of economic rights was shaped by daily efforts to secure their basic needs through precarious forms of labor.

Decentralization—aimed at addressing patronage, ethnic discrimination, and economic inequality—has contributed to and shaped struggles around differentiated economic citizenship and access to economic resources and work. These are not new struggles and patronage, ethnic discrimination, and economic inequality are issues that have long been a source of tension, with smaller groups excluded from the patronage of nationally dominant groups connected to the political elite. However, in the months following the 2013 elections, these struggles were often expressed at the county level between politically dominant groups and minority groups.

Samburu was not the only county where struggles over economic justice took place in the years before and after the 2013 elections. In Isiolo County, Turkana residents recounted how they believed county leaders discriminated against them for supporting opposition candidates, while offering jobs to their political supporters (Equal Rights Trust 2012). In coastal regions, many residents expected elected leaders to provide patronage to their supporters, not only as a reward, but also as part of economic justice for populations who had long felt marginalized by the national government (Chome 2015; Willis and Chome 2014). In neighboring Marsabit

County, the REGABU alliance—taking its name from the first two letters of Rendille, Gabra and

Burji ethnic groups—took power in the county after the 2013 elections. Previously, the Borana ethnic group had dominated regional government (Scott-Villiers et al 2014: 8). Borana responded to their political loss by criticizing the new government and calling for the economic boycott of ethnic groups belonging to the coalition. This included refusing to buy from local

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small businesses such as butcheries, and calling for a ban on trading goods between groups, such as charcoal (Scott-Villiers et al 2014). In Marsabit, economic boycott was an attempt by members of ethnic groups who had lost political power in the 2013 elections to challenge the legitimacy of the new county government. They did this by calling attention to the “unfairness of their allocation of employment and positions in the executive, their exclusion from contracts, casual labour opportunities and catering, and the vulnerability of their people who are employed as nurses and teachers to losing their jobs” (Scott-Villiers et al 2014: 25).

In thinking about violence targeting livelihoods and struggles around economic rights, I draw on Janet Roitman’s (2007) concept of “economic citizenship.” Roitman uses economic citizenship to describe “economic relationships instituted between individuals or communities and the state” and to draw attention to the “material conditions of citizenship” (Roitman 2007:

188-9). Roitman builds on Gordon and Stack (2007: 121) who encourage work on citizenship to

“think beyond narrowly defined ‘rights’ of national citizenship” to include the “freedom that is entailed in the pursuit of livelihoods.” Violence and prohibitions against Turkana residents’ livelihoods centered on questions of which citizens were entitled to claim economic rights from the state in Samburu County. Here, legislation and rights are interpreted in ways that produce a

“stratified economic citizenship” based on “deservingness” (Dickenson 2016) where access is shaped by interpretations of state policy and reforms.

In approaching rights, I also draw on recent ethnographic work that explores ordinary politics and ethics embedded in daily practices for survival and the maintenance of everyday life, often through unstable and a-legal forms of labor (Das and Randeria 2015; Lambek 2010;

Forment 2015). Drawing attention to how those not treated as full citizens—those without access to the formal politics of civil society—make political claims, Partha Chatterjee (2011: 219)

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shows how political recognition and governance operate through temporary, shifting and unstable arrangements rather than stable, constitutionally defined rights and laws. Paying attention to the everyday, Das and Poole (2004: 23) show that “the complexity of lived experience inflects notions of justice and law with different kinds of imaginaries from those available in the official sites and representations of justice and law.” Recognizing the ease with which marginalized groups can often find themselves slipping in and out of formal state protections, Burrell (2013) argues that marginalized groups’ claims are increasingly based on

“ephemeral” rights, based on flexible and shifting concepts of rights and justice.

Through Samburu claims to economic rights as a marginalized group deserving of economic justice in the county, and Turkana claims to livelihood based on securing basic needs,

Samburu and Turkana residents both draw on and challenge new constitutional rights. However, struggles around economic access and employment appeared to be less about rights and more about economic citizenship—economic relationships between Samburu and Turkana citizens and groups, the county government, and the Kenyan state. Many Samburu residents imagined their economic relationship to the state through patronage as a form of economic justice for citizens marginalized by the national government in their “home” county. Turkana professionals with the means to seek redress through the courts, attempted to counter patronage and accused the

Samburu County government of ethnic discrimination in hiring practices for public employment.

Turkana residents reliant on informal livelihoods—and experiencing the failure of the national and county government to protect their formal rights—instead claimed the freedom to pursue informal livelihoods for survival, drawing attention to the minimal material conditions required for meaningful citizenship. Aside from the court case, neither Samburu nor Turkana residents’

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interpretations of new economic rights exactly followed the intent of laws and rights outlined in the 2010 constitution and other legislation on economic and ethnic equality.

Patronage Politics and Decentralization in Kenya

Governments in Kenya have unequally distributed state resources and employment as a means of preserving political power. The British colonial government’s economic, labor, and land policies and practices shaped which regions and ethnic groups had the most access to land, labor opportunities, and economic development, producing racial, ethnic, and class inequalities

(Anderson 2005; Chweya and Nasong’o 2008; Lonsdale 2012; Ogot 1995). After independence,

Kenyan governments frequently distributed jobs and resources through development projects, government contracts, and public employment along ethnic and class lines to reward their supporters and exclude their opponents (Ogot 2012; Ndungu Report 2004).

After decades of Kenyan national leaders using patronage and ethnic discrimination as a

“political strategy to maintain power” (Githinji 2015), Kenyans who belong to a nationally dominant (ethnic) group continue to have increased chances of obtaining higher paid government employment (Githinji 2015). The National Cohesion and Integration Commission’s (NCIC) audit of ethnic diversity in the national civil service found that five of the majority ethnic groups in the country occupied nearly 70 percent of all civil service jobs (NCIC 2011). While Kenyan governments have largely taken advantage of state control of economic resources to enrich themselves and reward supporters (Ghai 2012), neoliberal economic policies have worsened economic inequalities and ethnic discrimination (Berman 2012; Little 2014). Structural

Adjustment Programs also encouraged patronage politics through the privatization of state resources and services, creating both new opportunities and an increased need for politicians to engage in patronage as their control over state resources was undermined (Ajulu 2002; Berman

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2012; Zelezea 2014). Party politics based on patronage for supporters, economic marginalization of certain ethnic groups, and the unequal distribution of resources and access to employment opportunities were important long-term factors that contributed to the post-2007 election violence (CIPEV 2008; Mueller 2008).

Political narratives centered on unequal access to employment and economic opportunities have often explained economic inequalities in terms of dominant ethnic groups gaining more access while other ethnic groups are marginalized. However, in their rhetoric around unequal economic distribution politicians have deliberately downplayed the role of class as an important factor in shaping regional and group economic inequalities (Ajulu 2002; Githinji

2015). This emphasis on ethnicity has overlooked the majority of poor Kenyans who, while theoretically part of dominant wealthy ethnic groups, have little access to the rewards of patronage politics (Lonsdale 2008). Colonial and postcolonial Kenyan governments have undermined labor movements’ attempts to create class solidarity through repression and cooptation in order to maintain a cheap pool of labor (Otenyo 2016; Rutten and Owuor 2009;

Zelezea 2014).

Devolution and the new constitution contain provisions on economic equality that seek to address structural ethnic and economic inequalities that policies of patronage and ethnic division have perpetuated. Yash Pal Ghai, a key drafter of the constitution envisioned devolution as contributing to the “de-ethnicization of the state” (Ghai 2008) through providing local government accountability as an alternative means for citizens to engage leaders and advocate for access to state resources. Key to reforms aimed at changing political institutions shaped by ethnic discrimination and patronage was the “dispersal of economic and political power”

(Supreme Court of Kenya cited in Ghai 2014).

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Emerging from the post-2007 election crisis mediation efforts, The National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008 (NCIA) established quotas to limit overrepresentation of dominant groups in public employment, stating that “no single ethnic community should constitute more than one third of the staff in any ministry or government department.” The County Government

Act of 2012 (CGA), section 65(1)(e), made county governments—through County Public

Service Boards (CPSBs)—responsible for ensuring that “at least thirty percent of the vacant posts at entry level are filled by candidates who are not from the dominant ethnic community in the county.” Section 65(2) of the CGA also charges CPSBs with prioritizing “merit, fair competition and representation of the diversity of the county” when “determining whether an appointment, promotion or re-designation has been undertaken in a fair and transparent manner.”

Article 232 of the 2010 constitution establishes the general principle of “adequate and equal opportunities for appointment, training, advancement at all levels of the public service of the members of all ethnic groups.” In addition to limitations for public employment, under article 56 of the 2010 constitution, the state is mandated to “put in place affirmative action programmes designed to ensure that minorities and marginalised groups (a) participate and are represented in governance and other spheres of life; (b) are provided special opportunities in educational and economic fields; (c) are provided special opportunities for access to employment.”

This legislation opens up opportunities for minority and marginalized groups to gain political recognition and access to employment opportunities at the county level (Young and

Sing-Oei 2011). However, until uncertainties in exactly what legislation means are resolved, these general guidelines leave open questions of who should be recognized as minority or marginalized groups at the county level and benefit from economic rights. The constitution does not clearly define minority and marginalized groups and provides a general definition of a

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marginalized community as “a community that, because of its relatively small population or for any other reason, has been unable to fully participate in the integrated social and economic life of

Kenya as a whole” that can include “pastoral persons and communities.” Under article 27, marginalized group is defined as “a group of people who, because of laws or practices before, on, or after the effective date, were or are disadvantaged by discrimination.”

Under these definitions, Samburu, Turkana, or almost anyone living in Samburu County could claim status as a minority or marginalized group. In Samburu County, this lack of definition has enabled struggles over who—after years of marginalization in terms of national politics, development projects, and state resources—deserves to be the prime beneficiaries of devolution and new economic rights as the legitimate residents of the county. Furthermore, legislation on economic rights and employment access puts forward definitions that tend to reproduce ethnicity as the only possible category for political recognition. This creates a lack of room for marginalized groups to express their concerns and claims to rights in terms of alternative group affiliations, such as class, potentially encouraging ethnic division.

While some proponents of devolution suggest that transfer of power over economic resources and accountability for their distribution can create equity and reduce corruption (Ghai

2008; Ndulo 2004), multiple studies suggest that decentralization may often increase opportunities and conditions for patronage and corruption (Bubandt 2014; Chome 2015; Kenny

2015; Sadanandan 2012; Veron et al. 2006). Transferring control of economic resources and implementation of policy without strong mechanisms for holding local government accountable and increasing opportunities for citizens to impact decisions can work to increase the political and economic power of local politicians (Kenny 2015; Sadananadan 2012; Veron et al. 2006). At

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the same time, citizens’ expectations for jobs, funding, and restoration of economic rights can shape the actions of politicians seeking local electoral support (Chome 2015).

In Kenya, while devolution may have the potential for undermining or limiting patronage and ethnic discrimination, the transfer of power to county governments has also provided new opportunities for patronage at the county level (Cheeseman et al. 2016; D’Arcy and Cornell

2016). The National Cohesion and Integration Commission’s (NCIC) draft report on ethnic diversity in county public service employment found that more than sixty percent of counties hired more than seventy percent of their staff from one ethnic group (Musau 2015; Robert 2015).

County Public Service Boards are responsible for ensuring fair employment practices and overseeing the appointment of public employees. Samburu County was one of 21 (out of 47)

County Public Service Boards identified in the NCIC report as only having board members from the dominant ethnic group (Musau 2015; Robert 2015). In addition to ethnically-biased employment, the NCIC chairman, Francis Ole Kaparo, has said that many county governments prioritize the largest clans for public positions because dominant clans have influence over county elections and nominations to public office (Kaparo cited in Musau 2015). A report by the

Auditor-General found that the Samburu County government had not gone through the proper process for hiring regional office staff and found no evidence that the County Public Service

Board advertised the positions, created a candidate shortlist, conducted interviews, or oversaw the recruitment process (GoK 2015b). The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has also accused the Samburu county government of discriminatory practices in public employment, prioritizing Samburu clans connected to county leaders (Fundi 2017).

A few months after I returned from fieldwork, Chris—a Samburu resident of Maralal— sent me a message through social media letting me know that he got a new job working for the

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County Public Service Board. Chris told me that after a few months working there, he found that some people on the board “favor their people over others” and that “if you know people in the county that is the time you get a job.” As Chris and many other people I spoke to in the county told me—including staff at regional NGOs—this led to people without qualifications being hired, while those more qualified for positions were not selected. Chris told me that several candidates shortlisted for positions expressed frustration after their interviews when they did not get jobs, and they knew that the candidates who were hired were related to members of the board. While Chris was saddened by the unfairness of ongoing nepotism in public employment, he was also a beneficiary of nepotism and was glad to have obtained a secure, sought-after position working for the county government.

Competition over government employment and resources is a key source of struggle given that county governments control a substantial amount of funds and provide a large number of jobs and contracts (Scott-Villiers et al. 2014). The budget allocation for Samburu County for financial year 2014/15 was KShs 4.14 billion [USD 40.8 million], of which the county government actually spent KShs 3.28 billion [USD 32 million] (GoK 2015). Of this, the county government spent around a quarter of their budget—KShs 818.9 million [USD 8 million]—on

“personnel emoluments” (wages and benefits for those holding office), a significant increase from the previous year as the county government continued to recruit more staff (GoK 2015:

222-223).

The position of county governor provides a high level of political authority over county funds and resources, holding opportunities for patronage that many governors appear to have taken advantage of (Cheeseman et al 2016; D’Arcy and Cornell 2016). During the 2013 elections, most candidates for county governor promised their supporters jobs and development

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funding during their campaigns and governors that offered patronage often won (D’Arcy and

Cornell 2016). In addition, the majority of winning candidates were from the dominant ethnic group in their county and could demonstrate a record of patronage to their constituents (D’Arcy and Cornell 2016). Appointed jobs in County Executive Committees, including in Samburu, have largely gone to dominant ethnic groups, with 16 counties (out of those counted) having only the dominant ethnic group represented (Musau 2015). Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) also have substantial access to funds and their abuse of “sitting allowances”—payments to MPs and MCAs to attend meetings and debates in the county assembly and national parliament— suggests they may be using devolution for their own gain (D’Arcy and Cornell 2016; Apollo

2105). Samburu County is one of twelve (out of 47) counties that have exceeded the maximum monthly sitting allowances for MCAs (all Samburu except one), the third highest amount in the nation (Apollo 2015).

In response to Samburu residents connected to county leaders dominating jobs in the county government, Turkana professionals took the Samburu County government to court. The complainants claimed the county government had failed to guarantee the rights of Turkana residents to fair employment.

Public Employment and Constitutional Rights

In May 2014, a group led by two Turkana residents—acting as “representatives” of the

“Turkana Community of Samburu County”—filed a petition in the high court against the

Samburu County Government citing employment discrimination (Akelerio and Lowoi vs.

Lenokulal et al. 2014). The complainants argued that the governor and the Samburu County

Public Service Board had “infringed the rights and freedoms of the applicants’ community members” referencing article 19 of the constitution, on fundamental rights and freedoms under

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the Bill of Rights, and article 27 covering equality and freedom from discrimination. In addition, the complainants highlighted article 56 of the constitution mandating the state to provide special opportunities for access to employment for minority and marginalized groups and the duties of the County Public Service Board under the County Government Act.

The petitioners argued that all of the sub-county administrators were Samburu, that only one Turkana candidate was considered for an appointed position within the County Executive

Committee (CEC) and all chief officers in the CEC were Samburu. The complainants further argued that the “respondent has declared total oppression of Turkana members in the County by denying them business and employment opportunities” and that “our educated children will not get County jobs due to discrimination committed to them by Samburu Public Service Board despite being qualified for the jobs.” The petitioners called for the reconstitution of the Samburu

County Public Service Board, for all nominees for chief officer to be declared void, and for positions on the County Public Service Board to be re-advertised.

