Critical African Studies

ISSN: 2168-1392 (Print) 2040-7211 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcaf20

Ambiguous title deeds: contesting values of land

and documents in Eldoret, Kenya

Miriam Badoux

To cite this article: Miriam Badoux (2018) Ambiguous title deeds: contesting values
of land and documents in Eldoret, Kenya, Critical African Studies, 10:1, 31-46, DOI:
10.1080/21681392.2018.1494508

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2018.1494508

Published online: 20 Jul 2018.

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Critical African Studies, 2018
Vol. 10, No. 1, 31–46, https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2018.1494508

Ambiguous title deeds: contesting values of land and documents in Eldoret,

Kenya

L’ambiguïté des titres fonciers: contester les valeurs de la terre et des

documents à Eldoret, Kenya
Miriam Badoux *

Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

(Received 28 May 2017; final version received 26 June 2018)
This paper explores changing values of land and title deeds through a case study of the Langas land
dispute in Eldoret, a secondary city of about 300,000 people in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Spanning
Kenya’s postcolonial history and taking place in the context of rapid urbanization, the Langas
land dispute is emblematic of the complexity and persistence of land matters in the country.
Based on ethnographic data collected between 2014 and 2016, this paper traces actors in the
conflict, showing how the disputed area developed from a farm in the so-called White
Highlands to Eldoret’s largest informal settlement. The case study suggests that legal documents
have gained significance in the past few decades, but it also shows that title deeds are deeply
ambiguous. Sometimes respected for their ‘sanctity’, sometimes contested because of alleged
forgery, title deeds have become the object of popular fantasy, conveying hopes and dreams of a
better future. While land titles are assumed to enhance security of tenure and eradicate multiple
ownership claims, I argue that they add layers of complexity to the repertoires actors mobilize
to support or contest claims and that they thus expand the ways in which land can be valued.
Keywords: court cases; Kenya; land disputes; legal documents; ownership claims; title deeds

Cet article examine le changement des valeurs foncières et des titres de propriété à travers une étude
de cas du litige foncier de Langas à Eldoret, une ville secondaire d’environ 300 000 personnes
située dans la Vallée du Rift, au Kenya. Couvrant toute la période post-coloniale et ayant lieu dans
un contexte d’urbanisation rapide, le litige foncier de Langas est emblématique de la complexité
et de la persistance des questions foncières au Kenya. En s’appuyant sur des données
ethnographiques récoltées entre 2014 et 2016, cet article reconstitue les perspectives des différents
acteurs du conflit, et montre comment la zone contestée, autrefois exploitation agricole des ‘White
Highlands’, est devenue le plus grand quartier informel d’Eldoret. L’étude de cas suggère que les
documents légaux ont gagné de l’importance au cours des dernières décennies, mais elle démontre
aussi l’ambiguïté profonde des titres fonciers. Parfois respectés pour leur ‘inviolabilité’, parfois
contestés du fait des nombreux cas de falsification, les titres de propriété font désormais partie de
l’imaginaire populaire, véhiculant des espoirs et des rêves d’un avenir meilleur. Alors que les titres
de propriété sont supposés renforcer la sécurité foncière et mettre fin aux revendications multiples,
j’affirme dans cet article qu’ils complexifient plutôt les répertoires mobilisés par les acteurs du
conflit pour appuyer ou contester des revendications. Ainsi, j’estime que les titres fonciers
élargissent et diversifient les façons dont les valeurs foncières sont perçues et attribuées.
Mots-clefs: affaires judiciaires; Kenya; litiges fonciers; documents légaux; revendications de
propriété; titres de propriété

*Email: Miriam.Badoux@unibas.ch

© 2018 Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh

32 M. Badoux

Introduction
When my administration assumed office, we promised to provide an answer to the perennial land
question. […] This we did because we know how important land is, as a productive resource, to
the realisation of our development agenda. Land is the basis of all other economic activities and there-
fore the sanctity of title deeds should never be in doubt. I am happy to report that in the last one year
we have issued an additional one million new title deeds, bringing the total number of newly issued
ones to 2,405,000 since 2013. We are on track to surpass our target of 3 million by 2017. […] In every
region of the Republic, substantive solutions to old land disputes have been realised. (H.E. Hon.
Uhuru Kenyatta, State of the Nation Address, GOK 2016)

