Kenya: the agrarian question

Abstract

This issue of the Review is the responsibility of a group of Kenyan scholars. It arises out of a series of discussions on Industrialization and Agriculture in Africa, held in the Department of Government, University of Nairobi, in the 1978/79 academic year. Theoretical analyses are combined with examination of contrasting empirical evidence from different parts of Kenya. The following papers were presented: What is happening to the Kenyan peasantry? (D. Mukaru Ng'ang'a); What 'The friends of the peasants' are and how they pose the question of the peasantry (P. Anyang Nyong'o); The Kenyan peasantry: a re-assessment (A.L. Njonjo); Law, rangelands, peasantry and social classes (S.B.O. Gutto); The agrarian problem (M. Cowen); Electoral politics in Mathare and Dagoretti (M. Chege); Politics in a changing society (J. Mulaa); The development of a middle peasantry in Nyanza (P. Anyang Nyong'o).