The County Government denied any discrimination in hiring practices. They claimed that they re-advertised CEC positions and interviewed three Turkana candidates. In addition, they argued that out of all the chief officers only four were Samburu, two were Rendille (another pastoral ethnic group with many claimed similarities and intermarriage with Samburu), one was

Kalenjin (see Lynch 2011 for a description of the political construction of Kalenjin as an ethnic group) and one was Lkunono. Lkunono are not in fact an ethnic group, but a Samburu clan, often considered to be an ‘outcast’ group because of their association with their occupation as blacksmiths. The County Government’s decision to include them separately from Samburu highlights the complexities surrounding which groups should be considered to be a minority or marginalized group in the county. In May 2015, the High Court ruled that the petition was

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premature because the petitioners should have brought their concerns to the Samburu County

Public Service Board before filing the petition with the High court.

Prior to the court ruling John, a young Turkana professional who left Samburu County after the violence, shared some of his thoughts about the court case with me. John had just returned from a trip to a neighboring county to find work. After little success, he now planned to move to another county where he hoped he would have more luck and better connections.

Despite being positive about the possible outcome of the court case, John had decided that he would no longer “look for a job in the county.” Before the 2013 violence, John had been enthusiastic about working in the county, perhaps for the county government, and had believed that he could influence the direction the county took. For John, the case held promise as it was

“the only way forward for Turkana to claim their rights in the county.”

However, John was also concerned that if the petition was successful “those employed may not survive long” as employers may fire Turkana as part of a backlash against being

“forced.” John explained that tensions were high in the county as “everyone is waiting for this case.” Earlier in the week John had been at the county government offices where the “mood was not good.” A government employee had told him “you Turkana are coming fast!” John understood this to mean that Samburu residents resented Turkana pushing so hard for their rights to employment in the new county government.

Francis—a local professional from a mixed ethnic background—had worked with the county government and local NGOs, and was well-versed in the constitution and local politics.

Francis worried because he did “not know what this court case will do.” He feared that the case may have “repercussions” and could trigger violence and shootings in town again. He believed that if the petitioners won, it could open the way for political and legal challenges to the

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governor and the county government. Francis told me that the petitioners in the court case also had support from Samburu residents who believed that the government had unfairly hired most employees from the governor’s own clan and “don’t feel part of the government.” Francis explained that the winner of the elections “had to reward his supporters” and that those who supported the governor’s election had been prioritized for government employment. Despite the risks of bringing a court case against the county government, Francis—like John—was determined that something had to be done: “Turkana have children who were born here, they have gone to school here and they are told they cannot get an opportunity to work in our own county. Where the hell will they get a job!?”

Some of Francis’s fears came from negative comments about the case that he had heard.

Both Francis and John directed me to comments on social media that contained violent speech in response to the court petition. Many Samburu-identified posters represented the case as a threat to the county government and some balked at the idea that Turkana could “take us to court when we are in our home” after Samburu had “accommodated” Turkana in the county. Other

Samburu-identified posters claimed that, by bringing a case against the government, Turkana were “disrupting the prevailing peace.” A Samburu poster who defended the rights of Turkana to fair access to employment in the county was called out by others for helping Turkana to “disrupt peace.” Other commentators accused those posting negative commentary of using “hate speech”

(See chapter eight on online hate speech).

Once the High Court judge ruled that the case was premature, many social media posts from Samburu-identified users took a celebratory tone. Many commentators claimed the judgement was a “victory” for the county government. Other Samburu-identified posters asserted that the case had been thrown out because it was unjustified. Others claimed that the judgement

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meant that Turkana in Samburu County could not claim official status as a minority. They claimed the court had clearly defined “minority,” despite there being no mention of this in the ruling. Many posters agreed that Turkana were not entitled to criticize the county government, or to special opportunities for employment, or to demand jobs. More cautious Samburu-identified posters suggested that “our opinion is that you cool down, forget everything and we build the county.” More aggressive posters asserted that “you people you don’t have to say so many things, because the court has already decided you should keep quiet my brothers, you find your way to your place, Lodwar” [capital of neighboring Turkana County]. This poster claimed that the court had “decided” so Turkana should ‘go back to their county.’

Many posters, identifying as a range of ethnicities including Samburu and Turkana, responded to negative commentary about the court case with defiant assertions that the case was not over and that Turkana would continue to pursue fair access to employment in the county.

Those who identified as Samburu on social media and who supported Turkana posters calling for fair access to employment were labeled by others as “traitors.”

Many Samburu I spoke to supported equal employment rights in the county in-line with the constitution. On social media, both Samburu and Turkana condemned “hate speech” against

Turkana as “tribalism” and appealed to constitutional rights. One Samburu-identified poster commented, “I hope this time round they will consider the people of Nyiro or else we join our brothers in the corridor of justice.” This poster suggested that Samburu from the north of the county also felt they did not have fair access to government employment. In response to negative comments suggesting that Turkana do not belong in the county a Samburu poster who claimed to have grown up with Turkana argued that “These people belong to Samburu County.” Another

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Samburu-identified poster suggested, “these brothers of ours are here to stay. Let us learn to share what little we have!”

When I asked Joshua, a young Turkana man working construction jobs in Maralal, if he had heard about the court case, he told me “we know that the case is there, but for now we don’t know what is going on with it. We just heard that Turkana have taken Samburu leaders to court, but we have never heard much about it.” A group of Turkana women at first claimed they had not heard about the case. However, they later told me that they had heard people saying, “If

Turkana don’t remove the case, they will see fire.” Threats of violence in the form of “fire” if

Turkana did not drop court proceedings also circulated on social media. Threats of “fire” referred to the previous arson of Turkana homes and threatened further similar attacks. It is unclear how much people did not know about the case, and how much they were afraid to talk about it. In any case, it seems clear that for many Turkana the court case held more risk of danger than hope for equality and employment.

Struggles over access to public employment taking place in the courts were only one area where struggles over economic opportunities and rights took place. I now turn to explore a ban on Turkana work and trade in less formal contexts.

Prohibitions on Turkana Trade and Work

Shortly after the burning of Turkana homes in Maralal in late 2013, groups of Samburu residents called for a ban on Turkana engaging in livelihoods connected to livestock. Initially,

Samburu residents calling for the ban suggested that Turkana residents should not be allowed to trade in livestock at the market until livestock raids on Samburu groups ceased. This ban expanded to include preventing Turkana residents from acquiring livestock products at the town’s slaughterhouse and from operating butcheries, which many Turkana residents owned.

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The ban quickly became a larger prohibition on everyday forms of informal labor and trade that

Turkana residents engaged in, including tasks-for-cash work like collecting firewood for making charcoal, and household chores like cleaning and washing clothes. The ban also impacted

Turkana residents’ ability to find work in construction and residents reported that they had lost jobs working for small businesses and government-run departments.

The livestock market is a prominent landmark next to a small creek on the edge of town.

Located in the county capital, the market is of particular regional importance. On market days, large numbers of men, many of whom have traveled for long distances with their livestock, gathered at the market to buy and sell goats, sheep, and cattle. In late 2013, someone had written

“no cattle rustling” in blue chalk on the wooden fence that surrounds the market—a reference to livestock raiding in the county and the only clearly visible trace of the economic struggle surrounding the ban on Turkana trade in livestock.

Many residents, Samburu and Turkana, did not support the ban. Jeremiah, a Samburu school teacher, went to the meetings at the market “trying to convince them to allow our neighbors to trade. Learned people like us can see that this is not good. If you refuse to trade with a certain community, you will also be affected.” James, a Turkana professional, agreed with his friend Jeremiah’s sentiment, but was unable to attend the meetings. “We could see them meet. But then you couldn’t go there, because the moment they realized that you’re a Turkana around there, then, that becomes something else, becomes violent.” However, James also recognized that “even within Samburu people there’s a group that is not for what is happening.

There is a group that is very much against it. And those are the people that are trying to tell their folks that whatever you are doing is wrong, because we are harming our county. The best thing

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about business is when it has competition. That is when it becomes real business and is profitable to the majority of people.”

Joseph, a Samburu student at the local university campus, claimed that “extremists” were behind the ban on livestock trade. “Actually there were wazees [elders] who were telling them

[those calling for the ban], let them come [to the livestock market] because after the long run, these guys are like poor, poor people. Because…we never had a fight between Samburu and

Turkana here in Maralal just because of cattle.” His friend Bernard, a Samburu business-owner, suggested—like Jeremiah—that the people behind the ban are less educated: “Us, we can think twice. But them, there’s one answer to them. If we come together, then we will clash. So, let them remain just…do another business. I think they are just trying to look for a solution to the problem so that they will not get together and exchange bitter words.” Rather than active malice,

Bernard puts economic violence down to a misled, but understandable, choice by those who do not know any better.

Many residents believed that county leaders were involved in the livestock trade ban.

Some, like Joseph and Bernard, believed that county leaders actively intervened in the meetings to dissuade those calling for the ban from this course of action. Others were sure that leaders were involved in calling for the ban. James was uncertain about the involvement of leaders. He heard that “the county leadership tried to intervene to talk to the people to allow Turkana to go back to the market.” However, those calling for the ban on livestock trade “stood their ground.

At that time the reasoning was Turkana have failed to be peaceful in Baragoi [north of the county], not here. So some people were really asking, what is the connection? The Turkana in

Maralal are very peaceful, they don’t have cattle, they don’t do rustling, so why deny them this chance?”

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At the same time as James recognized that some leaders tried to intervene, he also noted that many people talked about the ban as “organized from above.” He explained, “where above is…nobody can tell you. Nobody is very specific that this is the person who is concerned. But when people talk of ‘above,’ they actually refer to the leadership.” James attended a meeting where a county leader was providing mediation between Turkana and Samburu and those calling for and those against a ban on Turkana trade. “An elder asked about the situation in the livestock market. You know, he [leader] categorically refused to talk about that. And he said that it is beyond him.” In making such a statement, James believes that perhaps the leader is “telling us that there are more senior people involved. Because how could he say it is beyond him? He is a leader!” James laughed in disbelief.

Prohibitions on livestock-related activities extended to owning and running butcheries, an important source of small business in town. As well as selling meat to individual customers, butcheries supply much of the meat—particularly goat meat for nyama choma [Swahili: roasted meat]—to local restaurants, bars and hotels. Turkana owners were intimidated and forced to leave their butcheries. Many butcheries were taken over by Samburu owners. James explained,

My family operates a butchery. And since that time, we’ve never sold meat. We’ve never sold meat. I have my cousins doing the same. They’ve never done it since that time. Because there was a time where you try to buy a goat, you display your meat and somebody, a group of murrans [young male warriors] would just come and ask you, “where did you get this?” [suggesting the meat was stolen in livestock raids] And they really threaten you. Then they tell you to shut down the place or they’ll do it themselves. And you know they do it so violently, they can even kill. That is the worst thing. So as of now, we’re just watching things, trying to see what direction it will take.

After also losing his family butchery, Adam managed to find day-labor construction work on new roads being built in the county and picked up odd jobs doing repair work where he could.

He used to pay for rent and food for his family, but now only managed to pay for his own expenses. In the center of town, a sign stating “Under New Management” hung in the doorway

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of a butchery. Adam told me that Samburu had forcibly taken over his butchery with threats of violence.

Towards the end of my fieldwork, Turkana residents told me that some Turkana had started to quietly open smaller butcheries in Turkana neighborhoods. However, they were still afraid of potential violence as they had heard that young men were still going around town accusing Turkana of selling stolen meat. Like the ban on Turkana trade at the livestock market, bans on butcheries were also based on claims that accused Turkana of instigating livestock raids.

Finding Kibarua

Struggles over rights of access to employment and economic opportunities in Samburu

County permeated more precarious livelihoods. After the burning of homes, shooting attacks, and ban on livestock-related trade, the main concern of many Turkana residents was securing temporary work to support themselves and their families. Violence and the threat of violence prevented Turkana from obtaining work and discrimination cut off key livelihood sources.

Months after violence had appeared to calm down, many Turkana residents were still too afraid to sleep in their own homes, fearing more potential violence. Others made sure they returned home quickly and slept early. Violence and the threat of violence limited Turkana residents’ movements around town and their ability to find work. Many Turkana did not want to be out late, especially after dark, which meant that they were not able to travel far from their homes in search of work. A Turkana woman whose son was shot in an attack on their home explained, “We have no jobs. Our children are starving. Because it’s not every day that you go and get kibarua.” Another woman recounted “We sometimes go and work for those Samburu who are nice and will call you and tell you to come and do kibarua for them. You run there, do it

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fast, and come back quickly. But other Samburu say that you cannot give kibarua to Turkana.

That’s how we survive.”

County residents used kibarua [Swahili: casual labor] to refer to forms of largely unregulated, unstable, wageless work. Usually this was work paid on a day-by-day basis for individual tasks with little guarantee of stable income since much of the work was temporary or residents could not always secure regular work. Residents estimated that through such temporary work they would typically earn around KShs 50-200 (USD 0.50-2) per day. Often forms of casual labor were looked down upon as undesirable work and straddled frequently blurred boundaries between licit and illicit. While kibarua is often translated as “casual labor,” I instead use the term “wageless work” (Denning 2010; Millar 2014), to avoid creating inaccurate dichotomies between formal and informal economies and to recognize that precarious forms of labor are increasingly the main source of income for more and more people.

Forms of wageless work are growing important sources of work across Africa under neoliberal economic policies that have created larger wealth gaps and often increased economic growth without increasing formal employment and trade opportunities (Little 2014). As political, economic and ecological changes shape pastoralist livelihoods, pastoralists have frequently incorporated petty trade and other forms of wageless work into their range of economic activities

(Bollig and Osterle 2013; Fratkin 2013; Schnegg et al 2013; Nunow 2013). The development of towns and urban settlements has encouraged pastoralists to engage in more precarious forms of labor, with many women and youth taking on tasks-for-cash as a central part of their livelihoods

(Nunow 2013). As pastoralists have been increasingly integrated into markets and new modes of employment and accumulation of wealth, this has shaped shifting structures of social inequality and exclusion (Broch-Due and Anderson 1999; Livingstone and Ruhindi 2013; Nunow 2013).

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Men mostly obtained wageless work performing day-labor construction on roads and houses. They also sourced a range of tasks-for-cash including digging plots of land for small- scale farming, repair work, or moving and hauling goods. Young men in town often described their struggles to piece together unstable employment using the English word “hustling.”

Adam, Joshua, Henry, and William were young Turkana men who mostly worked in road construction, when they could find it. All of them had been impacted by violence and were close to Turkana men from their neighborhoods who were shot and killed in attacks in late 2013 and early 2015. Afraid of future violence, these young men struggled to support their families and many of them moved their families to safer counties if they could. Supported by new sources of county funding for development and infrastructure projects, roads were a contested source of income.

Adam explained that work in day-labor construction on roads and buildings for around

KShs 400 [USD 4] per day was the best work he was likely to find. He explained, “even if you are educated and have certifications it is very hard to get other jobs if you have no one to push for you.” Adam felt that Samburu youth were supported and prioritized for more stable jobs, while Turkana residents struggled to even find wageless work.

Henry, a young Turkana man from the neighborhood where Turkana houses were burned, explained, “For us, we are suffering. We only help our mothers when we go to dig a small shamba [plot of land]. You get 50 shillings [USD 0.50], you come and give it to your mum. For now we survive with very small kibarua. We are just hanging around. We cannot go and work for a Samburu. If these other tribes cannot give you a job, you cannot get anything to eat. You come and drink water and go to sleep.” Henry’s description contained repeated themes that many

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residents used when describing their struggles to find kibarua: hunger, sleeping without eating, often failing to find work, and survival.

William explained, “all of my family have gone to [neighboring county]. I am the only one left here in Maralal. The only thing I am doing here is a little kibarua doing construction work.” Before the violence, William explained that he “was hired by a Kikuyu guy. But later we found out that he was being threatened for hiring Turkana. So even him, he was chased away.

Even that Kikuyu guy, when he was threatened he went back to his home [in another county].

For now, life is so hard.”

Joshua lived in a mixed Samburu and Turkana neighborhood on the other side of town.

His home was shot at during the 2013/2014 violence. Joshua’s nephew showed me a bullet casing they found outside the house after the attack. It looked huge in his hand. His nephew described sitting outside cutting vegetables at the side of the house when he was shot at several times. He heard a bullet hit the side of the house, but he did not know what it was—he had never heard a gunshot before. His sister recounted that she yelled at him to come inside. They both claimed to have seen a Samburu murran [young male warrior] on a motorbike with a gun. They ran inside, forgetting to close the door behind them.