In Kenya, land is commonly described as an ‘emotive issue’. Associated with politics and cor-
ruption, and often blamed as the root cause of recurring political and ethnic violence in the
country, land is more than a mere resource. Issues of land access and ownership drove the
struggle for independence and have been at the heart of public debate in postcolonial
Kenya. In the aftermath of the 2008 postelection violence, land became an important pillar
and target of the ensuing constitutional reforms (Harbeson 2012; Kanyinga and Long 2012).
In nearly all the speeches by the current president Uhuru Kenyatta, the land question is depicted
as one of the major problems of the nation and its resolution is seen as a condition for peace
and prosperity. In the past few years, the Jubilee government has responded to persistent land
disputes by issuing title deeds in many parts of the country, thereby consolidating an already
well-established political strategy.
Does the mass issuance of title deeds remedy Kenya’s ‘perennial’ land question? Do title
deeds reduce the conflict potential of land? How do they impact not only the economic but
also the symbolic, social, and political value of land? And what kind of values are ascribed to
title deeds in return? In this paper, I seek to answer these questions through a case study of the
Langas land dispute in Eldoret, a secondary city of about 300,000 people located in Kenya’s
Rift Valley. Building on Christian Lund’s statement that land conflicts are not only about land
but also reveal historical, social, and political dynamics (Le Meur and Lund 2001; Lund and
Boone 2013), I suggest that disputes allow us to better understand the competing values and
meanings attached to land, both in the past and the present. My starting point is that the
driving force to engage in a dispute is the value ascribed to the disputed object – in this case,
land and title deeds. Based on this assumption, I look at how values and disputes interact: how
do disputes affect the values of land and title deeds? And vice versa, how do the changing mean-
ings of title deeds impact the dynamics of land disputes?
Although a rich literature on the Kenyan land question exists, it is characterized by two main
biases: a rural one and a disciplinary one. While land issues have been widely documented in rural
areas (Boone 2011; Kanyinga 2009), they are still under-researched in urban settings. The litera-
ture on land in Kenyan cities mostly focuses on informal settlements (Dafe 2009; Musyoka 2006)
or is limited to the field of urban planning (e.g. Olima and Obala 1999).1 Similarly, literature on
land registration, security of tenure, and title deeds mainly stems from the disciplines of econ-
omics, law, or political science, and discusses the impact of titles on agricultural production
(Atwood 1990; Haugerud 1989), poverty alleviation, or security of tenure (Abdulai et al. 2007;
Musembi 2007; Payne, Durand-Lasserve, and Rakodi 2009). By looking at the disputed neigh-
bourhood of Langas in Eldoret, this paper adopts an actor-centred perspective and suggests
new ways of exploring the values attached to land and title deeds. More specifically, I examine
how actors perceive title deeds and how they mobilize them to support or contest ownership
claims. Taking the longer history of land disputes into consideration, this paper shows that
land can be an entry point to study processes of urbanization and social change. While formal
land titles are assumed to bring security of tenure (Bruce and Migot-Adholla 1994; De Soto
 Critical African Studies 33

2000), the Langas case shows that titling – or the prospect of it – does not necessarily convey
certainty or eradicate multiple layers of land claims.
This paper is based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Eldoret between
2014 and 2016. Data were collected through interviews and informal discussions with a
wide range of actors, including representatives of the main groups involved in the dispute,
their lawyers, local politicians, and officials in the county and land administration. In addition,
I collected documents related to the dispute, such as sale agreements, maps, and written
accounts of the conflicts, and attended court hearings. Conducting research on disputes pre-
sents ethical and methodological challenges. These include both the risk of appearing to be
taking sides, and the reality of dealing with a research environment ridden by suspicion,
rumours, and hidden interests.2 Nevertheless, I was able to build a relationship based on
trust with all the parties involved in the dispute, and most of the actors were willing to
share information.
The first section of this paper sets the stage and explains how and why urban land ownership
has become so contested in Eldoret. In the second section, the paper traces the history of the
Langas land dispute, showing how the area developed from a farm in the so-called White High-
lands to Eldoret’s largest informal settlement. Building on ethnographic data, I describe the strat-
egies of the various actors involved in the dispute to show how competing claims over land are
articulated. Finally, the last part of this paper looks into the role played by title deeds and docu-
ments, how that role has changed over the past few decades, and what it tells us about the values
and meanings attached to land in postcolonial Kenya.

‘Better than gold’: competing for urban land in Eldoret

In order to understand the context of the Langas land dispute, it is helpful to consider the history
and social configuration of Eldoret. Issues related to land access and ownership have played a
central role in its urban development. Founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by
white settlers, Eldoret was zoned with separated areas for African, white South African,
Indian, and British residents during colonial times.3 After independence, the White Highlands
were ‘re-Africanized’, and Kenyans from various ethnic groups settled in and around Eldoret,
notably through the so-called settlement schemes (Kanyinga 2009; Musyoka 2006). This
process, far from enabling an equal distribution of resources, was distorted by clientelism,
leading to what is referred to as historical land injustices, setting landed elites against the landless.
Large farms left by white settlers were taken up by groups and cooperatives and often subdivided
in more or less formal ways. Located at the crossroads of several strategic axes, Eldoret has wit-
nessed strong socio-economic growth since the 1970s and has rapidly urbanized, becoming a
busy centre and a nodal point in terms of commercial, industrial, agricultural, and educational
activities and infrastructure (Lado 2009).
But this history has also exacerbated tensions among the various groups living in the
region. Considered a political hotspot, Eldoret has been the epicentre of recurring violent out-
breaks around the 1992, 1997, and 2007 elections, causing the deaths of several hundred
people and displacing thousands. These clashes have been associated with long-standing
land grievances, identity politics, and ethnic rivalry – mainly between the Kalenjin, who
claim autochthony over the region, and the Kikuyu, who have been settling in the Rift
Valley for several decades (Anderson and Lochery 2008; Kanyinga 2009). The cosmopolitan
social configuration of the Rift Valley, and of Eldoret in particular, has triggered a sense of
competition over land and urban space. The presence of people from various ethnic groups
in Eldoret and their involvement in its economic, social, and political life has been at the
core of persistent land grievances sustained by various discourses. While newcomers claim
34 M. Badoux

that they acquired urban land through willing-buyer–willing-seller agreements, Kalenjin

