Nairobi’s expansion is swallowing up rural land: new book reveals the impacts on families

Nairobi’s transformation into a “world-class city” is both anticipated and celebrated in Kenya’s media. A new book, Peasants to Paupers: Land, Class and Kinship in Central Kenya, examines how the city’s expansion conceals profound social upheavals. These have root causes in the opportunities created by surging land values in rural areas, making it tempting for landowners to sell off their peasant plots. The author, economic and political anthropologist Peter Lockwood, offers a snapshot of his…