All of the Turkana construction workers told me that work on the roads around town was segregated. Turkana could only work in certain areas of town. When they reached an area of town claimed by Samburu, they had to stop. Joshua explained,

For now, we cannot work together. They are dividing us. They will dig where the Samburu live. They will take it up to where Turkana live. We dig a very small section. They dig the longer sections. And still they want to work in our area. So for now, we see that even this small amount of work that the county offers, we can’t get it easily. These days we can’t even go where Samburu are because when you go where there are many Samburu, they might beat you up. That’s why we are currently working alone.

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Joshua would also try to find work constructing houses, but explained that he had to be careful about who he chose to be on his team of laborers. “Finding kibarua is very hard. Even the little construction work that’s available, it’s not easy to get. Someone who knows you and knows that you can build a house very well, he’s the one who will call you and give you a job. But you cannot work alone. You also have to work with Samburu. When you don’t have Samburu guys with you, they won’t allow you to do the job.”

Joshua, like other Turkana residents, was frustrated at the difficulties Turkana residents faced in finding work. He explained,

You know, for us, we are like refugees. Because if you show your ID [with a Turkana name] you will not get a job. For us to go and ask for a job, nobody will give it to us. But for them [Samburu], they will get a job. Because, they are saying that the county is theirs. But Turkana, we are being told to go to our county. They are telling us to go to Turkana County. And this [Samburu County] is our home. This is where we were born. We don’t even know Turkana County.

You know, since the government divided up the counties, saying that the county is to take responsibility for the people living in the county, for us, the Turkana, we have no…they have put us down. We have been trodden on.

Economic Cooperation

Women in small-towns and trading centers have taken on a large amount of the responsibility for exploring precarious, risky and socially undesirable livelihood strategies

(Livingstone and Ruhindi 2013; Nunow 2013). In Maralal, women performed a variety of wageless work and tasks-for-cash that included collecting firewood to make charcoal, domestic chores like cleaning and washing laundry, fetching water, small-scale vegetable-growing on small plots, and illegal alcohol brewing.

Turkana women faced violence and threats of violence when engaging in work that included collecting firewood for making charcoal. I met with Josephine, two of her sisters, and her grandmother at Josephine’s house. Josephine’s son used to help support her, but was no

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longer able to work after he was injured in a shooting attack. Josephine’s primary work was buying matumbo [intestines] from the slaughterhouse, cleaning them up, cooking them, and selling them to customers as a cheap source of meat. When Josephine could no longer acquire matumbo after the prohibition on Turkana residents trading at the town’s slaughterhouse, she fell back on making charcoal. This was a risky strategy, as Josephine explained, “We are usually afraid to go to the forest, but we just go. But we don’t go far. We just stay close to where people pass by because we are afraid to go deep into the forest.”

Josephine’s sister added, “a few days ago [a small group of Turkana women] went to collect firewood. They were harassed by some Samburu women. They told them ‘you have finished our land. Go back to Lodwar [capital of Turkana County] where you belong. Stop finishing our land.’” Josephine’s other sister continued, “when you go deep into the forest, they

[Samburu] find you there. Then they beat you and take your axe and rope. They take them away saying ‘you have finished our land.’ That’s why we rarely go to the forest.” Another Turkana woman from the neighborhood where houses were burned, explained that she had stopped going to collect firewood after a group of young men threatened to kill her. Samburu residents also produced charcoal, however, it was often considered to be undesirable work and mostly poorer

Samburu clans engaged in charcoal production.

After facing risk, women usually came back with just enough wood to make a small amount of charcoal, perhaps two or three debe, or cans (usually an old cooking oil or paint can) in a week. One debe usually sold for around 100 shillings (a little under USD 1), although this went up to around KShs 150-200 during the rainy season when charcoal is harder to produce.

Josephine explained that Turkana women were also struggling to find work doing domestic chores for Samburu households. “If somebody has to call you to do some kibarua, only

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Kikuyu or other tribes are the ones who call you. Samburu will not call you. You do the kibarua, they give you 200 or 150 shillings, you buy food for your kids. If there is no kibarua, you stay like that. But Turkana girls working at Samburus’ places, they are being sacked. They will not employ Turkana girls again.”

Many Turkana residents left for nearby counties in search of safety and employment. But many stayed behind because they felt Samburu was their home and had few connections outside of the county. Josephine’s sister explained, “If it wasn’t so far to go to a nearby county, I would go and look for kibarua there, because people don’t fight there. I’ll go and wash clothes if there is work available. Here we have a lot of problems. We are the only ones taking care of my mother and for now we don’t have jobs. So we keep quiet.”

As with the livestock market, several residents suggested that county leaders were playing a role in the exclusion of Turkana from the slaughterhouse. A Turkana woman who used to source matumbo at the slaughterhouse heard that a local leader went in-person to the slaughterhouse “to incite them [Samburu working at the slaughterhouse], told them they should not help [Turkana], should not give them business. They were told that if you assist them

[Turkana], you'll go down with them.” Josephine’s sister explained, “They [Samburu] are saying we should leave them [Turkana] ‘to starve with anger.’ For them to die, and others, we chase them away to go to Lodwar.”

Many Samburu residents rejected any ban on Turkana residents’ trading at the slaughterhouse. A Samburu woman who lived in a neighborhood where Turkana homes were burned explained, “Only Samburu are being allowed to work at the slaughterhouse. All the places now, it is just nkop ang [Samburu: our land]. So we don’t know where to go.” Similar to

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“our county,” both Samburu and Turkana residents reported Samburu residents’ frequent use of nkop ang, or our land, to justify prohibitions on Turkana residents’ economic activities.

Despite their rejection of bans on economic activities, Samburu residents were often afraid of openly speaking out against the ban. However, Samburu residents often helped Turkana residents access the items they needed, quietly boycotting the ban. Joshua, a Turkana construction worker, explained, “If you have a friend who is Samburu and they work at the slaughterhouse, they will bring you matumbo. Or if you have a customer [a Samburu who you sell matumbo to] who still has a butchery, they will bring matumbo for you from the slaughterhouse to a certain place in town and he will call you to come and pick it up. But for you to go to the slaughterhouse? There’s no way you can go there.”

Josephine knew a Samburu woman who helped support her by bringing her matumbo to a nearby neighborhood store when she could. Josephine explained that the Samburu woman put herself at risk,

There was a young man who asked her, “why does that mama [mother/woman] usually come here?” Then that mama told him that she usually comes to visit me. Then the man told her, “it seems that I have seen you giving her matumbo.” That mama told him, “yes, I have to give it to her. I have to help her so that her children can also eat. I cannot leave her suffering when my children are eating, but her children are not even getting milk.” Then that boy told her “I am not going to sell you matumbo.” That mama told him, “even if you won’t sell matumbo to me, I will still bring it for her. Because there are others who will sell to me.” They got really angry at each other, until even they did not speak to each other.

My research assistant, Jane, tutted loudly, and asked who the boy was. Jane recounted,

You know that boy used to be my customer. I used to take meat from the butchery to him. I knew him from nursery school and we grew up together. His family used to take meat on credit. We are also neighbors. But now he has changed. It was only when he was under pressure. Now he doesn’t do that. Now when he sees Josephine he calls the Samburu mama to tell her Josephine is here. If that boy had bad intentions he could have reported her [Samburu mama] and she would have been chased from the slaughterhouse. So I think he just did it because of pressure and people inciting him.

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Jane attributed the young man’s actions to “pressure” and incitement that contradicted everyday social relations centered on neighborliness. She also emphasized the moral and social norms of neighborly trade by explaining that she used to provide meat to his struggling family. Jane assigns blame for incitement, violence, and pressure to others outside of a community characterized by cooperation and everyday struggle.

Josephine also believed that political incitement drove the prohibition of Turkana from trading at the slaughterhouse. She recounted that the Samburu mama told her that “people working at the slaughterhouse were told they should not bring matumbo to any Turkana. Because they [Samburu] can lift their county doing business selling matumbo. They were also told that they [Samburu] are free to go to the forest and burn charcoal, even to brew chang’aa [illegal alcohol]. They were told ‘you leave the other tribe [Turkana], they will starve without having any work.’” Josephine was very grateful for the Samburu woman’s help: “She is really helping me. She has sacrificed herself to help me. I think if it was someone from my tribe, she would not make the same sacrifice to bring matumbo from the slaughterhouse to my house, like that

Samburu mama is doing.”

Many Samburu residents opposed bans on Turkana residents’ work and trade, or any form of discrimination against Turkana living in Samburu County. Alongside discrimination and incitement to violence, many Samburu residents cooperated with Turkana residents by bringing them the materials they did not have access to, boycotting the ban. Eschewing ethnic divisions,

Josephine described the Samburu woman who helped her as responding to a clear sense of obligation to a neighbor, a friend, another mother who, like her, has children to feed. Women in

Samburu County also supported each other across ethnic divides through initiatives like community savings groups. In Marsabit County, women have also cooperated with women from

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other ethnic groups to try and break economic boycotts directed at particular ethnic groups

(Scott-Villiers et al. 2014).

Economic Citizenship and Marginal Rights

In Samburu County, it appeared that, initially at least, devolution worked to increase political patronage and ethnic (and clan) discrimination in employment and economic access.

County Governments’ control over public employment and economic resources without adequate means of ensuring accountability, increased economic inequality and discrimination. Sections of the Samburu population called for bans on Turkana trade and work in the county, citing Turkana livestock raids and violence against Samburu. Turkana, and many Samburu, residents understood violence targeting Turkana livelihoods as Samburu residents attempting to claim their rights to economic justice under devolution.

Some Samburu residents justified a ban on Turkana residents engaging in livestock- related livelihoods by blaming them for livestock raids against Samburu. Much like in chapters five and six, where Samburu residents blamed livestock raiding and other violence on Turkana residents—challenging their belonging in the county—similar narratives delegitimized Turkana claims to economic rights. As I further explore in online commentary in the next chapter, many

Samburu-identified residents portrayed Turkana as criminals and as instigating livestock raids in ways that challenged their citizenship and represented Turkana as less deserving of rights to security. In some ways, Samburu residents’ and leaders’ representation of Turkana as less

“civilized” and as less deserving reflects the same narratives that government officials have used to portray both Samburu and Turkana groups as backwards, to blame violence on pastoralist communities, and to render violence as so ingrained that it is not worth intervening in.

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Many Samburu residents also understood that only Samburu were entitled to claim economic rights as a marginalized group within Samburu County; Turkana residents could always “go back” to Turkana County and claim rights to economic access and employment there.

In this sense, Turkana could claim their “own rights” (see James 2013 for a similar example in

South Africa) in their “own county” with their “own leaders.” Samburu residents’ claims to exclusive entitlement to economic and employment rights, violence and prohibition against

Turkana livelihoods, and attempts to delegitimize Turkana economic claims by representing them as a threat to peace, can be understood as a means of protecting unstable rights.

Turkana residents—with the support of many Samburu residents who also felt discriminated against based on clan, regional, and political affiliations—attempted to bring a court case against the county government. While accusations of discriminatory public employment were accurate claims, the petitioners were unable to realize a resolution in their initial attempt to secure their economic rights through the courts. The court pointed to the existent mechanism of the County Public Service Board—the county institution that the petitioners had asked the court to hold accountable—as the institution through which the petitioners should have initially sought relief. However, dominated by Samburu members, and likely central to patronage, the Samburu County Public Service Board presented an obstacle to

Turkana residents hoping to call attention to discrimination in public employment.

While substantial changes in structural economic inequality and patronage politics were unlikely to be achieved within a short period following the introduction of new legislation and rights, county-level institutions offered important mechanisms for addressing practices of patronage and discrimination in public employment. Candidates for county government appear to have followed through on promises of patronage to their supporters during the 2013 elections.

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For the majority of counties, including Samburu, this has compromised the willingness of county governments to adhere to limitations on the representation of dominant ethnic groups in county government employment. The dominance of certain groups in county-level public employment, so far, reflects patterns of unequal access to employment at the national level. However, many

Samburu residents viewed the dominance of Samburu residents connected to leaders in county employment as a legitimate use of patronage to attain well-deserved representation of Samburu residents in positions of government once difficult to achieve.

Beyond the official ruling, residents’ provided their own explanations of issues that the court case had settled related to economic rights and who in the county was entitled to claim rights as a marginalized group. While the court ruling did not address the issue, many Samburu residents understood the petitioners’ “failure” as evidence that Turkana residents did not have a legitimate claim to economic rights and affirmative action for minority and marginalized groups.

Many Samburu and Turkana residents understood the belief that Turkana residents did not have a legitimate claim to economic rights as underpinning violence against Turkana livelihoods.

Struggles around who had rights to economic access and employment as a minority or marginalized group in the county also targeted Turkana residents’ participation in wageless work. Beyond formal rights outlined in the constitution, Turkana residents and Samburu residents against any ban on work or trade expressed economic rights as a demand for access to wageless work to secure their daily needs and survival. Turkana residents and their Samburu collaborators also enacted forms of neighborly economic cooperation across ethnic identities to boycott the ban on Turkana work and trade. Everyday practices of economic cooperation contrast sharply with ideas of cooperation explored in chapter five, where some Samburu-identified and

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multiethnic residents framed Turkana as breaking norms of cooperation expected from “guests” living in Samburu-controlled territory.

Turkana residents impacted by violence targeting their livelihoods expressed economic rights to wageless work in a different register from that available in formal legislation. The constitution and other legislation addressing economic discrimination and unequal employment largely focused on public employment. Yet for many Turkana residents impacted by violence their main concern was to secure their everyday survival through wageless work.

Formal avenues for claims to economic and employment rights have so far failed to provide a means for Samburu County residents engaged in wageless work to articulate claims to economic citizenship as a group beyond ethnically defined and ambiguous categories of minority and marginalized group. In the court cast against the Samburu County government, the petitioners framed their complaint in terms of the abuse of their formal economic rights as an ethnic group. However, Turkana residents’ often vocalized claims to wageless work based on shared basic needs for survival and everyday neighborly cooperation. I tentatively suggest that

Turkana and some Samburu residents began to articulate a right to pursue economic activities based on emergent forms of class-based solidarity that rejected ethnic identities and division.

Cooperation between Samburu and Turkana residents is certainly not a new form of inter- community relation. For Turkana, Samburu, and other pastoralist groups “partnership in trade, transaction, production, and marriages worked historically to weave together the biographies of people across diverse economies, social identities and ethnic groups” (Broch-Due 1999, 61). In contrast to top-down “political tribalism” espoused by politicians, John Lonsdale argues that inter-ethnic relations are a “precondition for the parallel, informal economy in which so many

Africans, with great ingenuity, not only hide from the greedy eye of the state but also negotiate a

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subsistence entitlement with ‘others’” (Lonsdale 2004: 80). In addition to labor as a site of division and hierarchical claims to belonging (Lonsdale 2008), shared conditions of precarity can provide the basis for cooperation and formations of neighborly social and economic relationships

(Lonsdale 2004).

Turkana residents’ claims to the necessary material conditions for exercising citizenship and securing everyday survival suggest a need to shift assessments of the success of legislation aimed at creating economic equality. Mary Moran asks, “What do people expect, in practical terms, of living in a democratic state? While political theorists may focus on elections, transparency, and governance, for most poor, rural people in nonindustrialized countries,

‘democracy’ is measured in more mundane amenities like clean running water or reliable electrical current” (Moran 2006, 124). In chapter five, Turkana residents showed that the ability to freely return to pursuing precarious livelihoods without fear of violence was a key condition for their meaningful political participation in electoral democracy. In this chapter, poor Turkana residents’ hopes for new economic and employment rights focused not on the promise of fully realized formal rights contained in recent legislation, but on more precarious, ephemeral rights to everyday livelihoods necessary for survival.