usually speak of ‘grabbing’ and ‘dispossession’ to describe their history. Laying territorial
claims has indeed been central to the formation and consolidation of the Kalenjin identity,
which is based on a narrative of loss and exclusion (Lynch 2011).
As a consequence of rapid urbanization, competition over urban land has been increasing
in the past few decades. Land is considered a scarce resource and its economic value has been
rising dramatically.4 Seen as a factor of production, a basis for investment, or an attribute of
status, urban land has become the most valued asset in Kenya and is often referred to as
‘better than gold’. In Eldoret in particular, land transactions have grown into a dynamic
business involving a wide range of professionals such as land dealers, planners, surveyors,
lawyers, and brokers. In the context of growing pressure on urban property, this ‘land rush’
has opened up new opportunities for financial gain on the one hand and fed discourses on
corruption and immorality on the other. In short, it has exacerbated inequalities and triggered
land disputes. The Langas case illustrates how complex and persistent land matters have
become, as I show in the next section.

From the White Highlands to Eldoret’s largest informal settlement: the Langas land
dispute
The case study of the Langas land dispute in Eldoret offers a good example of how land owner-
ship claims are articulated and contested. Spanning across half a century of postcolonial Kenyan
history, the dispute helps us understand how values and meanings attached to land and title deeds
have changed over time. With dozens of actors, a whole neighbourhood, and billions of Kenyan
shillings involved, the case is one of the most striking in Eldoret, if not Kenya.
To grasp the various dimensions of the land dispute, it is worth looking at its longer history.
During the colonial period, the disputed area of 1050 acres, located in the southern part of
Eldoret, used to be a farm in the White Highlands. It was ‘re-Africanized’ after independence
and urbanized rapidly during the following decades to become Eldoret’s largest informal settle-
ment, with a population currently estimated at 70,000. Disputes over the land that forms Langas
started in the late 1960s and have been ongoing ever since. The most recent court case, which
was closed in January 2018, saw the families of the deceased first two buyers of the land
opposing the local and national government. Although the two families are in possession of
a title deed – in the name of the first buyers – covering the whole disputed area, they do
not have access to the land. As the initiators of the court case, the two families sued the gov-
ernment for having planned and developed their land without their consent within the frame-
work of a World Bank-funded slum upgrading programme implemented by the municipality5
of Eldoret in the 1990s and 2000s. Besides the two families and the government, two
groups entered the case as interested parties: the ‘residents’ and the ‘shareholders’. The ‘resi-
dents’ or ‘plot holders’ are the current owners of individual plots in Langas.6 As the area urba-
nized, the farm was subdivided over several generations of plot holders into a total of about
6000 parcels. These plot holders have access to the land but no title deeds since the subdivision
never followed due process. The second group, the shareholders, claims that they purchased the
land from the white settler with the first two buyers as a cooperative. According to them, the
first two buyers were trustees of this group. Given the high amount of compensation demanded
by the families of the first buyers – not less than 8 billion Kenyan shillings (about USD 80
million) – the shareholders claim that they should also be beneficiaries.
Considering the complexity of the case and the stakes of narrating the story of the Langas land
dispute, my aim in this section is not to uncover the truth but to analyse competing claims from the
actors’ perspectives and to find out what these claims are based on.7
 Critical African Studies 35

The plaintiff: the value of the ‘mother title’

In a constitutional petition filed in 2012, the families of the first two buyers claim to be the
legal owners of the whole neighbourhood of Langas, though they do not have access to the
land. Key to their claim is the ‘mother title’ of the area, which is registered in the name of
the deceased first buyers. It was only a few months after I started conducting fieldwork in
Eldoret that I first met the main plaintiff of the case, whom I call Lagat.8 Lagat is the son
of one of the deceased first buyers. A man in his fifties who called himself ‘poor and
simple’, Lagat welcomed me with a joyful smile in a small restaurant in Eldoret’s city
centre. With a pile of well-ordered documents and files to back his statement, he narrated
the following account:

In colonial times, the farm was owned by a British engineer, Mr. Goby. After independence in the
1960s, the British gave money to the Kenyan government so that natives could purchase land. In
1964, my father and his cousin met the criteria of the bank and qualified to buy Mr Goby’s land.
We moved there in 1964 and we stayed six months with the British family in the house. I was a
small child back then but I remember the place very well, and I am still in contact with Mr.
Goby’s son; he now has a house in Nairobi.
We lived there for four years, from 1964 to 1968, the year we had to leave. Some people, a group
called Langas Farm Ltd, wanted to purchase the neighbouring farm, but they failed to acquire it
because Mzee Kenyatta allocated it to Kikuyu dancers. Langas Farm Ltd then colluded with a
British lawyer to purchase the land of my father; they forced him to sign with his thumbprint.
The land board, by corrupt means, agreed the transfer, but when the documents were sent to
Nairobi to be processed, the Land Commissioner, a mzungu [white person], rejected the transfer
because he knew my father could sign by handwriting: it was not consistent with the thumbprint.
But the District Commissioner colluded with Langas Farm Ltd to invade the land and chase us
out. They subdivided the land informally. Even the District Commissioner got a piece! Since he
was a beneficiary, he could not handle the dispute. These people sold again and again and
more people moved to Langas.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the World Bank came with a project to upgrade mushrooming slums.
Langas qualified as a target area although it was not government land. They forgot about my father’s
title deed. They planned the land, initiated the subdivision, included space for public facilities, roads,
schools, etc., without compensating us or even informing us! The World Bank approved and gave
funds. Actually, the government cheated the World Bank to get the money!
That is why I went to court. They planned and developed my land. They interfered with private prop-
erty. The government should compensate me for this. (Interview, November 25, 2014)

