Eroding The Commons: The Politics of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya, 1890s–1963

Series in Ecology and History

by David Anderson

"Colonial Baringo was in many respects an unexceptional place, a backwater in the semi-arid Rift Valley of Kenya, lacking in cash crops and distant from larger markets. But in the middle years of colonial rule Baringo's anonymity gave way to notoriety. Prolonged drought and localized famine in the district from the mid-1920s led to claims that Baringo was a land of dramatic decay, brought on by overcrowding and livestock mis-management." In response to the alarm over erosion, the state embarked upon a programme for rehabilitation, conservation and development. Baringo's experience became a point of reference for similar programmes elsewhere in British Africa, especially in the 1950s when state-led rural development encompassed not just economic growth but an accelerated transformation of African society. The politics of African nationalism was fuelled by opposition to colonial development policies, and in Baringo the politics of the nationalist era were the politics of ecology.

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2002

About the author

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David Anderson is Professor of African Politics and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford. His research interests have remained focused upon eastern and central Africa, but his published work has ranged across a wide variety of topics, from histories of environmental change to current analysis of political violence. David Anderson is co-editor of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.

see also David M. Anderson