Turkana residents’ perception of economic citizenship, while focused on marginal economic access, was a significant claim to the need for a shift in their economic relationship to the Kenyan state. Formal rights to economic access and employment would only become a meaningful possibility once residents could first secure precarious livelihoods. Das and Poole

(2004:24) draw attention to the “ways in which the conceptual boundaries of the state are extended and remade in securing survival or seeking justice in the everyday.” The decentralization of political control of economic resources and responsibility for ensuring fair

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access to employment to county governments initially did little in terms of bringing meaningful economic citizenship to Turkana residents. Instead, the poorest Turkana residents’ of Samburu

County found the new county government to be unwilling to protect them from violence targeting their basic means of survival. Rather than measuring decentralization as the key factor in assessing the success of processes of democratic reform, legislative attempts to create economic equality need to be assessed in terms of citizens’ ability to secure everyday livelihoods. It is at the level of everyday survival that political shifts in state-formation are most acute.

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CHAPTER 8

“BE CAREFUL WITH UR WORDS”: ONLINE HARMFUL SPEECH AND NATIONAL

POLITICS

Hate speech spread through text messages, email, radio, and social media played an important role in—and was itself a form of—violence surrounding the 2007 and 2013 elections in Kenya (Cheeseman 2008; Goldstein and Rotich 2008; Kagwanja and Southall 2009; Trujillo et al 2014; Umati 2013). In the run up to the 2017 elections (scheduled for August) commentators have raised concerns about a rise in hate speech (Aling’o 2016; Somerville 2016) and several politicians were arrested after being accused of using hate speech (Agoya 2016;

Aling’o 2016). Following the Kenyan government’s violent crackdown on protests against the

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission led by the opposition party, observers and the media have expressed concerns over the possibility of electoral violence (Agoya 2016;

Aljazeera 2016; HRW 2016; USIP 2016). Elsewhere in the region monitors have pointed to the possibility for hate speech on social media to contribute to violence in South Sudan (LaRiche

2016; Sambuli 2016). Globally, international organizations including UNESCO, the European

Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and the Prism Project have expressed deep concern about the rise of online hate speech and the need for further studies of the connections between hate speech and violence (Gagliardone et al 2015; PRISM 2015; ECRI 2016). In this chapter, I focus on posts related to the violence that took place in Samburu County between late 2013 and early 2015 on the Facebook group Samburu East Development Forum (SEDF), established to discuss development in Samburu County. I pay particular attention to how SEDF members interpret and respond to harmful speech in social media posts and commentary. Many county residents, both Samburu and Turkana, encouraged me to include social media in my research to

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better understand how online comments directly contributed to—and were fast becoming a key part of—offline violence.

In March 2015, several months after I returned from Kenya and more than a year after the violence that happened during my fieldwork, a friend and fellow ethnographer sent me an instant message through Facebook. A mutual friend and research participant was very worried that violence would start again. There had been more livestock raids in the north of Samburu County.

News traveled and many people blamed Turkana raiders for taking innocent Samburu lives.

Residents of Maralal shared rumors about more possible attacks on Turkana.

Self-identified Samburu SEDF members posted direct threats against Turkana living in town. In a main post on the group’s page a Samburu-identified member condemned (what they referred to as) Turkana attacks commenting “…we don’t need these people anymore starting right [a]way from maralal…” While many responded to the post with comments accusing the poster of “hate speech” and “incitement,” many others agreed with the sentiment. One member encouraged others to “murder any nearby Turkana coz ukiasha leo kesho atakuua” [Swahili: if you leave them today, tomorrow they will kill].

A few days later, two men were shot and killed in a Turkana neighborhood on the edge of town. During my fieldwork in 2013 two other Turkana men from the same neighborhood were also shot and killed.

After the killings, SEDF members responded with a flurry of posts and comments. One poster asked why innocent people had been killed in town. Samburu-identified commentators questioned whether the men killed were really innocent. Some asked pointedly if the original poster was suggesting that Samburu herders killed in raids in the north were not also innocent.

Many Samburu members viewed the attacks as revenge for Turkana raids against Samburu in the

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north of the county. Some Samburu members even suggested that Turkana living in town were raiders from the north and so deserved to be targeted. Others, Samburu and Turkana, were quick to respond to this; how could an elderly man living in town, who owned no livestock and had little income, have been connected to these livestock raids? Some Samburu members responded by arguing that all Turkana were the same, whether they lived in town, further north, or in

Turkana County; they were criminals disturbing the peace.

Many members (identifying with various ethnic identities) read the original post and sympathetic responses to it as “hate speech” and as direct incitement to kill Turkana living in town. They urged members to stop promoting violence and hate and insisted that this was not the way to build peace in the county. Many self-identified Samburu members expressed their frustration at the seemingly constant killings of Samburu, arguing that the only way to achieve peace was to remove Turkana from the county once and for all. Posts calling for violence against

Turkana residents—and the varied responses to them—highlight common themes in how SEDF members identified and responded to harmful speech.

The examples I begin with could be clearly defined as “dangerous speech” that has the

“capacity to inspire or catalyse group violence” (Benesch 2014b, 22) and “includes both speech that qualifies as incitement and speech that makes incitement possible by conditioning its audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against people who belong to a targeted group” (Brown 2016, 7). However, much of the speech SEDF members identified as hate speech did not fall into an easily defined or identified category of speech. Rather than identifying hate speech according to specific pre-set standards, I instead focus on how SEDF members interpret and respond to speech that they identify as harmful.

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These social media posts are indicative of how residents and those connected to Samburu

County negotiate citizenship, political rights and recognition, and violence in the wake of devolution and the implementation of the 2010 constitution. I argue that through their use and interpretation of, and responses to, harmful speech SEDF members situate themselves as particular kinds of citizens and residents in relation to the Kenyan nation and Samburu County.

This is informed by members’ experiences of violence and political reforms and shaped by national discourse on hate speech, freedom of expression, and political authority.

Understanding Online Harmful Speech

Scholars have critically engaged with the ways that social media users understand, construct, discuss, and contest notions of citizenship in online spaces. While the Internet allows users to construct globalized identities outside of the nation-state, participants have largely used online forums to “strengthen, rather than weaken, national identities” (Eriksen 2007, 1). At the same time, diaspora populations have used the internet to create new claims to national belonging beyond citizenship limited to a national territory (Bernal 2014). Marginalized populations have taken advantage of opportunities for online representation to make strong claims to citizenship, national belonging, and participation in nation-building (Whitaker 2004;

Haynes 2016; Turner 2008). Online spaces provide platforms for open criticism of government where public criticism carries risks of violence (Turner 2008; Kendzior 2011). Aside from overt commentary on politics and citizenship, postings documenting mundane aspects of everyday life can also carry powerful political claims to normative citizenship that challenge dominant narratives of who counts as “real” citizens (Haynes 2016). Marginalized populations have also harnessed social media sites to document and challenge violence against their communities and their misrepresentation in mainstream media (Bonilla and Rosa 2015). Social media can open up

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sites for alternative representations of marginalized populations, dissent, and the expressions of what is normally “unspeakable” (Turner 2008) that challenge dominant national narratives.

Social media also serves as a site for contestations over who has the right to speak

(Doostdar 2004), exclusionary narratives, and the production of non-citizens (Vora 2012).

Marginalized populations and dissidents must carefully navigate social media sites that also provide spaces for attack and subversion (Kendzior 2011) and where users, despite some measure of anonymity, still construct a public voice and identity that carries offline risks

(Humphreys 2009).

Online constructions of citizenship often take place through struggles over what kinds of online information should be regarded as acceptable or valuable, or who should have access to the production and circulation of particular kinds of information (Bernal 2014; Kendzior 2011;

Vora 2012). Victoria Bernal uses the concept of “infopolitics” or the “relations of authorization and censorship that govern the ways knowledge is produced, accessed and disseminated” (Bernal

2014, 2) to highlight how the circulation of online information is intimately connected to political struggles and embedded within relations of power. Paying attention to “infopolitics,”

Bernal highlights “how political subjectivities are produced, policed, and transformed through the Internet” (Bernal 2014, 3). Bernal also asserts that “power, violence, and the politics of knowledge need to be placed at the center of analyses of the internet” (Bernal 2014, 8).

I combine Bernal’s insights with Judith Butler’s (1997) work on hate speech. Butler’s work moves beyond limited definitions of hate speech to show how hate speech is always connected to the invocation of particular subjectivities. In Kenya, hate speech invokes political and ethnic subjectivities and the specter of political tribalism—using the discrimination and exclusion of ethnic group identities to reach political ends. Furthermore, hate speech needs to be

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understood as a product of, and so inseparable from, mainstream political discourse (Butler

1997; Bell 2014). How SEDF members use, interpret, and respond to hate speech is shaped by a history of political violence connected to political reform, the political uses of hate speech accusations to combat dissent, and ongoing struggles over new constitutional rights and the devolution of power to new county governments.

Both Butler and Bernal focus on how through debates over what is acceptable or speakable, and attempts at censorship, people produce and reshape certain kinds of political subjectivities, claims to citizenship, and the exclusion of those rendered as non-citizens.

Together this provides me with a framework for understanding how SEDF members—by using speech that some members identify as harmful, countering speech they identify as harmful, and accusing others of hate speech—invoke and rework claims to citizenship, legitimate residency in the county, and national belonging.

Many Kenyans used social media and digital technologies to promote violence and spread misinformation and hate speech during the 2007 and 2013 elections. The 2007 elections were the first in which digital technologies played such an important role in influencing how elections and related violence unfolded (Kagwanja and Southall 2009). Technology enabled the fast spread of rumor and misinformation: “Never before had Kenyan voters been so privy to so much election-related information, and never had it been harder to sort fact from fiction”

(Cheeseman 2008, 169). Messages sent via cell phone, radio shows, social media and blogs used language that often encouraged the displacement or killing of ethnic groups seen to be aligned with political opponents (Goldstein and Rotich 2008; Kituri 2013). Hate speech contained frequent references to the damage certain ethnic groups had done to others and the country.

Those who spread harmful speech justified violence by citing historical injustices in terms of

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which ethnic groups had been given land and resources by the government, or had taken land and resources from others (Goldstein and Rotich 2008).

Kenyans have also used digital technology to monitor hate speech, launch campaigns to promote social cohesion, coordinate relief, and provide reliable information in attempts to reduce violence (Benesch 2014a; Goldstein and Rotich 2008; Trujillo et al 2014; Umati 2013). In response to the post-2007 election violence, the founder of the popular online forum Mashada created the website “I have no tribe” after the Mashada site received enormous amounts of posts containing hate speech (Benesch 2014b). In the run up to the 2013 elections, Sophie Umazi

Mvurya—a student, fashion designer, and rising global youth leader—launched the “I am

Kenyan” website and Facebook page as an attempt to promote peace during the election campaigns. Kenyans were asked to submit photos of themselves holding signs that read “I am

Kenyan.” The project received funding from corporate and development donors, but was primarily led by youth volunteers who also organized peace marches. Both online projects could be considered attempts to create “counterspeech” (Benesch 2014b, 7) that encourage Kenyans to reject speech that incites or condones violence. Both projects encourage Kenyans to refuse tribal or ethnic identities in favor of a unified national identity and point to division and discrimination based on ethnic identities (tribalism) as a key source of violence during elections.

During the peak of the post-2007 election violence the Ushahidi [Swahili: testimony] project—a technology company focused on crowdsourcing tools—set up an online crowdsourcing platform to map incidents of violence. Anyone with access to a cell phone or internet could report an incident of violence via SMS, email or social media. Ushahidi joined forces with iHub Research—a technology innovation organization—to develop the Umati

[Swahili: crowd] project to monitor online dangerous speech during the 2013 elections. In

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contrast to proclamations of a peaceful election, the Umati project reported sharp increases in instances of online dangerous speech before and after the 2013 election, suggesting that violence had "moved online" (Umati 2013, 26). The overwhelming majority of instances of dangerous speech recorded were posted on Facebook (Umati 2013, 24).

A particularly noteworthy finding of the project was a marked difference between how the project and members of the public defined and perceived hate speech. Members of the public asked to identify and rate hate speech as part of a study control, identified more instances of hate speech than official project monitors (working with a definition of dangerous speech modeled on

Benesch 2013). Going beyond the limited definition of hate speech in the National Cohesion and

Integration Act—focusing on speech aimed at inciting ethnic hatred—members of the public also identified “personal insults, propaganda and negative commentary about politicians as hate speech” (Umati 2013, 6). This suggests that many Kenyans identify examples of speech that would not normally be classified as “hate speech” under standard definitions—and in Kenyan legislation—as harmful.

A report on violence following the 2013 elections in Marsabit County, which neighbors

Samburu, found that posts on social media and SMS messages contained a "sense of double meaning" (Scott-Villiers et al 2014, 13). Commenting on Kenyan politicians’ rhetoric, Haugerud

(1995, 2) describes how “indirect messages float between orators and hearers. Speakers maneuver within constraints on what is and is not publicly speakable. Listeners draw their own inferences, construct their own interpretations. Missteps on either side can be dangerous, even fatal. The possibilities for confusion, deception, ambiguity, and contradiction are endless.” The potentially concealed, multiple, or additional meanings that Kenyan politicians’ often use in their public speech makes it difficult for Kenyan citizens to interpret whether there might be harmful

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speech in their words. Umati’s findings, along with SEDF members’ multiple interpretations of harmful speech, suggest that this ambiguity and potential for concealed harmful speech extends to commentary on social media.

Defining hate speech is a difficult task. Some researchers attempting to document and prevent hate speech argue that it is necessary to explicitly and carefully define hate speech in order to address, prevent and prosecute hate crimes (Benesch 2013; Umati 2013). Commentators have criticized the Kenyan government for failing to provide clear definitions and guidelines for hate speech, making it difficult to prosecute (Martin et al 2013; HRW 2013; Umati 2013). At the same time, the “distinction between hate speech and other types of speech is highly dependent on historical and social context” (Bell 2014, 634). A limited definition or categorization of “hate speech” risks missing certain forms of speech that may be harmful and loses a more nuanced understanding of how people perceive and respond to speech that they identify as harmful.

Understanding the social and political contexts that hate speech is embedded in helps to reveal how definitions of hate speech are produced and contested and to what ends. Hate speech directed against an ‘outsider’ group can produce ideas of social difference that are used to police intragroup adherence to ethnic, national and cultural norms (Bille 2013). Alternative definitions of hate speech can be used to deny hate in response to accusations (Boromisza-Habashi 2012).

Some hate speech takes on the appearance of acceptable speech that conforms to social norms

(Sorial 2015). Such speech requires careful deciphering to understand its potential harm, an act that Kenyans, and SEDF members, often engage in on a daily basis. Online struggles over hate speech focused on Samburu County have been shaped by how hate speech has been defined and interpreted in national political discourse and legislation that developed during reforms in the wake of the post-2007 election violence.

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Hate Speech and the Right to Freedom of Expression

Debates around hate speech in Kenya center on two key issues: how to reduce ethnic division and a potential repeat of violence similar to that of the post-2007 election crisis; and ongoing struggles over the constitutional right to freedom of expression and government attempts to limit media freedoms. How Kenyans connected to Samburu County interpret and respond to online harmful speech is strongly influenced by this larger national context around hate speech and freedom of expression. Importantly, political rhetoric on “hate speech” and the abuse of hate speech legislation can be used as a tool for political violence and repression as much as hate speech itself.

The Kenyan government, independent observers, national NGOs and international monitors pointed to hate speech—especially incitement to violence against particular ethnic groups through media or digital technology—as an area of high concern after the post-2007 election violence. Those involved in the mediation efforts were concerned with preventing future violence at election times through limiting and prosecuting hate speech offences. The National

Cohesion and Integration Act (NCIA) of 2008 was a key part of legislative reform aimed at promoting national unity and eliminating ethnic discrimination. Section 13 of the NCIA defines hate speech as “the use of threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour” where a person intends to “stir up ethnic hatred,” or, given the context, “ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up.”

Section 62 outlines the “offence of ethnic or racial contempt” where “Any person who utters words intended to incite feelings of contempt, hatred, hostility, violence, or discrimination against any person, group, or community on the basis of ethnicity or race, commits an offence.”