Since repossessing the land and evicting a whole neighbourhood is not a realistic outcome to
the dispute, Lagat asked the government to compensate him with the current economic value
of the land. In exchange, he would surrender the ‘mother title’ for the Langas neighbourhood.
While his father bought it from the British settler for KES 161,920 in 1964, Lagat claims that
its current value (including the built infrastructure) amounts to KES 8.2 billion. Although the
dispute had been ongoing for several decades when I met Lagat, he was optimistic and con-
vinced that the 2010 constitution had created a particularly favourable environment for his
claim. In the 1990s, when the two families had sought redress from the so-called Land Dis-
putes Tribunals, which consisted of a panel of elders, their demand was rejected. In contrast,
Lagat believes that by enshrining the protection of private property as one of its key prin-
ciples, the 2010 constitution has endowed the title deed of his deceased father with a
strong legal value. In the era of the sanctity of title deeds, Lagat has been able to turn this
old dispute into a legal conundrum with far-reaching consequences, thereby attracting not
only public but also political attention to the case.9
36 M. Badoux

The ‘residents’: title deeds for a ‘better life’

Though not directly opposed to Lagat in court – they entered the case only as interested parties –
the ‘residents’ of Langas or ‘plot holders’ have another story to tell. One of them, Mwangi, a
Kikuyu elder in his sixties and retired civil servant, bought a plot in Langas in 1978 and has
been living in the neighbourhood for almost 40 years. When I met him at his home in Langas,
he did not tell me much about the history of the land. Instead, he proudly handed me an eight-
page typed document he wrote in 2013, titled ‘A Brief History of Langas Estate in Eldoret Muni-
cipality’. As if writing their version of the history of Langas would give more weight to it,
Mwangi and fellow plot holders describe in this document the events that led to the dispute.
According to them, the land was not bought by the first two buyers alone but by a cooperative
of about fifty members, of which the two were designated as trustees:

5. 1964: Two elders […] booked to purchase this land. They could not afford to raise the cash alone
and went around looking for interested persons with whom to partner.
6. A group was formed under the leadership and guidance of [the two]. It straight away embarked on
contributing money and paying the same to Gobby’s [sic] Bank Account through the above two trus-
tees, then through advocate D. Green. […]
7. On 26th Feb 1964, persons who had by then grouped to purchase Gobby’s [sic] farm registered
themselves as a partnership group […] and now named this farm (Langas farm). (Ref to Reg.
No. 7609). [The two trustees] were given to manage the farm and guide any other activities.
(Excerpt of the document written by the ‘residents’, emphases in the original)

According to the ‘residents’, the two trustees stayed with the members of the cooperative on the
land until 1968 when they left for obscure reasons. The pair are said to have mismanaged the
assets of the group and were chased away by the other members. It remains unclear whether
they were compensated for their share. In any case, their names stayed on the title, and the
process of subdivision of the land that followed in the early 1970s took place informally. Plot
holders were not given any title deeds but sale agreements, usually issued by a lawyer:

18. All this time, first generation shareholders saw no need of chasing after individual land title or
proper (official) demarcations. They were comfortable that individual titles may as well come later to
the future generations of plot holders after further subdivisions.
19. Second and even third generations were also contented with the simple and convenient method of
measurement by counting steps or use of tape measure by non professionals. They did not demand the
official processes, and were satisfied with the change of ownership by way of land sale agreement
signed before a lawyer. (Excerpt of the document written by the residents, emphases in the original)

The stakes of the court case are twofold for the ‘residents’: first, to clearly show that they are the
legitimate owners of the land by having developed and occupied it and, second, to ask for title
deeds. The history of Langas written by Mwangi ends in a sentence full of imagery: ‘Blessed
mother title now with a lot of children (plots) – that have not been given names (title
numbers).’ In this regard, the land dispute offered residents the opportunity to voice their
demand for title deeds. To pursue this aim, Mwangi and a handful of other residents founded
the New Langas Company Investment in 2005 to represent their interests and, as stated in the
document, to ‘explor[e] ways of acquiring individual plot title deeds for all plot owners’.
Mwangi is not the only one who has kept records of the history of Langas in his files. Atebe,
another resident of Langas involved in the court process, has been collecting piles of documents
for several decades: court statements, affidavits, copies of titles, sale agreements, letters from the
land control board, correspondence with lawyers, newspaper articles, and so on. Every document
that could contribute to evidencing ownership has been meticulously preserved, not least because
 Critical African Studies 37

these pieces support the residents’ claims for title deeds. In 2015, when I asked Atebe about the
case status, he announced with intonations of hope in his voice that ‘politics ha[d] come in’,
explaining that the president Uhuru Kenyatta would deliver title deeds to the residents of
Langas. This would be made possible by the National Titling Programme, which, in Atebe’s
words, ‘comes to survey the land, put beacons, and issue titles’. Despite the then ongoing
court case, Atebe did not fear eviction from the land. The fact that he has been building an
annex to his house to rent confirms this. The real stake for him in this case has been the oppor-
tunity to finally acquire a title deed: ‘This title has a big meaning’, he explained, arguing that with
a title deed, he could get a loan from a bank and build more apartments on his plot, which would
generate enough income for his children to go to a university. In other words, the ‘residents’ view
title deeds as both a condition and a guarantee of maisha bora, a ‘better life’.

