Eric Mutisya Kioko

Kenyatta University · School of Environmental Studies

The Kivaa ecosystem was rich in biodiversity until the late 1940s. Following human-induced conversion through logging and uncontrolled extraction of trees for charcoal, timber, and herbal medicine, the ecosystem changed progressively between the 1950s and the early 2000s, culminating in a ‘bare’ landscape. For over 50 years, the hill resembled a ba...

Northern Kenya is popularly dubbed as an ‘ungoverned space’ referring to a social, economic, or political arena where the state does not exercise effective authority. Here, cattle raids and highway banditry attacks have become rather standardized. This ineffective or limited state presence and authority gives rise to alternative structures of autho...

Introduction Kenyan urbanites navigate their cities not only by moving through streets, buildings, means of transport, and other physical infrastructures. The densely intertwined social and economic landscapes of Kenyan society require them to dynamically move between different arrangements of social, economic, and material actors and actants in or...

Several studies have questioned investors’ adequate consideration of the three pillars of sustainable development in the construction of development projects in the Global South. Other studies have proposed and developed frameworks for fostering their adoption and application in the planning and construction of such projects. However, relatively li...

Megaprojects are returning to play a key role in the transformation of rural Africa, despite controversies over their outcome. While some view them as promising tools for a ‘big push’ of modernization, others criticize their multiple adverse effects and risk of failure. Against this backdrop, the paper revisits earlier concepts that have explained...

This article focuses on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa, describes its effects for ongoing research, and asks how it may impact African studies. In Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the pandemic is changing the way people think about the future. The crisis gives rise to a feeling of uncertainty, while casting doubt on future orientations based on...

What drives the formation of ties and networks in ethnically hybrid spaces despite the occurrence of conflict? We approach this question by examining the actors involved, the institutions affected, and the economic and environmental contexts surrounding such tendencies. This study explores socially thick arrangements between Maasai and Kikuyu in Na...

In the last decade, the Kenyan state, reacting mainly to the 2007/2008 post-election violence and cases of intergroup conflicts, created local peace committees and conferred on them the rights to address specific disputes and prevent conflicts at the local level. Local peace committees are (superficially) modelled after social institutions deemed t...

In the last decade, the Kenyan state, reacting mainly to the 2007/2008 post-election violence and cases of intergroup conflicts, created local peace committees and conferred on them the rights to address specific disputes and prevent conflicts at the local level. Local peace committees are (superficially) modelled after social institutions deemed t...

In the wake of widespread interethnic “clashes” and al-Shabaab terrorist attacks in Kenya over the last few years, the state has embarked on the devolution of capacities for ensuring security and peace to the local level. The state gave the rights to handle specific local conflicts and crime prevention to local peace committees in an attempt to sta...

The Maasai/Kikuyu agro-pastoral borderlands of Maiella and Enoosupukia, located in the hinterlands of Lake Naivasha’s agro-industrial hub, are particularly notorious in the history of ethnicized violence in the Kenya’s Rift Valley. In October 1993, an organised assault perpetrated by hundreds of Maasai vigilantes, with the assistance of game warden...

Popular science articles related to the European Commission Marie Curie Initial Training Network funded project titled: Resilience in East African Landscapes (REAL). FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN project number 606879.

Abstract: The increasingly dynamic Sheng language is characterized by regional varieties and “ethnic” registers. This paper introduces a new perspective of looking at the already complex Sheng language from an insider’s point of view by presenting the dimensions of “ethnicity” and “regionality” as key drivers constantly shaping and redefining varie...

Abstract: The increasingly dynamic Sheng language is characterized by regional varieties and “ethnic” registers. This paper presents the dimensions of “ethnicity” and “regionality” as key drivers constantly shaping and redefining varieties, registers and codes of Sheng.

This paper explores the value of cross-cutting ties and conflicting loyalties for the peaceful management of conflicts and the emergence of collective action across previously violently contested community boundaries in two communities in the Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya. In the researched communities cross-cutting ties result from intermarriages, la...

This study investigates livelihood strategies developed to overcome poverty in Kasarani, a recently developed village north of Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Lake Naivasha is a wetland of international importance known for extensive cut flower investments mostly exported to Europe. Kasarani is one of the informal settlements that have emerged around Lake...