The offence also extends to any “newspaper, radio station, or media enterprise.” The 2010 constitution does not define hate speech, but includes hate speech under Article 33 as one of the acceptable limits on the right to freedom of expression. 237

Journalists’ and bloggers’ associations, human rights organizations and international monitors of internet and democratic freedoms have expressed concern at the use of the above laws—including accusations of hate speech—to censor, threaten, and prosecute Kenyan bloggers and social media users and infringe on their rights to freedom of expression (Akaki 2015;

CIPESA 2014; Freedom House 2015; KCA 2014; KHRC 2014). The Kenya Human Rights

Commission (KHRC) have expressed concern that the broad definition of hate speech in the

NCIA “amounts to a claw-back of the freedom of expression” and that “the law has been narrowly and emotionally applied to limit otherwise legitimate expression to the extent that expressing an unfavourable opinion about a person from a different ethnic group is almost synonymous with hate speech” (KHRC 2014, 26). Kenyan observers are also concerned that the narrow application of hate speech legislation to ethnic hatred means that others forms of hate speech and discrimination (e.g. religion, sexual orientation)—specified in the 2010 constitution—are not prosecuted (Gathara 2106; KHRC 2014; Umati 2013).

The Kenyan government introduced the controversial Kenya Information and

Communications Act (KICA) in 2013. Section 29 of the KICA details that anyone who uses a

“licensed telecommunication system” to send “a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” or that the person “knows to be false for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety to another person” commits an offence. In 2015, the Kenyan government arrested and charged multiple Kenyan bloggers and social media users under section 29 of the KICA “mainly for their online commentary criticizing government officials” (Freedom House 2015; See also KHRC 2014; CIPESA 2014).

The Kenyan government has arrested, charged and threatened popular Kenyan blogger

Robert Alai—an outspoken critic of the government—multiple times for allegedly insulting a

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government official and undermining President Uhuru Kenyatta (BBC 2014; Freedom House

2015; KHRC 2014). In May 2013 the government charged Alai with hate speech under the

NCIA alleging that his twitter post claiming that opposition candidates were excluded from a ballot was intended to create ethnic division (KHRC 2014; Maina 2013; Matata 2013). In another case, the Kenyan government arrested a 24 year-old university student for social media commentary that accused the governor of Embu County of corruption (Akaki 2015; Freedom

House 2015; Wangari 2015).

In 2016, following the appeal of a social media user arrested for misuse of a licensed telecommunication system, the high court ruled section 29 of the KICA unconstitutional

(Kamadi 2016; Ochieng 2016). The high court asserted that section 29 did not meet the requirements of Article 24 of the 2010 constitution (Kamadi 2016), which states that limitations on the freedom of expression must be “reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality, and freedom.”

The Kenyan government has also used the threat of terrorism—after multiple attacks on

Kenyans claimed by Al-Shabaab in response to Kenyan troops in Somalia—to attempt to push through laws that limit media freedoms. In April 2014, the chairperson of the National Steering

Committee on Media Monitoring, Mary Ombara, accused human rights lawyers—who had criticized the government’s security operations—of hate speech (Benesch 2014b; Capital FM

2014; Wanzala 2014). The lawyers had spoken out against the targeting of Kenyan-Somalis,

Somali migrants and Kenyan Muslim populations during the Kenyan government’s security crackdown in the wake of the 2013 Westgate Mall attack, claimed by Somali militant group Al-

Shabaab. Ombara referred to the lawyers’ claims that particular ethnically identified groups were being targeted in security operations as “hate messages” that were a “threat to national cohesion

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and security” (Wanzala 2014). Ombara asserted that media coverage of government security operations must be “accurate and objective for our country’s well-being” and argued that “The war against terrorism…did not target any particular community” (Wanzala 2014). Ombara targeted her comments at bloggers and postings on social media, suggesting that “These communities tend to appeal to public emotion through unsubstantiated media statements such as

‘We are treated as fourth class citizens’, ‘security operations target us’, or ‘we are restricted in concentration camps.’ ” (Ombara quoted in Wanzala 2014).

The targeting, abusive treatment, and mass arrests of Somalis and Muslims during the

Kenyan security force’s Operation Usalama [Swahili: peace (derived from Arabic)] Watch has been extensively documented by human rights groups and other observers (Aling’o 2014;

Amnesty International 2014; Human Rights Watch 2014). Part of Ombara’s argument hinges on the idea that making “unsubstantiated” claims about the treatment of a particular ethnic group can create ethnic divisions – thus rendering it hate speech. However, Ombara’s definition of hate speech also includes a threat to “national cohesion and security.” Demands for objective information and the representation of criticism of the government as a threat to cohesion and security—tactics used to silence political opposition—also appeared frequently on social media posts related to Samburu County.

Hate speech and other derogatory commentary has been a central part of political discourse in Kenya (Haugerud 1997; Somerville 2011; Wamwere 2003). In the early 90s the ruling KANU party threatened the opposition and made covert comments calling for violence against those opposed to one-party rule (Haugerud 1997, 76-77). After the first multi-party elections in 1992, and the political violence surrounding the elections, political discourse that used dehumanizing and denigrating language to characterize political opponents became

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increasingly normalized (Somerville 2011). The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights reported the use of hate speech, incitement to violence, and insults against opponents during the

2005 constitutional referendum and the 2007 presidential elections (KNHRC 2005; KNHRC

2007; Somerville 2011). During the 2013 elections, politicians accused each other of hate speech, which politicians have also used as a political tool in previous election campaigns

(Benesch 2014b; Somerville 2011).

Samburu Development Forum

Many county residents I spoke to told me that social media was an important source of political incitement to violence, hate, and discrimination against Turkana residents in the county.

Staff members working with a local NGO running peace-building projects told me that Facebook added to conflict: social media allowed information, especially incitement and rumor, to travel quickly. Residents would often begin conversations with “I read on Facebook that…” It appeared that social media were able to provoke intense emotions on a daily basis. One morning my research assistant was eager to share her social media experiences, exclaiming “I opened my

Facebook this morning and wow! People were saying terrible things!”

During conversations, often on unrelated topics, county residents repeatedly pointed me to a particular Facebook group. The Samburu Development Forum (SDF) is a Facebook group which aims to create an online community to discuss development in Samburu County. In their group description the administrators—a small group of Samburu professionals—describe SDF as

“8yrs strong in dedicated info sharing.” They emphasize the power of information and that SDF

“offers the Samburu county populace, Diaspora Community from the county, Samburu leaders and stakeholders…valuable information which can impact on their lives and that of the larger society positively.” While the forum initially focused on development policy in Samburu East, it

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has expanded to include the whole county. As of May 2017 SDF had more than 17, 000 members. The number of members has more than tripled since I started research into SDF in late

2013, and grew by about 7000 between 2016 and 2017. This rise suggests that more and more

Kenyans who live in, or have a stake in, the county are eager to participate in online discussions regarding the county, and reflects increasing access to social media. While initially, SDF focused on Samburu East, it quickly grew to include discussions of the whole county.

SDF members use a mix of English, Swahili, Samburu, and sometimes Turkana, to create online colloquial styles of speech that contain layered and nuanced meanings and that incorporates online slang and abbreviations. Much of the often very sophisticated speech on SDF requires careful interpretation, even by members. The multiple potential meanings in layered speech also at times enables members to use harmful speech.

As an open Facebook group, any Facebook user can see posts shared to the group's page and any Facebook user can join. However, members often impose boundaries beyond those of the digital infrastructure Facebook provides. Although the group is public, much of the information I analyze is of a sensitive nature and many members assume that the information they share in the group stays within an online community. The popularity of SDF and national media coverage of the Samburu County government’s arrest of one of its members, makes it effectively impossible to conceal the identity of the group. However, to protect members’ identities, I do not use the identifying information for members (with the exception of the member reported on in national media).

I focus on posts and comments made between three months and two years after the 2013 elections. In particular, I consider multiple interpretations of “hate speech” in posts and comments related to county leaders and violence. I center my analysis on posts that drew large

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numbers of comments or were deleted and the poster blocked by the group’s admin. I focus on posts that sparked controversy because these were the posts and commentary that residents drew my attention to and viewed as an important part of incitement and violence. Rather than starting with a standard definition of hate speech and then collecting examples—as projects focused on monitoring and preventing hate speech tend to—I instead allowed residents to direct me to what they interpreted as harmful speech. Following residents’ guidance, I attempted to trace the ways in which online and offline events and interactions shape each other (Coleman 2010; Juris 2012) and how SDF participants understood the connections between online and offline speech. I also conducted offline interviews and discussions, where Facebook was both a planned and unplanned topic, as well as private online chat conversations.

SDF provides an important source of news and information. Members share local and national news from recognized outlets as well as ‘unofficial’ news about local politics and events usually not reported on. Members contribute posts and comments on a range of issues such as the successes and failures of local development projects and the performance of local government.

Members share news and information relevant to the county, post job announcements, information about cultural events, political happenings, and county leaders. Often members share more lighthearted details: European soccer results, photos of the county’s landscape and people, or jokes and anecdotes often related to Kenyan politics or Samburu culture.

SDF is not the only county-focused online discussion group on Facebook or other social media websites, however, it is the most active and has the highest number of members. Many prominent county leaders, including a Member of Parliament (MP) and a nominated senator, have their own Facebook pages promoting the work they have done in the county and representing the county on the national stage. The county government maintains its own website

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and regularly posts on its Facebook page. Many local NGOs use social media, in particular

Facebook, to market events, disseminate information and promote their projects as successful.

Many residents equate social media with news, which appears to be common across

Kenya. Kenyan university students reported favoring Facebook for accessing news over online news sites and that social media was an important source of political information (Auma and

Mukhongo 2013). In the wake of the 2007 elections, social media and blogs increased in popularity as a source of news (Trujillo 2014). During the contested elections, the Kenyan government imposed a media blackout, and unofficial online news became the only source of news (Goldstein and Rotich 2008). This has led many Kenyans to view mainstream media outlets as suspect and out of touch with the realities of everyday life (Trujillo et al 2014). The

Kenyatta government, and previous governments, have threatened and introduced laws that curb media freedoms and Kenyan activists have criticized silencing of journalists as an attack on democracy (Martin et al 2013).

How county news is reported by national and local journalists is a subject of controversy.

While in a café, Francis—a professional living in Maralal—publicly heckled a local journalist for avoiding criticizing the local government in a recent report. In an attempt to establish credibility several SDF commentators presented their online commentary as leaking the truth about local political affairs. A former county leader told me about what they saw as the importance of SDF: “It’s now out, that there is [livestock] raiding going on, but the media is being suppressed. In terms of news, it is [SDF]. Otherwise the media has been bought. So much is going on in Samburu, but they won’t report it.”

In an online discussion a member told me that SDF “is a platform actually for Samburu

[County], whereby we air issues that affect our community at large. Many things got reformed

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through it. That’s actually what impressed me. [SDF] is an easy way to make our concerns reach leaders.” Several county leaders maintain their own social media pages and one leader actively responded in real-time to comments addressing them on SDF. However, as much as this member held hope for the possibilities of SDF to transform the county, they also worried that SDF was misused and would not reach its potential: “maybe people are yet to comprehend that actually we can use social media at least to share info that’s of impact to the society and moreso that [can] eradicate tribalism and ethnicity.” For this member, SDF should be used to better the county by countering hate speech and ethnic discrimination. Many SDF members agreed that hate speech and tribalism should not appear on the group. How SDF should be used and what kinds of speech

SDF members interpret as unacceptable appears in attempts to censor and block members and the ways in which SDF members promote and contest what they understand as censorship.

“That Is Not The Way To Express It Little Sister”: Silencing Imposters

In the following, I trace how SDF members’ attempts to limit, silence, and counter harmful speech—and members’ responses to accusations of “hate speech”—produce a discourse around legitimate residents and citizens and the power and freedom that differently positioned residents have to speak on political issues.

During a conversation in April 2014, Mary brought a comment on Facebook that a lot of people had been talking about to my attention. Someone openly identifying as Turkana had posted a comment criticizing the county governor. Mary claimed they were only criticizing the governor because another Samburu was hired by the government and not a Turkana. Mary and her husband work for government departments in the county. They have two young children, are relatively comfortable, and identify strongly as Samburu.

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I logged on to SDF to view the post. The poster claimed that the governor was not providing equal employment opportunities to all ethnic groups. This seemed like a fair claim to me and certainly not one that should provoke an uproar. As I describe in chapter six, a group of

Turkana professionals brought a court case against the county government claiming employment discrimination. The complainants accused the county government of refusing to employ not only

Turkana, but also Samburu clans beyond the Governor’s own. Despite national criticism of discrimination in county government employment and growing evidence that Samburu was one of many counties failing to meet the requirements of legislation on fair employment (see chapter six), many Samburu-identified SDF members called for the poster to delete their comment and for the admins to block them from SDF. Admins deleted the post and demanded an apology from the poster, who complied.

Another member, openly identifying as Samburu, posted an angry response to the deleted thread claiming that it was “abuse” of the governor and “blanket sarcasm to the whole tribe of samburu people.” The member called for the offending poster to be blocked and suggested that they should be sued by the governor. The post received almost 200 comments within 24 hours.

Multiple Samburu-identified members responded with calls to block the member who posted the deleted thread and suggested that Turkana should create a Facebook page for themselves. One member posted “if samburus abuse [the Samburu governor], it’ not a big deal coz he is our leader moreso brother…but for turkanas No way.” Another poster suggested that Turkana should keep quiet or go to “their” county and should “know that thiz ix our county nt theirs.” Another poster claimed that Turkana were in “our county” illegally, commenting “wash out plz.”

Both Samburu and Turkana members came to the defense of the original poster, arguing that there was no need to block them as they had already apologized and the post had been

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deleted. Others went even further, asserting that the original post was a fair comment on the county government and that to highlight problems with the county government did not amount to insulting county leaders. Several comments pointed out that other members were posting far worse accusations directed at leaders. Multiple members accused those who responded with criticism and derogatory comments aimed at the original poster as “hate speech.” A Turkana- identified member asserted that “We are bona fide residents of Samburu county.”

While criticism of the county governor would not constitute harmful speech under standard definitions of hate speech, many SDF members interpreted it as “abuse” and deemed it to be an unacceptable post. In part, this is because the poster identified as Turkana and presented a political threat to the governor. Criticism of the Turkana poster challenged the ability of the poster to freely express their political opinion. For many Samburu SDF members, it was only acceptable for Samburu residents to critique a Samburu leader. In response, both Samburu and

Turkana members argued that Turkana should be able to critique the county government, that they are legitimate residents, and that hate speech against Turkana and the silencing of Turkana voices is unacceptable.

In a second post from June 2014, a member—using a pseudonym that identified their gender as a woman, but that left their ethnicity unclear—accused a Member of Parliament (MP) of stirring up emotions instead of calming down the October 2013 protest (see chapter five), behaving unprofessionally in a television appearance discussing violence in the county, and of favoring their own ethnic group (Samburu) for employment. The poster ended with “Some r not to be posted here becoz we respect ur office,” suggesting that they had restrained themselves from making inappropriate comments. I found out about the post from a staff member at a local

NGO who told me that someone had threatened the poster by claiming that there would be a

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“price on her head.” In the first few comments someone had posted “That Is Not The Way To

Express It Little Sister You Will Put A Price On Your Head.” This policing of online speech contained a clear threat of violence.

Multiple Samburu-identified members called for the poster to be blocked. Alarmed by the controversy that the post had created and bowing to pressure from members, admin deleted the post and blocked the user. Several Samburu-identified supporters of the MP asserted that he was a “warrior leader” who was “forever.” Some even argued that, although elected, the MP was chosen by God. Others accused the poster of being an “imposter”:

what r u?? an imposter?? u r so ashamed of urself that u hide ur identity!! u r lAtis [MP] victim he wil keep going over you time again n again..

Lati [MP] is 4 samburus all imposters hate him becoz he is a real warrior

hon lati [MP] ix a leader who has samburus in his heart n loves his pple…stop concealing ur identity u must b an imposter

Another post accused the woman of being a “refugee,” suggesting that they should “go back” to

Turkana County. Others referred to the self-identified woman as “Mr.,” questioning their gender.