The shareholders: the title deed as proof of the past

The other group that entered the court case as interested parties are the initial shareholders of
the Langas land cooperative, represented in court by their sons. Mutai is one of them and
describes himself as the key pillar of the group – not least because he is the only one still
living in Langas whereas the other shareholders sold their land and moved away. When I
visited him in his small shop in Eldoret’s bustling market, Mutai told me his version of the
history of Langas:

After independence, forty Nandi10 families bought the farm from the white settler. The group was
called Sosiot Farm Ltd. They went to advocate Green, a mzungu [white person], but did not register
as a company. They had no money to form a company; they just wanted to buy a shamba [farm]. In
Nandi culture, there were no title deeds, wanaishi tu [they just stay on the land]! The two managers of
the farm requested a loan from the bank on behalf of the others. They added another 16 people, so that
they were 56 in total. Problems arose when the two wanted to look for another, bigger shamba. They
mismanaged the funds of the cooperative … Walikosana [they disagreed, quarrelled]. In 1968, the
shareholders went to court against the two trustees. Langas Farm Ltd was created at that moment,
without including the two in the group. One of them was forced to sign; that is why the thumbprint
of [Lagat]’s father is there. After this, the two left the land. If [Lagat] gets compensated today, it should
be for the shares of the two only, and that is not more than 20 or 40 acres, not the whole estate! If he
gets all these billions, we want our shares!
Later, in the 1970s, the shareholders started selling the land without going to the land control board.
They made sale agreements in the street, without proper planning. That is how the slum came up.
(Interview, October 23, 2015)

Mutai argues that the shareholders’ claim is valid because their lawyer, a senior law practitioner in
Eldoret, is in possession of the original ‘mother title deed’ for the area. Although the names on the
title are those of the first two buyers of the land, sole physical possession of the original document
allowed the lawyer to act and present himself as ‘the custodian of the title deed’. This status in turn
gave him legitimacy to issue sale agreements for subdivided plots and gave credit to the share-
holders’ claims in the recent land dispute. According to Lagat, however, the shareholders’
lawyer acquired the title deed through corrupt means, stealing it from the bank that delivered
the loan to his father. He argues that this act invalidates the document. Since the title deed was
considered lost, the Ministry of Land in Nairobi issued Lagat a provisional certificate and con-
firmed him as the administrator of the land. But in the shareholders’ view, the fact that they
are in physical possession of the original title deed for the whole area is proof that they paid
the loan back and that Lagat’s claim to ownership over the land of Langas cannot be sustained.
Both parties thus mobilize the same title deed in different ways to support their claims in the
dispute.
38 M. Badoux

The state administration: the priority of ‘development control’

The fourth actor in the Langas land dispute is the government, which is being sued by Lagat for
having planned and developed the land without his consent. In 1988, the boundaries of the muni-
cipality of Eldoret were expanded to include Langas, thus changing its status from a rural farm to
an urban ‘estate’. At the same time, the neighbourhood, which remained underserviced and whose
development was uncontrolled, was identified as a beneficiary of a World Bank-funded slum
upgrading programme implemented by the local government. The infrastructure improvements
included tarmacking the roads, installing street lighting, and providing access to electricity and
water. In addition, the slum upgrading programme foresaw a process of formal land allocation
aiming at issuing individual title deeds. The land was planned and surveyed, a map was
drafted, and plots were numbered on the basis of their owners’ sale agreements (Figures 1 and
2). Plot holders paid fees for conveyancing and were assured that titles would be delivered,
but the process was never completed.11 The land dispute and related court cases interrupted
the slum upgrading programme because it should not have been implemented on private land.
Although the World Bank slum upgrading programme stopped, Eldoret’s urban planning
department continued using the map of Langas drafted for the programme in the 1990s as a
basis for land transactions and record-keeping. Land sales in Langas are not formalized, but
they do follow a procedure that in many respects mirrors the official one. When someone buys
a plot in Langas, the transaction is usually conducted in the presence of witnesses, elders, or
the chief, and a lawyer issues a sale agreement. In a second step, the seller and the buyer go to
Eldoret’s urban planning department to ‘register’ the transfer. The new owner is then given a
plot number, which gives him or her access to services such as electricity. Sale agreements are
collected by the urban planning department, which keeps a ‘parallel land registry’ for
Langas.12 While the map of Langas has never been officially approved, officers from the urban
planning department argue that ‘it helps give order and guidance in the development of
Langas’. As a planner in Eldoret explained:

Within the framework of the World Bank’s slum upgrading programme, a plan of Langas was drafted.
Each subdivided plot was assigned a number. The project was aborted and the owners of these plots
never got titles, but we still make use of the plan here. People come to seek advice and get the plot
number. Our office is the best place for them to come. We even have one day per week for Langas
residents only. You see, the residents of Langas have not yet reached the level of the land registry.
They don’t have titles, only sale agreements. Elders used to collect sale agreements, but some got
lost or burnt, so after the 2007/8 violence they decided to bring the documents here because it is
safer. This is how we came to have a ‘Langas registry’ here. What we do might not comply with
the law and formal procedures, but it is best in terms of development control. At least those people
get assisted. As informal as Langas is, people have brought serious development; it is our responsi-
bility that it does not become a slum. (Interview, December 3, 2014)

