'Are you planting trees or are you planting people?': squatter resistance and international development in the making of a Kenyan postcolonial political order (c. 1963-78)

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Title:	'Are you planting trees or are you planting people?': squatter resistance and international development in the making of a Kenyan postcolonial political order (c. 1963-78)
Author:	Moskowitz, Kara
Year:	2015
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	56
Issue:	1
Pages:	99-118
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	development projects paper industry resistance government policy 1960-1969 1970-1979
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853714000668
Abstract:	This article examines squatter resistance to a World Bank-funded forest and paper factory project. The article illustrates how diverse actors came together at the sites of rural development projects in early postcolonial Kenya. It focuses on the relationship between the rural squatters who resisted the project and the political elites who intervened, particularly President Kenyatta. Together, these two groups not only negotiated the reformulation of a major international development program, but they also worked out broader questions about political authority and political culture. In negotiating development, rural actors and political elites decided how resources would be distributed and they entered into new patronage-based relationships, processes integral to the making of the postcolonial political order. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]