Some users demanded that the “imposter” reveal their photo and identity card. Another poster asked “Na huyu [poster’s ID] ni msamburu kweli?” [Swahili: And this [poster], are they really a

Samburu?] Another Samburu-identified member posted a comment:

Lati [MP] is tryin to clean the already rotten sc [Samburu County] to get us share of resources which u deprived us durin former MP Lesirma time. If u feel agigated go back to ur homeland en return after 50yrs of Hon. LATI [MP] rule. SC broom

Here this poster asserts that Turkana took away resources from Samburu during the former MP’s term. The former MP was widely held up by many Turkana as an upstanding Samburu leader who eschewed tribalism and supported Turkana rights. The poster’s description of the current

MP as “SC broom” suggests they are a broom who will sweep Samburu County clean of

Turkana, who the poster asserts should return to their “homeland” of Turkana County. This “go 248

back to your county” narrative was used by many Kenyans before and after the 2013 elections

(Carrier and Kochore 2014).

Several members, Samburu and Turkana, supported the original poster, claiming that they spoke the truth. One member soundly critiqued the comparison of leaders to warriors, arguing that people want peace, not fighting. Another member urged “mwache moransm n styl up hii ni wakati wa laptops” [Swahili/English: leave moranism (warriorhood) and style up this is the time of laptops]. The suggestion here is that the institution of warriorhood is outdated and leaders should look towards a “digital” future with “digital leaders” who leave behind the analogue era of political tribalism. Others called for the admin to unblock the poster. On another Facebook group the original poster provided their name, place of residence and photo. They claimed to be a

Samburu woman, just as they had said, and that they were against corrupt leaders in the county.

“Imposter” accusations on SDF were not uncommon. Many members who said supposedly controversial statements about political leaders were accused of being Turkana, or sympathizing with Turkana because they had a Turkana spouse or partner. Imposter had multiple meanings ranging from members who used a fake identity to stir up political trouble on SDF, to someone who betrayed their identity as a citizen and resident of Samburu County, to illegitimate residents who did not have the right to speak (especially on political matters). “Imposter,” then, refers not only to someone who hides their identity, but can also be applied to someone who is identified as belonging to a particular (Turkana) ethnic identity—and either claiming another identity or not being open about their identity. Here, imposter is defined as someone who is out of place, an illegitimate resident who threatens the integrity of the county and the right of

Samburu residents to political resources and representation.

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The blocking of the poster by admin and the deletion of their post worked to confirm the

“imposter” status of the poster and undermined their right and freedom to speech. Attempts to portray the poster as an imposter also acted to police Samburu members who did not hold loyalty to Samburu leaders that many Samburu claimed provided strong representation for Samburu residents. In many posts the similar term “traitor” was also used against those charged with being imposters and Turkana speakers.

Sometimes members spoke back to accusations of being an imposter. In another post a

Samburu-identified man critiqued the local government. When challenged and accused of being an imposter and of not being a “true” Samburu, the poster responded that they were indeed

Samburu, but not the kind of Samburu other members suggested they should be. In response to a post calling Turkana “uncircumcised dogz” another member exclaimed “ur calling them DOG! mi ni samburu [I am Samburu] but i don’t like hate speech!” Accusations of impostor also policed Samburu members’ speech—both Samburu-identified members who critiqued the government and those who called out other Samburu for using harmful speech.

While the Samburu-identified woman’s criticism of the current Samburu MP would not fall under standard definitions of hate speech, admin blocked her for the comment, condemning it as unacceptable and harmful speech. However, admin, while often challenging anti-Turkana language, did not block members using clear examples of dangerous speech portraying Turkana as illegitimate residents, a political threat to the county, as “rotten” and as needing to be swept or removed from the county. Partly this may have been because members did not call for this speech to be blocked. In both of the above examples, there are strong similarities to examples that have gained national attention where the government has accused social media users and bloggers of hate speech in an attempt to censor their online criticism of leaders.

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Struggles over acceptable speech on SDF connect to national debates around hate speech and limitations on the democratic right to freedom of expression. While online commentary on

SDF often mirrored national political rhetoric and use of hate speech legislation, the Samburu county government also used legislation aimed at media control to attack the online commentary of one SDF member. In March 2016 the county government arrested a prominent poster on

SDF—using the name “Samburuleaks”— for “improper use of telecommunication system with an intention of causing annoyance and unrest to the Samburu County governor Moses Lenolkulal and residents” (Keti 2016). The county governor claimed that the man behind Samburuleaks made false comments about him and attempted to sue him under section 29 of the KICA.

Samburuleaks openly promoted the rising political opposition in the county and was a strong critic of the county government. Content posted by Samburuleaks often included information that he claimed represented secretive political maneuvers in the county and the impending takeover of a new group of elites. In response to his arrest, Samburuleaks posted a comment to SDF accusing the governor of making “free speech illegal in Samburu.” Within a month of his arrest, the operator of Samburuleaks became the “first beneficiary” (Keti 2016) of the high court ruling that declared section 29 of KICA unconstitutional. This first victory of citizen journalists and social media users over government attempts to limit the constitutional right to freedom of expression was closely followed and reported on SDF.

Samburuleaks was the same member who responded to the Turkana member’s criticism of the governor in the first example by accusing them of “abuse” of the “whole tribe of Samburu people” and calling for them to be sued by the governor. This points to the nuances of attempts to limit or silence criticism of the county government on SDF. When Samburuleaks was arrested,

SDF members rallied in support, denouncing the governor’s treatment of him. The arrest of

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Samburuleaks showed how seriously the county government takes criticism on social media, and in particular, on SDF. This was not the first time that Samburuleaks had publicly critiqued the governor or the county government on SDF and past Samburuleaks posts were not significantly challenged by the SDF admin or other members. It was only after Samburuleaks openly allied himself with a group of political elites intending to challenge the current governor in the 2017 elections that he was targeted. Before this, he had largely framed himself as a critical supporter of the county government.

SDF members often called into question challenges to speech through admins blocking members, deleting posts, or posting warnings against abusive or insulting speech. While admins attempted to construct themselves as politically neutral, many members challenged their interventions. Members did not always view the actions and decisions of admins as fair and some members expressed a belief that admins maintained a political or ethnic bias. Some Samburu- identified members complained that admin had “sketchy” rules for deciding who should be blocked. Others posted often sarcastic warnings—“admins are watching”—when discussions headed toward controversial subjects.

Members occasionally warned others that they would be “taken to the Hague” if they used what could be perceived as hate speech. Here, members referenced the International

Criminal Court (ICC) case where the 2013 candidates for president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and deputy president, William Ruto, stood accused of inciting and organizing violence during the post-2007 election violence (Lynch 2014). This warning was used in two senses. The first was a reminder that hate speech is a crime, and a form of unacceptable violence, for which national leaders should be held accountable. The second was a more sarcastic warning to be careful what you said in case it was taken to be hate speech and silenced. Here, Samburu-identified members

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referred to a policing of speech that they saw as acceptable and as statement of fact: Turkana really did threaten the peace of the county (where peace is read as political consensus and lack of criticism of the government—see chapter four).

In the ICC case, Kenyatta and Ruto banded together in political alliance (the Jubilee

Alliance). Claiming persecution by the ICC helped persuade many Kenyans to elect Kenyatta and Ruto as leaders who, despite the accusations against them, would be able to keep the peace

(Lynch 2014). Many county residents, NGO staff, and former leaders, told me that the often unsuccessful prosecution of local leaders for inciting violence improved their popularity by proving their worth as a “warrior” for their people. Outside of Kenya, prosecution for hate speech has been shown to increase support for politicians and their parties (van Spanje 2015).

Not only did Kenyatta and Ruto win the 2013 election, the ICC dropped the case against them due to a lack of evidence after the Kenyan government failed to provide requested information.

In Kenya, hate speech is tied to the enduring impunity of leaders (Amutabi and Nasong’o 2012) and leaders continue to be involved in using hate speech, with few public sanctions (HRW

2013). Political leaders often accuse their opponents of hate speech while denying their own implications in hate speech and incitement of ethnic hatred and political violence (Benesch

2014b). By challenging attempts to limit their speech, and charging admins and other posters with ethnic and political bias, SDF members could reject accusations of hate speech directed at them, paralleling the actions of national leaders.

“We are all Kenyans”: Documenting Livestock Raids and Producing National Belonging

Through reports on livestock raids, SDF members could crowd-source documentation of violence in Samburu County in a similar way to projects like Ushahidi that allowed anyone with access to social media to report violence during elections. Mainstream media rarely report on

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raids and often when they do, coverage emphasizes large raids that make for shocking stories

(McCabe 2004). Reports tend to simplify and sensationalize raids, emphasizing the backwardness of northern counties, portraying them as ‘lawless’ regions full of constant tribal conflict embedded in local traditions (Straight 2009). In contrast, SDF commentary acted as

“real-time” reports on raids as they unfolded as members requested and provided live updates.

Staff at county-based NGOs suggested that social media updates on raiding played an important role in violence through incitement and raising tensions between residents. I provide an overview of livestock raids in chapter four.

The first commentary I examine reports on a livestock raid at the end of March 2014 in the north of Samburu County where raiders reportedly stole livestock from Samburu residents living in the area of Tuum and killed Samburu herders. This raid attracted more than 450 comments across two threads in a period of two days. Many posts began with prayers asking for

God’s protection for the county leaders who had traveled to the area to try and address the raid.

However, posters quickly began to submit negative comments against Turkana residents, much of which could be defined as dangerous speech.

“eliminate these turkanas in our county”

“these ‘hyenas’ should go”

“Turkana to return to Turkana County, then we get peace”

“they’re [Turkana] in our county n stealing from us every day”

One poster claimed that Turkana (this was not confirmed in SDF updates) raiders who stole cows had wives and children in Maralal and should leave with their families. Claims of Turkana raiders returning to Maralal after taking part in raids further north in the county were common throughout the violence beginning at the end of 2013 (see chapter four). As reports came in detailing how many livestock had been stolen, where the raiders and livestock were, and how 254

many were injured or killed, some argued that this information should not be shared as it could endanger leaders. A Samburu-identified poster critical of hate speech directed at Turkana was accused of being Turkana and feeding raiders information. Two Turkana-identified posters were accused of being “cattle rustlers.”

Many members criticized what they saw as “hate speech” against Turkana and the admins asked members not to “abuse” each other. Members posted statements like “Why should you criminalize all Turkanas?” and “Why criminalize innocent Turks in town.” A Samburu- identified poster commented “lets respect humanity” and “lets not abuse the whole tribe.” Others responded to accusations of hate speech and abuse by insisting that raiders were Turkana, one poster even suggesting that “all Turkana are involved in raiding in Samburu County.”

After reports came in suggesting that security forces and county leaders failed to retrieve the stolen livestock or apprehend the raiders, commentators began to suggest that Turkana received government assistance when they are raided, while Samburu did not. Several Samburu- identified posters questioned if Samburu were “lesser citizens?” One poster asked “Are we not

Kenyans?” suggesting that the government would have intervened if the raids had targeted

Kikuyu (an ethnic group considered to be well-represented by the national government and president). Another asked “is Tuum not part of SC [Samburu County]?” Another member commented “The Turkanas in our county will always do anything they want, why? They know they can always go to court just in case we violate their constitutional rights.” The assertion here was that constitutional rights protected criminal raiders, but did not protect Samburu residents.

Six weeks later in May 2014, SDF members reported that livestock had been stolen from

Turkana residents in Nachola, a constituency in the north with a large Turkana population and represented by the only Turkana MCA (Member of the County Assembly) in the county. This

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post received almost 200 comments. As in previous postings, many members called for the county government to intervene, one member suggesting that “county leaders will have to do something at last… unless Nachola is not in Samburu County.” This claim to the legitimate residency and representation of Turkana residents was quickly challenged through attempts to reverse the underlying logic. Multiple comments from Samburu-identified members instead asked why the government did not intervene and return cows taken in the Tuum raid. One member argued that the government should intervene “only on one condition”; that Turkana

“stop attacking Samburus and return Tuum cows.” Another Samburu-identified member asked

“why don’t they [the county government] show some cooperation and response when we are attacked? Helping them [Turkana] isn’t an option because we’re all citizens of the same county…” The same poster also claimed that “partisan selective disaster response is a strong reason to believe that some citizens are more important than others.” This poster’s claim was that if the county government assisted Turkana residents who had been raided, but had failed to recover livestock after Samburu residents were raided, then it would show that Samburu were not treated as full citizens of the county with the same rights as Turkana—reversing the logic of others who asserted that Turkana were a marginalized population that deserved equal rights. In this argument, Samburu claimed a marginalized position and their need for government assistance and representation so that they can realize their full rights under the new constitution.

In addition to multiple calls for the Tuum cows to be recovered (suggesting that this needed to happen before Turkana receive assistance), multiple members also suggested that

Turkana residents deserved to be raided.

“what goes around comes around”

“This hyenas have eaten alot from our side”

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“let them feel the pain we felt”

“let them feel tht pain….!!!!we now celebrate”

These justifications of violence against Turkana could be considered as dangerous speech since they condone (or even “celebrate”) violence and compare Turkana to “hyenas” considered to be gluttonous and a threat to livestock (comparison to vermin and undesirable animals is a hallmark of dangerous speech according to Benesch 2014a; 2013).

Both Samburu-identified and Turkana-identified posters responded critically to these comments, one commentator responding to the celebration of Turkana pain with “don’t act like a devil.” A Samburu-identified poster argued that Nachola is in Samburu County and that “de security personel of de county should respond quickly to safe de life people no matter which tribe do they belong.” One of the admins commented, “The county commissioner to exercise his powers and offer full security to the affected residents without delay. Everybody has right to security.”

Others clearly identified posts condoning violence against Turkana as hate speech and attempted to counter harmful and divisive speech with appeals to unified regional, religious, and national identities.

whether a turkana, pokot, or Samburu we are all Kenyans and children of God. the blood shed from all is red and punishable b4 the eyes of the Lord. let us avoid these hate comments

for this once let us leave politics aside. As we go 2 church tomorrow, let us remember what we are posting 2day…Let us move on and forget those who stir hatred

pliz to you all lets refrain from commenting hatred to each other…Lets respect each other even if we not in good terms as neighbours coz of seasonal cattle rustling which both sides are doing so to the other (posted by admin)

Lets pray for our samburu people living in Nachola. There are no Turkana in baragoi [larger region that includes Nachola and Tuum], we are all Samburu people

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These comments drew on the kinds of rhetoric and counter speech used in national online campaigns like “I am Kenyan” and “I have no tribe.” This version of inclusive nationalism challenges the kinds of political rhetoric around hate speech used to target marginalized communities. Appeals to unity challenge attempts to use the rhetoric of constitutional rights and citizenship to condone violence against Turkana. In this inclusive rhetoric, no one can be an illegitimate resident or citizen without the right to security and government assistance.

Turkana-identified posters also challenged hate speech and appeals to citizenship condoning violence by pointing to political realities in the county. One member commented,

“We know very well the Governor is not for the Turkana.” This poster suggested that it was incorrect to assert that the government did not assist Samburu by claiming it was widely known that the county government has not treated Turkana fairly. Another member commented that “it seems we are gagged here. when a Turkana expresses what they feel, it becomes hate speech. but when Nachola cows are compared to Tuum it is not hate speech.” This poster pointed to the apparent double-standard of members’ attempts to limit or silence speech they identified as harmful on SDF. They argued that while much of what Turkana members said was identified and limited by other members and admins, Samburu-identified posters were not being held accountable for clearly dangerous speech in response to raids against Samburu populations.

Indeed, while some members challenged harmful speech against Turkana, there were no calls for admin to block the speech of Samburu-identified members.

One of the final comments in the posts on the Tuum raid in March 2014 was from a

Samburu-identified user warning, “Be careful with ur words young Men, so that we don’t lose the lives of our friends again.” This post explicitly connected online hate speech to offline violence. At the same time, it positioned all residents as “friends” whose lives should not be lost.