For Lagat and his lawyer, this view strengthens the claim that ‘the government aided illegal
settlers to have their land regularized’. But from the planner’s perspective, controlling the devel-
opment of the neighbourhood supersedes Lagat’s claims of legal ownership. Although the
Kenyan constitution of 2010 protects legal property – a clause that Lagat has been mobilizing
to support his claim, the planner insists that it also protects social and economic rights, including
adequate housing and sanitation. Thus, in spite of the informal workings of land transactions in
Langas, the planner stresses that they have been acting in the interest of the people of Kenya.13

In January 2018, shortly before this paper went to press, the judge of Eldoret’s Environmental
and Land Court ruled in favour of Lagat, the plaintiff, recognizing him as the legal owner of the
land. The court ordered the state to compensate the two families of the first buyers with KES 4.5
 Critical African Studies 39

Figure 1. Partial view of the plan of Langas kept at the urban planning department of Eldoret’s lands office,
and used to control the development of the neighbourhood (picture by the author).

billion (about USD 44 million). Once Lagat surrenders the title deed in exchange for the compen-
sation amount, the government will issue individual titles to plot holders in Langas. The plot
holders will then be considered not only legitimate but legal occupants of the neighbourhood.
Thus, both the plaintiff and the ‘residents’ have come out from the case victorious even
though they have been defending different versions of the land dispute. Surprisingly, in the
40 M. Badoux

Figure 2. The same plan in full (picture by the author).

 Critical African Studies 41

Langas case, title deeds have been both the problem and the solution. This seeming paradox not
only hints at the complexity of the dispute and its resolution; it also shows that title deeds are
inherently ambiguous, as will be discussed in the next section.

Title deeds between sanctity, forgery, and fantasy

Shortly after starting my field research in Eldoret, I attended a meeting of the land control board in
which land transactions and subdivisions are officially approved or rejected. During the meeting,
a married couple in their forties entered the room; they had just bought a piece of land.14 The chair
of the board asked for the ‘papers’. The lady took a folded, slightly wrinkled piece of paper out of
her bag and, both with pride and trepidation, handed it to the members of the board. She stated that
they had conducted an official search and that they knew the person from whom they were buying
the land was its genuine owner.15 Instead of recognizing the potential value of this document, the
chair of the board exclaimed: Siku hizi zile titles ziko nyingi zinatembea kwa street! which loosely
translates as ‘These days, you can find titles walking down the street!’ I interpreted this statement
both as a warning that title deeds and related official documents might be fake and as a sort of
condescending appreciation of the couple’s efforts to follow due process.
A year later, while I was wandering in the busy streets of Eldoret’s city centre, I ran into Mr
Korir, who had been one of my key informants, and we started chatting. He introduced me to his
friend, a ‘land agent’,16 when his mobile phone rang. I quickly understood that the person on the
phone was interested in buying a plot of land that Mr Korir’s friend, the land agent, was eager to
sell. The agent looked into his inner jacket pocket and rapidly extracted folded photocopies – even
more wrinkled than those of the lady before the land control board. He demonstratively showed
the piece of paper to Mr Korir, who immediately and enthusiastically said through the phone:
‘Title iko!’ [He has a title!]. I was not only surprised that title deeds were almost literally
walking in the streets, as the chair of the land board had metaphorically put it a year earlier,
but also that the agent’s documents – though only photocopies – supported his legitimacy to
sell the land and created trust between him and the potential buyer.

This ethnographic vignette shows that title deeds play a central role in land matters in Eldoret.
More specifically, it suggests that the meanings and values attached to them are deeply ambigu-
ous. While their sanctity can turn title deeds into proof of genuine and legal ownership – support-
ing Lagat’s claims in the Langas land dispute – their (perceived) legal value is simultaneously
challenged by numerous cases of forgery and trickery or simply because of competing legitimiz-
ing discourses – such as the physical occupation of the land in the case of the Langas residents.17
But the Langas land dispute is more than an illustration of the tensions between de jure and de
facto tenure. It invites us to look at the various ways in which title deeds and other documents
are mobilized to support – or contest – claims over land. The case of Langas specifically
shows that title deeds are endowed with imaginative power and have become an object of
fantasy. In this section, I reflect on the changing meanings and values of title deeds and how
they impact land disputes.

Shifting values: from land to title deeds?

Compared to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya has a long history of land registration
and titling (Coldham 1978; McAuslan 2013; Musembi 2007; Musyoka 2006). The colonial gov-
ernment introduced individual land titles for Kenyans through the Swynnerton plan of 1954 with
the aim of enhancing agricultural productivity in the reserves. Title deeds are thus not new. Since
their introduction, formal land certificates have been important to at least some actors, as
42 M. Badoux

illustrated by the manoeuvring around the land title for Langas already in the 1960s and 1970s.
The case study of Langas makes clear, however, that individual title deeds have gained signifi-
cance in the popular imagination since the 1990s. More specifically, it hints at a broader shift
of values from land itself (its physical dimension) to title deeds (its bureaucratic and legal dimen-
sion). Indeed, while the first disputes in Langas were about who could stay on the land, the actors
of the recent court case fought less for access than for the opportunities offered by titles.
Taking place in a context of rapid urbanization, bureaucratization, and social change, this shift
can be explained by a reconfiguration of trust relationships. According to a local leader in Langas,
the generation of the first buyers of the farm did not see written documents as a necessity to prove
that they owned the land:

