Adelaide Lusambili
| Adelaide Lusambili has a PhD and MA from American University in Washington DC. She holds a honorary research fellowship at Sheffield Hallam University/UK. She has worked in Africa, USA and UK specializing in mixed methods research. Email: alusambili@yahoo.com |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Alienated from our land: capital, modern technology and dispossession in Western Kenya
I use the elite and alienation theories to document how modern farming technology has invisibly transformed land tenure in the predominantly sugarcane and maize farming zones of Western Kenya. Modern farming technology in terms of the machines to plough cash crop plantations, harvest and transport the crops can be very costly for rural farmers in Kenya. The elites, - especially those who have money have formed associations that allow them to lease the most productive land from rural farmers as well as buy the modern farming technology. Because they have money, they lease huge tracts of sugarcane and maize plantations for a period of 5-10 years,- a period when many famers are rendered landless or left to be squatters on their own farms. This informal practice has become cyclic diminishing the traditional land tenure ownership and rendering many families powerless. The research uses phenomenological framework.