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Debates over legitimate citizenship, rights to security, and innocence and deservingness in relation to violence also underpinned the examples of hate speech that I introduced at the beginning of this chapter. On March 28, 2015, posts calling for the removal and murder of

Turkana residents in the county capital of Maralal appeared on SDF. While these contained clear, standard definitions of hate speech, there were no calls for the members to be blocked or the posts deleted. Five days later two Turkana residents were shot and killed. In response a Turkana- identified SDF member posted “Why kill innocent people in a place like [neighborhood in

Maralal]?? God have mercy on us.” The post received almost 200 comments. Posters immediately responded to the poster’s assertion that the men killed were innocent by pointing to the innocence of Samburu residents killed in raids:

Very bad, just like shooting innocent herders in Ngoriche

U mean that those who are been killed in Baragoi are not innocent?

we are hurting because out innocent brothers and sisters are being killed a turkana is turkana…those f***kn innocentz ur talking abt r the beneficiaries of bloodz of our loxt brathaz…

if u have no heart for the Samburu lives lost a few days in baragoi their images are still fresh in our memories and tears are still shade by those who lovd them most. Wat are cowards talking abt here. kill them all no compromising…

The rejection of the innocence of the Turkana men killed in March 2015 marks a continuation of long-standing arguments around innocence and violence on SDF. The invocation of “innocent”

Samburu lives lost condoned not only the killing of the Turkana men in town, but also justified potential future violence called for through dangerous speech: “kill them all no compromising.”

At the same time, calls to recognize the innocence of Samburu lives lost suggest a need to recognize that harmful speech can be used in response to violence.

Social media has been an important site of collective responses to death and killings and for memorialization of lost lives (Bernal 2014; Bonilla and Rosa 2015; Miller 2011, 191-192). 259

Posts on SDF, whether in reports on raids, or reports and responses to killings in town, documented and provided commentary on violence and death. Online struggles over whose lost lives should be mourned and whose should be celebrated, which violence is justified and which is unacceptable, and who is innocent and who deserves violence, are embedded in political claims to legitimate citizenship and residency in the new county.

Online Harmful Speech and Political Visions of the Nation and County

Like forms of violence explored in previous chapters, online harmful speech is intimately connected to debates over rightful residency, political control of the county government, access to political representation and recognition, and the right to benefit from county employment and resources. Debates over what kinds of speech are acceptable are indicative of struggles over what it means to be a legitimate resident at the county level and citizen at the national level. Many

Samburu-identified members accused others of being “imposters” when they accused Samburu residents and the county government of violence or discrimination against Turkana. Many

Samburu-identified members’ calls for and threats of violence against Turkana members and residents frequently suggested that Turkana residents should return to their county. Debates around livestock raiding raised questions over which residents were being protected from violence by the county government and therefore treated as full citizens.

Much of how SDF members attempt to limit, silence, or block what they identify as harmful speech redeploys national legislation and political rhetoric on hate speech. The national government reinterpreted hate speech in ways that enabled the government to prosecute political opponents and attempt to silence criticism. Similarly, some Samburu-identified SDF members expanded interpretations of hate speech to include criticism of county leaders and the county government. Speech that could be accused of “tribalism” or connected to claims that the

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government was not serving particular ethnic groups was referred to as hate speech, mirroring the national government’s accusations of hate speech against human rights lawyers and bloggers.

Samburu-identified SDF members’ challenges to accusations of hate speech, appeared to mirror national leaders’ uses of hate speech accusations and undermining of the International Criminal

Court.

While many posts can be considered as hate or dangerous speech, SDF is also a space where people speak out against violence, discrimination and the inequities produced through local government institutions. Both Turkana and Samburu SDF members also drew on definitions of “hate speech” based on more inclusive forms of nationalism and regional belonging and the rejection of ethnic identities and politics. Challenges to harmful speech aimed at delegitimizing and threatening Turkana residents were raised by both Samburu and Turkana

SDF members, highlighting the importance of moving beyond constructions of ethnic or group identity to understand hate speech. These members called for all residents in Samburu County to be treated as equal citizens and residents according to their constitutional rights and rejected attempts to divide residents and members along ethnic divisions. More than ethnic division, struggles over harmful speech on SDF represent competing political visions of the nation and new counties.

Hate speech not only produces the potential for future violence, but references previous violence and recent or current violence. How SDF members interpret, respond to, and use hate speech can only be understood in reference to political violence in Samburu County and in

Kenya, particularly since the beginning of multiparty political reforms. Additionally, how SDF members interpret, respond to, and use hate speech needs to be understood as itself a response to violence, that is shaped by residents’ understandings of and experiences of past and recent

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violence. Both Samburu and Turkana residents of Samburu County have suffered political violence through livestock raids, state violence, and marginalization. While dangerous speech on

SDF and its potential to lead to violence should be of great concern, it also needs to be recognized that hate speech itself is a response to, and is shaped by, experiences and narratives of violence.

As Kenya prepares for the 2017 elections (and other future elections) hate speech must be understood as part of continuing struggles around ongoing reform and not exceptional acts connected only to violence immediately surrounding elections. Online hate speech can only be fully understood in the context of political reform and attempts by Kenyans to determine what reform should look like under new county governments. Examining online hate speech emphasizes that political violence continues between elections as ongoing struggles over political recognition, new constitutional rights, and the authority and resources devolved to county government play out. As well as monitoring hate speech during election campaigns, long- term research is required to understand how everyday hate speech is connected to electoral politics in the months and years between elections.

Variations in how SDF members define, interpret, and identify hate speech may not be captured in “standard” definitions of hate and dangerous speech, suggesting that certain kinds of violence, and dynamics around hate speech, might be overlooked in projects focused on identifying and preventing hate speech. Projects aimed at hate speech prevention should consider incorporating efforts to understand how people interpret hate speech and how interpretations of hate speech are shaped by national legislation and political discourse on acceptable speech.

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CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION: DECENTRALIZING VIOLENCE?

In this dissertation, I asked how violence in Samburu County related to, and has been shaped by, the devolution of political authority to new county governments and associated reforms that gained particular urgency following the post-2007 election violence. My study focused on multiple forms of violence that took place during the months and years after the 2013 elections in which a new county government was elected with devolved powers. Residents of

Samburu County largely experienced and understood this violence as directly connected to the

2013 elections, new county leaders, and political struggles over belonging and who should benefit from devolution.

Centering on residents’ lived experiences of violence between elections highlighted how violence, and responses to violence, were shaped by residents’ and county leaders’ interpretations of devolution and their visions of sovereignty and citizenship within the county and nation. Specific forms of violence related to specific elements of reform, rights, and regional governance and were shaped by national as well as regional politics. However, violence related to devolution—and residents’ and leaders’ interpretations of what devolution meant in terms of regional sovereignty and citizenship—were inseparable from a broader context of political violence and debates around regional governance in Kenya, especially since multiparty democratic reforms beginning in the 1990s. Rather than exceptional, or specific to the region and its residents, violence in Samburu County can be considered part of a longer continuum of national political violence that includes the post-2007 election violence, election-related violence throughout the 1990s, and connections between regional governance and violence since struggles for independence. 263

Devolution, and decentralized regional governance more broadly, has long been debated in Kenya and Samburu and has been central to processes of nation-building. Debates around regional governance have revolved around the best way to protect the rights of smaller ethnic groups in Kenya and enable groups frequently marginalized by the colonial and postcolonial state to achieve full citizenship and political participation. As shown in chapters two, three, and four, histories of colonial governance, independence, marginalization, and political violence continue to profoundly shape struggles and ideas around regional governance.

In chapter four, I showed how devolution reopened and transformed long-standing national struggles around rights for groups marginalized by national governments for decades, regional and national belonging, and the benefits and resources that devolution and new county governments might bring. How Samburu County residents’ and leaders’ understood, experienced, and talked about devolution highlighted how the decentralization of power to county governments—as official rhetoric, practice, and policy and as political imaginary—was shaped by histories of political violence, regional politics, marginalization, and visions of independence. Devolution was clearly central to longer national debates around reform, citizenship, and nation-building that took on new significance in the context of democratic reform and residents’ and leaders’ reinterpretations of regional and national struggles. Residents’ varied and sometimes contradictory understandings of regional politics and violence also highlighted that feelings of hate and acts of violence—and who hate and violence were targeted toward—were contingent on changing political circumstances.

Taking a longer view of peace and violence—and how they are often entangled—in chapter five, showed how residents’ experienced violence during the months after the 2013 election as directly related to the election of the new county government. Residents’ contrasting

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understandings and narratives of peace connected to ideas of belonging, cooperation, and which groups were to blame for violence. Explicitly framing violence—and the unwillingness of the newly-elected leaders to protect Turkana residents’ from violence—as directly connected to their political participation in elections, many Turkana residents’ considered not voting in the next election unless a meaningful peace could be achieved—where residents could return to their daily livelihoods. Rather than a more accountable local government that provided rights, protections, and security, these Turkana residents experienced political violence that many residents understood as perpetuated by the state and leaders.

Chapter six continued to unpack belonging and violence between elections by focusing on insecurity and struggles over which residents had the right to security, and which residents were to blame for violence. County leaders’ rhetoric that blamed Turkana residents for violence shared important elements with national and global discourses on migrants and refugees as a threat to security and the integrity of borders. Debates around insecurity also highlighted how an issue that was not officially devolved to county governments became a subject of intense debate as devolution produced and catalyzed struggles around belonging, security, and sovereignty.

Chapter seven provided a detailed case of how struggles over who counted as a marginalized group and should have priority access to economic rights and state resources shaped violence targeting Turkana livelihoods. Narratives framing Turkana residents as instigators of violence—in particular livestock raids—once again worked to blame violence on

Turkana residents. Economic and neighborly cooperation between Samburu and Turkana residents revealed how the form of residents’ claims to economic rights were shaped by their daily attempts to find work and meet their basic needs.

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Chapter eight examined how struggles around marginalization, belonging, rights, access to county resources, who was to blame for violence, and who was deserving of security showed up in online violence. As members of an online forum used, interpreted, and responded to harmful online speech, they situated themselves as particular kinds of regional and national residents and citizens—and often attempted to point to others as non-citizens. While some online posters’ commentary mirrored national political rhetoric and uses of legislation on hate speech, other online posters drew on national campaigns and rhetoric that called for a more inclusive nationalism and the rejection of tribal identities.

In the case of Samburu County, devolution, by transforming, shaping, and intervening in struggles around regional sovereignty and contexts for political violence, worked to reproduce and enhance violence. Devolution shifted the locus for debates around regional sovereignty and related violence to counties, where residents and leaders began renegotiating regional political power, citizenship and belonging, and access to county government and regionally-assigned political and economic resources. In this sense, devolution can be thought of as “decentralizing” violence by reducing violence at the national level, yet transferring elements of political conflict to the regional level, transforming rather than reducing violence (Cheeseman 2015; Kuperman

2015; Pierskalla and Sacks 2017).

Additionally, how leaders and residents use and understand violence and political rhetoric around devolution was frequently shaped by, and responded to, national political rhetoric and policy. In chapter five, I explored how peace narratives that frequently worked to erase violence against Turkana residents and place their legitimacy as residents in question, worked in a similar way to peace narratives at the national level that sometimes suppressed the political opposition’s criticism of the government. In chapter six, I showed how representations of Turkana as visitors

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who threatened the peace and security of the county shared striking similarities with anti-Somali security rhetoric and practice that scapegoated Kenyan Somalis and Somali refugees as responsible for violence. Both narratives of peace and security worked to erase the role of the national and county government and Samburu residents in producing violence.

Chapter seven considered the ways that patronage at the county level continues unequal hiring practices that prioritize politically dominant ethnic groups for public employment at the national level. Further, violence targeting Turkana livelihoods was an attempt by some Samburu residents to claim priority to economic and employment rights outlined in the 2010 constitution.

Chapter eight showed how social media users’ use of and responses to online harmful speech was shaped by national political rhetoric and legislation on hate speech. In this sense, national debates and political conflicts were decentralized to the county level, taking on new forms as county residents took up these debates in regional contexts.

In addition to transferring political authority, the process of devolution also transfers responsibility for resolving political conflict to leaders and citizens at the regional level. The

2010 constitution and related legislation provide rather open guidelines for implementing devolution. Counties are left to work out the specifics of what devolution and new regional institutions will actually look like. While allowing counties to shape political institutions can allow for more democratic political participation, with little oversight from the national government to prevent violence and ethnic discrimination it leaves leaders and residents able to interpret devolution in ways that can justify violence and discrimination. Current national government oversight, including the establishment of County Commissioners by the national government, largely attempts to limit aspects of devolution that may challenge centralized authority, rather than provide checks on county governments. Both national and county political

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rhetoric and practice appeared to frequently legitimize violence targeting particular ethnic groups.

Struggles over security revealed another way in which violence is in a sense devolved, which I explored in chapter six. Because control over providing security was not devolved to county governments, the national government remained responsible for intervening in violence.

However, this has largely amounted to the continued use of frequently ineffective and widely distrusted disarmament campaigns. With the focus of security practice on disarmament and the focus of reform on institutions, recommendations for restorative justice outlined in the Truth,

Justice, and Reconciliation Commission’s report have been left aside by the national government. At the same time, county leaders have sidestepped their role in addressing insecurity by claiming that they do not have the capacity to intervene in violence without help from the national government. National leaders and officials also continue to dismiss violence in northern Kenya as a cultural practice of livestock raiding that they can do little to change.

Leaders at the national and county level, through their strategic use of devolution policy and rhetoric, effectively leave citizens to take up and respond to violence. Sometimes, this decentralization of responsibility was quite explicit—for example when the Community Policing

Director urged residents of northern Kenya to adopt the Nyumba Kumi [ten houses] neighborhood watch initiative to address livestock raids—reinforcing ideas of “strangers” who do not belong as responsible for violence. At other times, county leaders’ rhetoric dealing with

Samburu residents’ legitimate need for self-defense encouraged residents to take up violence to provide their own security. In addition to the transfer of responsibility to regional institutions, the actions and rhetoric of national and county governments effectively transferred responsibility for security to individual citizens. Citizens frequently took security into their own hands by using

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violence against groups perceived to be a threat, holding protests to demand that the government addressed insecurity, reclaiming ownership of cattle from distrusted security and legal institutions, and organizing neighborhood patrols to protect their communities. While sometimes challenging the state, rather than responding to an absence of state intervention these citizens’ actions were central to the forms that state power took (see Besteman 2010) as part of processes of state-building under devolution.

Violence was also decentralized in the sense that political conflict was taken up by multiple actors—state and non-state—with often competing visions for building the county and nation. Beyond official institutions and policies, residents and leaders held and promoted their own political imaginaries of devolution shaped by their reinterpretation of histories of marginalization, independence, and regional governance. For some, devolution held the possibility for Samburu communities to assert themselves as full-citizens with control over their region, priority access to the benefits of devolution, and as the main recipients of political rights as a marginalized group. For others, devolution held the possibility of a more inclusive nationalism beyond ethnic politics and group-based claims to political rights. Multiple visions of devolution, and attempts to bring these into being, are both the positive outcome and negative consequence of democratic reform in action.

Voting and Elections

Residents consistently understood violence as connected to voting and elections. Many residents viewed violence against Turkana residents as part of a longer context of election violence with the aim of displacing those voting for the opposition, or otherwise discouraging them from voting or challenging the political dominance of Samburu elites. Many Turkana residents targeted in violence drew attention to the theft and destruction of official documents

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that were difficult to replace—like school graduation certificates and national identity cards— that were needed to prove citizenship, get a job, or register to vote.

The perception of Turkana residents as “visitors” was connected to many Samburu residents’ view that the Turkana population only had a limited number of votes, and therefore a limited right to political participation in the county. Many Samburu residents understood elected leaders as having legitimate authority and that challenging that authority threatened peace and the political status quo in the county. Frequently, many Samburu residents, and some county leaders, portrayed Turkana as uncooperative, criminals, and violent “visitors” or “guests” who were undeserving of political rights and representation. Further, many Samburu residents— similar to other counties, as explored in chapter four—held the belief that Turkana residents had their own representatives in Turkana County and could “go back” to Turkana County to claim political and economic rights, and electoral representation. However, many Samburu residents also challenged the political legitimacy of the new county government and launched a campaign to support the election of new leaders who would eschew corruption and patronage and instead help build a more inclusive government. Many Samburu residents and leaders also supported

Turkana residents and understood them as a marginalized group in the county who deserved political rights and protections as equal citizens.