Our parents really trusted each other, without writing. At that time, there were no issues of law and
administration! There was no mentality that somebody could steal; it was written in their heart! (Inter-
view, February 13, 2015)

In the view of the ‘residents’ and the shareholders, it was thus first and foremost mutual trust and
physical presence that legitimized land ownership when the farm was acquired in the 1960s. As
Mutai, representing the shareholders, stated in his account of the history of Langas, ‘they simply
stayed on the land’ and did not need official documents to legitimize their presence. While it
would be analytically and methodologically problematic to state that people used to trust each
other more in the past than today, the case study of Langas suggests that trust relationships
have taken new forms. In particular, the repertoires and resources mobilized by the actors in
the dispute to claim land ownership have changed over time. In the process of subdividing the
land, sale agreements came to be viewed as legitimate proof of ownership. These agreements,
as described earlier, were usually issued by a lawyer and are partly recognized by state insti-
tutions.18 In the last two decades, however, title deeds have been increasingly seen as the only
genuine proof of ownership. The recent court case decision confirms this; as the judge stated:

I concur with the prayers of the petitioner that his parent was the rightful owner of the land since he
has the original title deed to the property unlike the new occupants who have nothing to show for the
ownership of the plots they are living on.19

This increasing value of title deeds can be grasped against the background of an ambiguous
‘fetishism of the law’ that characterizes many postcolonial countries (Comaroff and Comaroff
2006).20 Furthermore, with the rise of neoliberal policies in the 1980s and following de Soto’s
book The Mystery of Capital (2000), title deeds have been promoted as the ultimate proof of own-
ership with the aim of individualizing and commoditizing land, including among the urban poor
(Lombard 2012; Manji 2006; Myers 2010; Nielsen 2011). This shift to tenure legalization seems
to have been widely interiorized by plot owners in Langas. Not only would title deeds, according
to Mwangi, confirm that the residents ‘truly own the land’, they would also make bank loans
accessible. As Atebe stated: ‘With titles we can develop; now our hands are tied.’ The Langas
case thus shows that title deeds have become increasingly significant to a greater number of
people, nurturing fantasies of economic well-being and improved social status.

Title deeds: solving or exacerbating disputes?

It would be tempting to argue that this new significance of title deeds and legal documents con-
firms that these are the remedy to land disputes, as promoted by the Kenyan government and neo-
liberal policy. But one should be cautious when stating that the law and official documents have
gradually replaced mutual trust and physical presence to legitimize land ownership on a linear
 Critical African Studies 43

scale spanning from informal to formal.21 By doing so, one would overlook more subtle uses of
papers and title deeds, which question this assumption. In fact, while all parties of the Langas land
dispute rely on some types of – more or less formal – documents to support their claims, they also
contest the value of title deeds in certain situations by calling upon competing legitimizing dis-
courses.22 In other words, it is not the principle of title deeds itself that is challenged but the val-
idity of the documents of others parties. This, in turn, erodes the sanctity of title deeds and
transforms them into contested objects – be they material or imaginative. Mwangi, for
example, is convinced that Lagat’s ‘mother title’ is not valid anymore because it is still in the
name of his deceased father: ‘Like any other certificate, the title deed of [Lagat]’s father
became obsolete when he died. [Lagat] should not go to court; he should first inherit.’ Atebe
invokes ‘adverse possession’, which states that physically occupying land for a minimum of
12 years invalidates any prior land title. Similarly, the shareholders see the physical possession
of the original title deed to the area, though not in their names, as both proving their involvement
in the history of Langas and legitimizing their claims. While land titles might contribute to the
resolution of disputes, they also have the potential to produce more competing claims over the
material and imaginative values associated with land. Rather than a solution to land conflicts,
title deeds thus constitute an additional repertoire that actors can mobilize to support or contest
ownership claims.
It is too early to say whether the recent court decision on the Langas case and the distribution of
individual titles deeds will solve the dispute. Rather, it could even trigger new conflicts. The ruling
has not yet been implemented, and many questions are still open: Will the shareholders contest the
court decision and appeal? Will the government be able to pay the spectacular compensation
amount? Who will receive title deeds in Langas? What will be the conditions and consequences
of receiving a title? Similar cases of land titling in informal settlements have shown that the
lives of plot owners have not improved, or at least not significantly, after title deeds were delivered
(Gilbert 2012; Musyoka 2006). Formal land certificates do not necessarily bring about more cer-
tainty, but are rather at the centre of various actors’ strategies to further their aims and claims.

Conclusion
In this paper, I have shown that title deeds – and the myriad of parallel documents surrounding
property and ownership – can be seen as both material and imaginative objects that various
actors can mobilize to support claims to land or financial resources. Sometimes respected for
their sanctity, sometimes contested because of alleged forgery, title deeds have become the
object of popular fantasy, conveying hopes and dreams of a better future.
While the case study of the Langas land dispute suggests that title deeds have gained signifi-
cance in Kenya over the past decades, it also urges us to challenge the neoliberal assumption that
titles have the ability to end disputes and, more broadly, to resolve the perennial land question
throughout the country. Rather than replacing values attached to land, the rising importance of
title deeds added new layers of complexity to the repertoires that actors in the Langas land
dispute used to support their respective claims. It can thus be argued that title deeds expand
the ways in which land can be valued.
Finally, the case study of Langas, spanning five decades, contributes to a better understanding
of how rapid urbanization unfolds in postcolonial, post-settler economy contexts and what con-
sequences it bears for urban land and property. Although the law generally plays a more promi-
nent role in cities, it would be wrong to assume that values attached to land are less plural in urban
areas than in rural ones. The Langas land dispute is illustrative of the complexity and persistence
of land matters. It reminds us that if we are to take the land question seriously, we need to look
more at the complex processes of making and contesting claims in such disputes.
44 M. Badoux

Acknowledgements
The author’s special thanks go to the research participants in Eldoret, who shared their knowledge and experi-
ence to make this study possible. She is grateful to Catherine Boone, Cherry Leonardi, the participants of the
workshop Valuing Land in East Africa, the members of the research group Political Anthropology at the Uni-
versity of Basel, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on previous versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under the project Corruption, Conflict
and Cities in East and West Africa [grant number 10001A_149355].

Notes
1. An exception to this trend is the literature on the phenomenon of ‘land grabbing’ – i.e. the irregular
privatization of public land (see Klopp 2000; Manji 2017).
2. This is notably due to the fact that Eldoret – the stronghold of William Ruto, the current deputy pre-
sident – has been the central investigation site of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the 2008
postelection violence, leading to widespread suspicion towards Western researchers, who are often per-
ceived as associated with the ICC.
3. Due to the city’s history, customary authorities have never been strong in postcolonial Eldoret, notably
because they were ‘downgraded if not eliminated’ by the settler economy (Musyoka 2004, 3).
4. For example, a plot bought in an upmarket neighbourhood for KES 350,000 in 2008 was valued at
KES 5.5 m in 2015 (15 times more within seven years).
5. The municipality ceased to exist with the introduction of devolution reforms in 2013 and has been
replaced by the county government of Uasin Gishu.
6. The term ‘residents’ – used by the actors themselves – is somewhat misleading since a majority of the
plot holders actually live in other parts of town and lease houses on the plot they own in Langas.
7. With a focus on informal land delivery, Musyoka (2004, 2006) has also looked at the case of the Langas
neighbourhood. In her texts, however, she only presents the version of the history of Langas told by the
‘residents’ and the shareholders, according to which the farm was initially purchased by a cooperative.
8. For the sake of anonymity, all the names used in this paper are fictitious.
9. While I was in the field, rumours circulated that if Lagat were to be compensated with billions, he
would have to share the amount with politicians or well-connected people who might have supported
and advised him in the court case.
10. The Nandi are a sub-entity of the Kalenjin ethnic group.
11. A letter kept by Atebe, dating back from 2002, states that:

We are pleased to inform you that we have now received from the relevant Government auth-
orities the final documents that will enable us issue you with your title document. To this end,
herewith enclosed please find our fee note which should be settled promptly to enable us to fina-
lize this long-standing matter.

While some residents paid the fee note, they never got their titles.

12. According to the official land registry, Langas is owned only by the two first buyers, as stated on the
title deed.
13. It is important to emphasize that the planner’s statement is not necessarily representative of the gov-
ernment’s position in the trial. Since the state is a rather incoherent set of sub-entities, it would be mis-
leading to reduce its position to the planner’s view only. The defendants in court included
representatives of several administrative units both at the local and national levels.
14. Land transactions usually take place before they are officially sanctioned by the land control board,
which increases the risks of the transaction and the importance of trust between buyers and sellers.
15. In the Kenyan context, an ‘official search’ is an administrative procedure aimed at establishing who is
the registered owner of a plot of land (among other information). Due to rampant fraud in land matters,
one is supposed to undertake this procedure before buying land.
 Critical African Studies 45

16. In Eldoret, ‘land agents’ are land dealers or brokers operating at more or less formal levels.
17. Fake title deeds and duplicates are a major problem in Kenya and can even be seen as a constitutive
part of the national imagination. On forgery and land documentation in Kenya, see Onoma (2010).
18. This trend towards informal subdivision and urbanization was reinforced by the decay of urban public
housing schemes, which made it increasingly difficult to access urban land through official channels.
Against this background, informal land delivery became the norm rather than the exception (Musyoka
2004; Olima and Obala 1999).
19. Quoted in a newspaper article by Fred Kibor in The Standard on 13 January 2018: https://www.
standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001265771/eldoret-court-awards-two-families-sh4-5b-for-illegal-
acquisition-of-their-land (last accessed February 2, 2018, my emphasis).
20. The high number of lawyers in Eldoret in general and the fact that most of their work is related to land
matters confirms this increased importance of the law.
21. The case of Langas shows that this informality is widely tolerated by at least some state institutions and
even produced by them, thus inviting us to challenge the formal–informal divide. As put by Roy (2005,
149), ‘informality must be understood not as the object of state regulation but rather as produced by the
state itself’.
22. The contested dimension of title deeds can be compared to Kelly’s (2006) description of the ‘uncer-
tainty’ of identity documents in Palestine, which, rather than resulting in more clarity, led to arbitrari-
ness and unpredictability.

ORCID
Miriam Badoux http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9699-2870

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