Some of the Turkana residents targeted in violence wondered whether they would vote again in the next elections. These residents directly connected violence to their political participation and who they voted for in the 2013 elections. Many Turkana residents believed that they had mistakenly voted for leaders who were either unwilling to protect them from violence and discrimination, or who actively condoned violence against Turkana residents. While many

Turkana residents hoped that they could elect leaders who would work towards sustainable, long-

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term peace, they were also pessimistic about their chances of successfully electing a leader who would guarantee their protection and representation. For these Turkana residents, elections always held the potential for violence and voting in elections would only become meaningful once again if Turkana residents were guaranteed the ability to return to their livelihoods.

Under devolution in Kenya, elections have gained increased significance as Kenyan citizens now have the opportunity to vote for a huge number of new elected positions with increased powers at the county level. Additionally, candidates elected to new county governments have increased control over county budgets, nominating appointed positions, hiring employees, negotiating contracts for government work, and distributing development funding.

So far in Samburu County, the new county government appears to have used these new powers to consolidate the political dominance of Samburu groups with close associations to the government and to reward its political supporters. While supporters of devolution hoped the reform process would boost citizens’ political participation, in Samburu County it has largely enabled one group to take power and exclude others. This has shaken many residents’ faith in the election process and their ability to elect representatives who will guarantee even their most basic rights.

Violence Between Elections

Violence connected to elections is often not given due attention by observers, media, and researchers, and when election violence is recognized the focus tends to be on more spectacular events (Cheeseman 2015; Bekoe 2017; Burchard 2015; Rapoport and Weinberg 2012). In this study, in addition to providing a detailed case study of how violence was connected to elections,

I also emphasized how political violence continued between elections.

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Burchard (2015) makes the important argument that there is a need to pay attention to

“less intense” forms of election violence that are frequently overlooked by observers, researchers, and media. However, like many political scientists Burchard makes a clear distinction between electoral violence as “directly related to the electoral process” in terms of timing and intent and political violence as “affecting a variety of political outcomes” (Burchard

2015, 11-12). However, I suggest that making such a clear distinction between electoral and political violence presents a similar problem to narrow definitions of political violence as organized and as having a clear political goal. For many Samburu County residents such a clear distinction between political and electoral violence would overlook their experience of violence as continuing between elections and as deeply connected to votes, elected leaders, and political control of electoral constituencies.

Because the 2013 election was intertwined with the process of devolution, electoral violence spread out over a longer period. For many residents, electoral politics continued after elections, although it shifted from the short term goal of winning the 2013 election, to the longer term goals of consolidating political power, asserting political control over devolution, and strategizing for the 2017 election. Electoral politics and the politics of devolution became intertwined in leaders’ long-term political campaigns because their success depended not only on winning elections, but also on making devolution “work” for their constituents in terms of their ability to gain access to state resources, employment, patronage, and political rights. Many residents also experienced violence as bound up with dominant elements of certain Samburu groups and county leaders using devolution to claim political control of the county and state resources. Further, these Samburu groups and county leaders used the 2013 election and the idea of elected leaders to give legitimacy to their beliefs and actions. Electoral violence, then, might

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also include the use of electoral rhetoric to legitimize the actions of elected leaders and those who elected them, such as political dominance, violence, and discrimination—a process that in the case of Samburu County appears to continue long after election campaigns have ended.

Violence in Samburu County and across northern Kenya takes multiple forms that are barely or improperly recorded and that are frequently represented as separate from national and county politics and elections. What kinds of violence are recognized as political (or electoral, or state) violence shapes where researchers choose to study, and what they reveal about, violence

(Nordstrom 2004). Narrow definitions of political and electoral violence risk overlooking violence like the events in Samburu County that I have described, even as residents’ experiences, understandings, and descriptions of violence show that it is very much embedded in politics and elections at the national and county level.

Definitions of political violence need to continue to be expanded beyond organized forms of violence with explicit political agendas if researchers are to acknowledge and understand how people experience violence as political. The online harmful speech I explore in chapter eight might be the clearest example I provide of this. What might be simply understood as “hate speech” would risk ignoring the highly political nature of online commentary and how people responded to it. Online harmful speech was shaped by struggles over national and regional sovereignty and citizenship under devolution, and was also shaped by national political rhetoric and uses of legislation on hate speech. Furthermore, understanding how this political context shaped violence was key to recognizing examples of harmful speech that would fall outside of standard definitions of hate speech.

Further, I suggest that expanded understandings of political violence allow for the recognition of how state violence shows up in everyday violence and in contexts frequently

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considered to be separate from national and formal politics (Das 2006; Das and Poole 2004; Das and Randeria 2015). In chapter six, I attempted to show how the ethnic othering of Turkana in

Samburu redeployed national state violence against Somali citizens and global security rhetoric that constructs migrants as a threat. In addition, I suggested that violence against Turkana residents can be understood as both a response to continued state violence against Samburu residents (evidenced in the police killing of the student leader at the protest), but also as a form of violence legitimized by the rhetoric of county leaders. Regional violence, then, can be considered as shaped by, responding to, and redeploying state violence.

For residents, the state was not experienced as the rational state (Das 2006; Das and

Poole 2004) posited in models of decentralization. Instead, state violence frequently involved the blurring of formal and informal state institutions (Das and Randeria 2015). The county government and leaders acted as at once formal and informal sovereign actors (Hansen 2005)— both representing and challenging official institutions. The county government and leaders held the hope for more complete inclusion, citizenship, regional sovereignty, and independence, but also represented a source of violence. In the experience of residents, the county government and leaders frequently challenged official ideas of devolution and reproduced the violence of the

Kenyan state.

Rethinking Reform and Decentralization

As I have shown, devolution has not unfolded as a neutral process of institutional reform, but has instead been heavily shaped by the political context in Kenya and ideas of marginalization, independence, regional politics, and regional violence. It is necessary then, to consider how ideas of devolution will be shaped by political contexts, and how devolution as a political process will intervene in a specific context.

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Decentralization, beyond formal policies and practices, should also be considered as political narratives and imaginaries that citizens and leaders draw on and challenge in attempts to shape the form that new counties and the nation should take and their position as county residents and national citizens. Samburu County residents frequently reinterpreted what reform meant, and what it could or should mean, and for which residents. Reform, in this study, took on many different forms including elections, institutional change, rhetoric, legislation, and political imaginaries beyond official rhetoric. At the same time, political rhetoric frequently blurred distinctions between the official intent of reform as outlined in legislation and political uses of devolution. Additionally, what was not reformed or devolved to county governments—as I showed with the example of security in chapter six—was often as important in shaping violence as those aspects of political authority that were explicitly transferred to county governments.

Decentralization as a process of reform shifts the conditions for state-building, offering models, opportunities, visions, and desires beyond those underpinning formal institutions and polices.

Models of reform based on decentralization assume that sovereignty is largely held by a centralized, rational state and can be transferred down a chain of hierarchy to smaller regional institutions. Instead, as anthropological studies of the state suggest, sovereignty—and the violence through which sovereignty is often produced and contested—is dispersed among different groups and actors (Arias and Goldstein 2010; Donham 2006; Hansen and Steupputat

2005). Rather than acting on a singular, centralized state, processes of reform—as rhetoric, practice, institutions, policies, and as political imaginaries beyond formal state institutions—both shape and create the conditions under which multiple actors and groups draw on varied means of constructing and contesting the state in different contexts. In this sense, rather than simply

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transferring power from national to regional institutions, decentralization reconfigures already dispersed struggles over political sovereignty at scales beyond formal institutions.

This study contributes to ethnographic work that examines the relationship between democratic politics and violence (Arias and Goldstein 2010; Caldeira and Holston 1999; Caldeira

2006; Holston 2006; Moran 2006). In addition to providing another example of the links between democracy and violence, I highlight decentralization as a specific process of democratic reform that can contribute to and shape political violence at the regional level. Further, as I detail in chapter four, I also ask what democratic reform means to citizens in relation to the longer process of decolonization, fifty years after Kenya gained independence from Britain.

Given the potential of decentralization to contribute to violence, it seems necessary to pay more attention to how devolution will be shaped by, and will intervene in, the contexts where it is used as a model for institutional change. In the Kenyan context, drafters of the constitution and some public figures both realized and drew attention to the potential negative consequences of decentralization and the possibility that processes of devolution may increase conflict and ethnic discrimination, particularly if the political marginalization of certain groups was not addressed

(Ghai 2008). However, nothing explicit was built into models of devolution to address this potential for violence. Nor were the recommendations of reports on the post-2007 election violence of the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) addressed or implemented

(although the publication of the TJRC report was delayed until 2013). All of the focus of devolution largely centered on institutional reform and building county governments without seriously considering what the role of county governments in addressing political violence might be.

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While the TJRC report already proposed models for addressing violence they present several drawbacks. The TJRC’s recommendations largely focus on explicit violence committed by the Kenyan national government against large populations, often represented as broad groups, such as marginalized groups in northern Kenya. Additionally, most of the recommendations outlined in the TJRC’s report suggest a need to hold national leaders accountable for past violence, without a plan for how this would be enforced. There is little in the TJRC report and the Waki report on the post-2007 election violence that would help turn their broader recommendations into potential ways of addressing future violence at the regional level. While regional organizations in Samburu County, residents, and even some leaders frequently recognize leaders’ role in violence, most peace-keeping efforts focus on intergroup violence and improving intergroup relations.

The broader implications of this study for both Kenyan attempts at devolution and processes of decentralization beyond Kenya center on questions of how to think about, model, implement, and assess processes of reform and their outcomes. Rather than focusing on larger institutional change, I have focused on the impact of reforms on people’s everyday lives. Perhaps the key question this study raises is, beyond elections and formal institutions, how do citizens assess political change and its success, and what can be learned from this?

Throughout this dissertation I have looked at how residents view government institutions.

Many Samburu residents did not trust the courts or police to fairly adjudicate in the case of potentially stolen livestock, and even believed that the police may have been involved in livestock theft. At the same time, some Samburu residents believed that the apparent failure of the court case accusing the Samburu government of discriminatory employment practices was a declaration that Turkana residents could not legitimately claim rights and employment in the

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county. In these cases, faith in institutions was not necessarily primarily based on the actual conduct of institutions, but on how residents perceived these institutions based on the historical and political context. Residents often disagreed on whether the county government provided security and protection, and for which groups. Many residents felt betrayed by a county government that at best seemed unwilling to intervene in violence and discrimination, and at worst may have actively condoned violence and discrimination. For many Turkana residents targeted in violence, voting contained more potential for violence than the guarantee of their rights. These views of national and county government institutions are as important as institutional change in assessing both the institutional outcome of reform and citizens’ experiences of reform as successful (or not).

I also suggest the need to look beyond formal rights to how citizens interpret, claim, and express political rights. Frequently residents reinterpreted and placed limits on official rights— for example, ideas of who could and could not legitimately vote, have representation, challenge the county government, or claim access to government resources and employment. While for some residents formal rights contained the only hope of achieving the true intent of reform

(Turkana professionals who took the county government to court), for other residents formal rights would not become realistically important until they could meet their basic needs. For some poorer Turkana, the first step in achieving meaningful peace or political participation centered on being able to return to their everyday livelihoods, rather than guaranteeing formal rights to public employment. Key to interpreting the impact of processes of reform, is how citizens express rights, and their optimism for achieving them.

In assessing peace, elections, and the outcome of reforms, it is necessary to take a broader view of violence between and beyond elections. Rather than focusing on dramatic political

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events, more attention should be paid to citizens’ daily lives and to what extent they are able to achieve their basic rights and needs.

Study Limitations and Future Research

This study provided some potential reasons for how and why devolution contributed to violence in Samburu County. Many other counties experienced violence before and after the

2013 elections. However, many counties did not experience the same levels of violence. Future research could focus on why some counties experienced violence and not others, and how and why devolution unfolded differently in different contexts. I have tentatively provided some answers by looking at how devolution unfolded in Samburu and how this was shaped by the political context and historical debates around regional governance, marginalization, and independence.

This study attempted to understand “perpetrators” of violence—in particular through analysis of leaders’ public rhetoric that may have justified violence and the exclusion of Turkana residents. However, further study could engage more—where possible since leaders are unlikely to talk about their role in violence—with the people who carry out attacks. One potential problem, however, is that this is likely to result in a focus on young men. Any study of those behind violence must be careful not to overlook the role of leaders and influential community members. Where it is difficult to pinpoint who exactly is behind violence, or how, it is possible to focus on the public rhetoric of leaders (for example chapter six on security rhetoric). A deeper focus on leaders’ public rhetoric may be a good entry point for future studies that would allow for a deeper analysis of who directly contributes to political violence. It may also help further illuminate why so many Kenyan citizens appear to read political speech as harmful, even when it does not conform to standard definitions of hate speech. At the same time, while violence

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targeting Turkana residents is deplorable, it has to be recognized that Turkana residents have also participated in violence against Samburu residents.

My study largely focused on an urban area, which has both benefits and drawbacks.

Clearly it cannot provide a complete study of violence across the whole county—and whether violence looks different in rural areas. However, I want to be careful not to localize violence, or draw too heavily on cultural explanations that are already in play that depoliticize and erase violence and its causes. Further, clear distinctions between rural and urban regions may be more likely to reflect the class assumptions of residents than actual differences. In this study, I provide a perspective on urbanized pastoralist groups, being careful not to romanticize or depoliticize pastoralist populations as many researchers continue to do, despite the fact that more and more pastoralists are moving to urban areas and increasingly engaging in alternative livelihoods (Little

2014; McPeak et al. 2011). However, I hope to collaborate with other researchers who have worked on violence and politics in more rural areas to help round out my perspective.

My change in focus during fieldwork presented a setback to my study because it meant that I devoted less time to focusing on violence. I also had to revisit a different body of literature and work to gain a deeper understanding of the historical context of political violence in Kenya.

Had I begun with a focus on violence and reform, I would likely have asked slightly different and more focused questions and had more opportunity to pursue follow up questions.

Perhaps the biggest limitation to my study was my need to end the digital story project after it put participants at too high a risk of violence. However, while I could not provide the full details of participants’ stories in the dissertation as much as I would have liked, I have been able to bring in and draw on the important lessons I learned from participants throughout the study.

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Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from this project was how to better protect residents as I collected sensitive data on violence.

“We Are Not Going to Vote Again!”

As I write, the 2017 elections are just days away. Three years after I left fieldwork in

Samburu County, both Samburu and Turkana residents informed me through social media that

Turkana residents in Maralal have still not been able to return to many of their livelihoods. For many Turkana residents targeted in violence, the ability to return to these forms of work was a key condition for their political participation. Will these residents maintain their insistence on not voting until they can return to work? Or will they once again place their faith in new leaders, hoping that this time, things will finally be different?

A growing opposition movement is hoping to challenge the current county government in the next elections. Many of the members of this movement and the candidates for election to the county government are people that residents identified as leaders who they thought would restore peace and champion the rights of all residents in the county as equal citizens. Might this competition, that appears to mirror the political party divisions between the incumbent national government and the Odinga-led opposition, increase the potential for violence? Some observers have predicted that county elections will see fierce competition now that the stakes of county elections have become clear (Bekoe 2017).

In the days, months, and years after the 2017 elections—and other future elections— residents of northern Kenya will likely be most concerned with their ability to meet their needs in their daily lives. Rather than a deep concern with the establishment of formal institutions and whether the national elections were successful or peaceful, residents will probably focus on how things have changed in their county: do they have leaders that will protect them from violence?

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Will they be able to return to their livelihoods? Will there be a long-term, sustainable peace in the county? It is essential that the Kenyan government, the media, international organizations, and researchers do not continue to overlook citizens’ everyday concerns as they assess the success of reforms in Kenya. I suggest that we can learn a great deal from residents’ everyday experiences for both models of political reform, and how we assess the impact of reforms on citizens’ everyday lives.

Decentralization has been and continues to be one of the dominant models for democratic reform implemented not only in Kenya, but across the African continent and globally. If democratic politics and reforms hold the potential for contributing to violence—as I have suggested—it is imperative that we pay attention to peoples’ everyday experiences of and visions for democracy, and draw on them as models for building forms of democratic governance that reduce political violence and meet citizens’ political hopes. Lessons learned from Samburu

County residents suggest that the ability of democratic politics—embedded in voting, elections, and reforms—to bring about conditions for meaningful political participation is at stake.

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